The Roman temple is crumbling a bit, broken pillars lying here and there. Underneath, the bits and pieces of an even older civilization are intact, ready to tell their tales to those with the patience to read the clues.

And the whole thing is in a 6-foot-square box about a foot high.For the students in Robert Spencer's class at Central High School in the Granite District, a miniature Roman/Etruscan archaeological dig has provided dozens of lessons they wouldn't likely learn from books.

The project culminates a study of Etruscan and Roman history that included a visit to the Etruscan exhibit, which just finished its monthslong run at Brigham Young University.

"The BYU exhibit was really interesting," said Brian Ballard, and good preparation for the classroom dig at the alternative high school. "This is fun."

To get to the "ancient" treaures, however, students had to dig through a heavy layer of dirt. Spencer had realistically placed dozens of miniature artifacts to represent an Etruscan home and burial site of an era about 500 years B.C.

Among the students' discoveries:

- A fire had destroyed part of the site at some point. Charred remnants of pottery and house posts told the tale.

- A kiln for pottery had been constructed away from the house, probably to prevent such disasters.

- The Etruscan family that inhabited the home likely had feasted on meat of some sort, judging by a small bone found in the kitchen area - along with something that might have been seeds. "There's something in here," said Amy Smith. "Probably moldy seeds. I don't want to touch it."

- A dedication plaque provided a significant clue to the age of the Roman temple, which had been built atop the Etruscan ruins, a reminder that the Romans conquered the older Etruscan civilization near the beginning of the Christian era.

The class took its archaeology seriously. With teaspoons, paint brushes, picks and cotton-topped swabs, they spent days moving the dirt and re-creating the site. Pot shards and other artifacts were identified and pieced together meticulously.

Taking a lesson from real archaeologists, the students took measurements and made accurate drawings showing the relationship of each artifact to others in the same area before removing anything from its resting place.

Mike Ramseyer and Mandy Benner carefully reconstructed a foot-high statue (It had had a previous existence in Spencer's garden), which they identified as a "Baby Hercules."

"This is like putting together a 1,000-piece puzzle," said Ramseyer of the bits and pieces they were gluing together. Ron Gliddeon was making a detailed drawing to identify the pieces of the statue and where they had been found.

"A tomb could be underneath the temple," a student observed. But Spencer stopped them short.

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"We don't have permission yet from the Roman government," he warned, carrying forward the real-life atmosphere he had created for the dig. Later in the class, he reported that permission had been granted, and shared with a Deseret News reporter and photographer what the students were going to find when they got beyond the decorated walls of the tomb entryway - the remains of an Etruscan man and wife, his armor, her perfume bottles, weaving equipment and pots.

Spencer had even thrown in a "ringer" to test his students' ability to identify truly ancient items.

A pair of Barbie-doll pants "are pretty recent," Everill said. "They couldn't be more than 30 years old. They have Velcro on them."

Such reasoning was one of the objectives of the project, which also offered lessons in planning, mapping, history, archaeology, organization and cooperation, Spencer said.

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