a commission for the study of the papyri. Camillo Paderni who took part at the excavations and was possibly the first to transcribe papyri, noted in a letter dated 1754, "...in five places, where we might have expected to meet with busts or statues, the antients had been digging before us, and taken them away. The method, whereby they regulated their searches, seems to have been this: where the ground was pretty easy to work, they dug through it and where they met with the solid lava they desisted. But whether they were in want of money, or of hands, they certainly did not perfect their intention; as is plain from the statues, which we have found." Excavations were halted in 1765 due to complaints from the residents living above. The exact location of the villa was then lost for two centuries. In the 1980s work on re-discovering the villa began by studying 18th century documentation on entrances to the tunnels and in 1986 the breakthrough was made through an ancient well. The backfill from some of the tunnels was cleared to allow re-exploration of the villa when it was found that the parts of the villa that survived the earlier excavations were still remarkable in quantity and quality. Excavation to expose part of the villa was done in the 1990s and revealed two previously undiscovered lower floors to the villa with frescoes in situ. These were found along the southwest-facing terrace of about 4 metres height. The first row of rooms lying below the arcade was evidenced by a series of rectangular openings along the façade. Limited excavations recommenced at the site in 2007 to preserve the remains when carved parts of wood and ivory furniture were discovered. Since then limited public access became available. As of 2012, there are still 2,800 m left to be excavated of the villa. The remainder of the site has not been excavated because the Italian government is preferring conservation to excavation, and protecting what has already been uncovered. David Woodley Packard, who has funded conservation work at Herculaneum through his Packard Humanities Institute, has said that he is likely to be able to fund excavation of the Villa of the Papyri when the authorities agree to it; but no work will be permitted on the site until the completion of a feasibility report, which has been in preparation for some years. The