The excavation of the buried Campanian towns began, not at Pompeii, but at Herculaneum, where in 1709 the workmen of the Austrian general, Count Elbeuf, sunk a shaft, reaching the ancient level at the rear of the stage of the theatre. The current statement that Elbeuf discovered the site of Herculaneum by accident, his workmen being engaged in digging a well, is erroneous. The location of the city was already known, and Elbeuf was searching for antiquities. The error probably originated in a misunderstanding of the Italian word _pozzo_, which has a double meaning, "shaft," and "well." At first little was accomplished, but after 1738 excavations were carried on by King Charles III in a more systematic manner. The director of these excavations, Rocco Gioacchino de Alcubierre, in March, 1748, had occasion to inspect the water channel mentioned above, and learned that at the place called La Civita--which he thought was Stabiae--objects of antiquity were often found. He came to the conclusion that this site was more promising than that of Herculaneum, where the excavations just then were yielding little of value; the result of his recommendation was that on the thirtieth of the same month excavations were commenced at Pompeii, with twelve workmen. The first digging was done north of Nola Street, near the Casa del Torello; then the men were set at work on the Street of Tombs, near the Herculaneum Gate; and a part of the Amphitheatre also was cleared. In 1750 the work was stopped, because the results were thought to be unimportant. Attention was again directed to Pompeii in 1754, when workmen engaged in constructing the highway that runs just south of the city discovered a number of tombs. About the same time, west of the Amphitheatre, the extensive establishment of Julia Felix, arranged like a villa, and some buildings lying north of it, were excavated; but they were all covered up again, as was also the so-called villa of Cicero, which was uncovered in 1763. The parts excavated were not left clear until after 1763, when the discovery of the inscription of Suedius Clemens, on the Street of Tombs, had established the fact that the site was that of Pompeii. Important discoveries were made soon after. In the years immediately following 1764 the theatres, with the adjacent buildings, and the Street of Tombs, together with the villa of Diomedes, were laid bare. The excavations were conducted slowly and without system, yet with scientific interest fostered by the Herculaneum Academy (Accademia ercolanese), which had been founded in 1755.