Pompeii director thanks customer for returning stones and needs her effectively.
A vacationer who eliminated pumice stones from Pompeii has returned them by mail to the Italian archaeological website after blaming her illicit souvenirs for inflicting her most cancers.
Pompeii director Gabriel Zuchtriegel printed an image of the stones on social media alongside the unsigned notice, written in English.
“I did not know concerning the curse” – the notice learn – “I did not know that I shouldn’t take any rocks. Inside a 12 months, I obtained a breast most cancers. I’m a younger and wholesome feminine, and docs stated it was simply ‘dangerous luck’. Please settle for my apology and these items. Mi dispiace.”
Expensive nameless sender of this letter … the pumice stones arrived in Pompeii… now good luck on your future & in bocca al lupo, as we are saying in Italy pic.twitter.com/vaYlqUudke
— Gabriel Zuchtriegel (@GZuchtriegel) January 9, 2024
“Expensive nameless sender of this letter” – Zuchtriegel wrote on X “… the pumice stones arrived in Pompeii… now good luck on your future & in bocca al lupo, as we are saying in Italy.”
It’s removed from the primary time that repentent vacationers have returned looted stones or artefacts to the traditional metropolis buried in volcanic ash after the eruption of Vesuvius nearly 2,000 years in the past, typically blaming them on dangerous luck.
Pompeii even has a particular show space to exhibit returned artefacts alongside remorse-laden letters, resembling one from a Spanish vacationer who had stolen a bit of adorned plaster that grew to become “a harbinger of household misadventures and misfortunes.”
This morning I found the little show within the workplace of fabric taken from however finally returned to #Pompeii by guilt-ridden guests through the years. #sorry pic.twitter.com/8gRONB5jAy
— Dr Sophie Hay (@pompei79) Could 29, 2023
Three years in the past a parcel arrived in Pompeii containing a terracotta fragment of antesissa, portraying the face of a lady, historically used as an ornamental component on the roof of an historical domus.
Contained in the bundle was a brief notice, written in Italian, containing an apology and the phrases “50 years in the past I eliminated this fragment from a constructing. I’m ashamed and I return it to the proprietor. Sorry”.
Though most vacationers return stolen gadgets out of guilt, others achieve this for superstitious causes.
In 2020 a Canadian vacationer returned artefacts stolen from Pompeii 15 years earlier, to “shake off the curse that has fallen on me and my household.”
The 36-year-old lady, recognized solely as Nicole, despatched a bundle to a Pompeii journey agent containing two mosaic tiles, ceramic fragments and components of an amphora which she stole throughout a go to to the archaeological park in 2005.
Along with the looted artefacts, which the journey agent handed over to police, the bundle contained a letter of confession wherein Nicole expressed remorse for her actions.
“I used to be younger and silly” – she wrote – “I needed to have a bit of historical past that no one may have.”
Nonetheless she feared that the artefacts had been possessed of “a lot destructive vitality” linked to “that land of destruction.”
Nicole blamed the relics looted from Pompeii for years of great well being issues and monetary woes.
“I’ve had breast most cancers twice, the final time ending in a double mastectomy” – she wrote – “My household and I additionally had monetary issues. We’re good folks and I don’t need to move this curse on to my household or kids.”
She concluded by saying that she has learnt her lesson and is searching for “forgiveness from the gods.”
The show space of “sorry” letters in Pompeii features a message from an English lady who in 2015 despatched again a bit of mosaic stolen within the Nineteen Seventies by her mother and father and which she believed was a foul omen.
One of the dramatic letters on present got here from a Canadian lady who recounted how years in the past she had stolen a figurine from Pompeii throughout her honeymoon.
Because the newly-weds travelled residence the husband died of a coronary heart assault. The little figurine was in his suitcase.
Photograph Gabriel Zuchtriegel
