Fifteen years after stealing artifacts from Pompeii, a Canadian woman has returned them to their original location.
Prof. Massimo Osanna, the temporary director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, confirmed that the visitor had returned five items, which had been given to a travel agency, which notified the Carabinieri police station.
Along with the finds, a letter was also returned to the archaeological site. Even though the artifacts have returned home at last, they cannot be precisely repositioned amidst the historic ruins.
“Obviously they cannot be relocated because their precise origin is not known,” Osanna explained.
The tourist’s letter explained she experienced bad luck after taking the artifacts back in 2005, suffering both health and financial setbacks.
“We are good people and I don’t want to pass this curse on to my family” she reportedly wrote.
Osanna explained that tourists stealing items and then returning them because of a supposed curse is nothing new for the popular tourist destination in Italy that showcases the ruins of the Roman city destroyed by a volcanic eruption in 79 A.D.
“For several years, the Archaeological Park of Pompeii has been receiving letters from visitors who, on the occasion of their visit, had taken small objects (we are talking about mosaic tiles, small shards, stones, pieces of plaster, lapilli), of little value, but part of unique archaeological heritage, and that they decided after years to return, claiming to have derived only bad luck from that act,” the statement continued.
The statement added that the “legend of the curse” of the stolen artifacts “constitutes a deterrent to the repetition of similar episodes.”
“But we hope that an international civil awareness towards cultural heritage in general will increase, regardless of the fear of a bad luck that could affect those who make such gestures,” Osanna added.
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