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The area covered by Operation Avalanche, which involved the Gulf of Salerno as a landing zone and two lines of penetration towards Naples, also included a network of sites of archaeological and cultural interest. The most important ones were the Archaeological Park of Paestum and the excavations of Pompeii.
The portion of the ancient town that is visited today corresponds to the area where all the most important monuments were located: the two sanctuaries with the famous temples, the Greek agora and the Roman forum with the temples and tabernae and the basilica and macellum, the Greekekklesiasterion and the Roman comitium (both places of political meetings).
In 1829, the Tirrena Inferiore road (later State Road 18, the ancestor of the Salerno-Reggio Calabria) was built right next to the temples, so that anyone passing by in a carriage could admire them up close.
In fact, when the Allied beachhead was consolidated, the archaeological area housed a field hospital and a microwave transmission, just a few metres from the temples, during the operations linked to the Salerno landings.
General Clark established his home at Villa Salati, not far from today's Via Magna Grecia.
Finally, the construction of an airstrip not far away from the archaeological area led to the discovery of the first signs of ‘Gaudo culture’. These were some graves and, probably, some grave goods, mainly ceramics.