CNN
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Its completely preserved streets and still-standing homes present a singular alternative to see how folks lived almost 2,000 years in the past. A go to to the traditional metropolis of Pompeii, frozen in time when it was lined by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE, gives recollections of a lifetime.
However recollections weren’t sufficient for one British vacationer, who was caught this week engraving the initials of himself and his household into one of many metropolis’s 2,000-year-old homes.
The 37-year-old, who has but to be named, is alleged to have made 5 engravings – the initials of his household and the date, August 7 – with a blunt object on the wall of the Home of the Vestal Virgins.
Photographs of the injury present the letters scratched within the plaster beside the doorway door, which was frescoed crimson almost 2,000 years in the past.
The letters “JW LMW MW” excessive on the wall and “MYLAW 07/08/24” additional down are clearly seen.
Workers on the web site seen and referred to as the police. In response to Italian information company ANSA, the person apologized, saying that he had written the initials of himself and of his two daughters to go away an indication of their go to to the location.
The archaeological park declined to remark to CNN. Nonetheless in June, when a vacationer from Kazakhstan was caught carving his initials on the Home of the Ceii within the historic metropolis, Pompeii’s director Gabriel Zuchtriegel stated that the vacationer must pay for the restoration of the wall.
The case has been referred upwards to the native courtroom in Torre Annuziata as “injury to creative heritage,” a cost which carries a fantastic of 20,000 to 60,000 euros and a doable jail time period of as much as 5 years because of legal guidelines that had been toughened up in January.
The legislation covers acts of destroying or damaging cultural or panorama heritage. A lesser cost for defacing heritage websites can impose fines between 10,000 to 40,000 euros.
The huge web site has usually been sufferer to badly behaved vacationers, who’ve carved their initials and stolen objects since excavations started within the 1700s. In 2022, an Australian vacationer even rode a moped across the historic web site.
Vacationers look like notably badly behaved in Italy a rustic whose high websites are typically artwork or archaeology-focused – and are due to this fact extra fragile than most.