Cypress trees stand like dark sentinels over the ancient Street of Tombs outside Pompeii's Herculaneum Gate, their tall silhouettes framing a perfectly preserved Roman road of worn basalt pavers in this atmospheric black-and-white photograph — a view virtually unchanged since the city was first excavated in the 18th century, and one that a traveller named Maria might have tucked into her bag after a sobering afternoon among the ruins. The Strada dei Sepolcri (Street of Tombs) was the main road leaving Pompeii toward Herculaneum, lined with the funerary monuments of wealthy citizens whose names we still know from inscriptions — a boulevard of the dead that paradoxically survived because the living city above was obliterated. Published by Vincenzo Trampetti of Naples, this clean photographic halftone card has never been written or mailed, its plain reverse awaiting a message that never came.