Reconstruction can make lost civilizations vivid and legible to modern visitors, yet it often substitutes scholarly guesswork for the authentic fragment. The Acropolis and Knossos show two paths: minimal intervention versus dramatic restoration, each drawing millions of tourists and fierce criticism. Preservation purists argue that ruins carry meaning precisely through their decay, while others insist that only reconstruction lets a broad public truly comprehend the past. Neither stance is intellectually free of cost.