On a hill overlooking the modern town are the ruins of the original Conza. It is a unique place, even by Italian standards, where every development project turns up centuries of history. In Conza, the ruins of 41 years ago coexist with an ancient Roman city, Compsa, which had been hidden under houses, cellars, and streets until bulldozers dug to remove rubble after the quake. As an archaeological site it has layers—including all the eras between ancient and modern—but the experience of being there seems to flatten centuries of history so they all appear to exist in the same place at the same moment.