(TAN): An American tourist has returned a block of ancient marble that she had stolen during a trip to Rome and sought forgiveness.
Earlier this week, the National Roman Museum received a parcel from Atlanta, Georgia, which contained a rock with “To Sam, love Jess, Rome 2017” written on it with a marker pen, museum director Stéphane Verger told the local Il Messaggero newspaper.
According to reports, the rock was wrapped in a piece of newspaper, which was placed inside a cardboard box and sent along with a note expressing shame and apology. The traveller begged forgiveness for having been “inconsiderate and disrespectful”.
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“I took something that was not mine to take. I feel terrible for not only having taken this item from its rightful place but having written on it as well,” the letter read. The traveller also claimed to have spent hours trying to remove the writing, but without success.
Stéphane Verger, the museum’s director, told Italian newspaper Il Messaggero that the tourist, who is believed to be a woman called Jess, might have stolen the ancient marble stone from a site like the Roman Forum, once the centre of ancient Rome and now home to the ruins of several important buildings.
Verger said he was moved by the letter. “It affected me precisely because she is a young woman: she realised she was wrong,” media reports quoted him as saying. “It is a spontaneous gesture, but the fruit of conscious reflection.” Verger also speculated that the decision to ask for forgiveness might have been spurred by hardships endured in 2020.
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In a similar incident, a Canadian woman recently returned items she stole during a 2005 trip to Pompeii saying she believed the artefacts were “cursed” and had brought her misfortune. The woman sent a package containing two mosaic tiles, a piece of ceramic and sections of an amphora (a type of jar or vase) to a travel agent in the ancient city famously left buried after a volcanic eruption.
