[ryanac]

"Why do I feel this way?"

Might not be the age, but the general mystery, undiscovered value and permanent loss of human history.

I mean, yes we tear down and rebuild buildings all the time, but no one is re-building these temples. Once it's gone no one is even thinking about building such a structure again because what purpose would it have? We barely even know the original function of a lot of ancient sites.

This is why I think there's more of an emotional reaction to ancient sites being destroyed, it's an unrecoverable piece of history that possibly hasn't even been fully understood.

It's a loss that can not be restored or studied further.

At the end of the day we don't really know how much value was lost, what was overlooked when the site was first discovered, etc.

That's how I feel anyway. :P