Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/10/12/tourist-returns-artifacts-she-swiped-at-pompeii-in-hopes-of-lifting-curse.html
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I’ve been to Pompeii. Where the heck do you find shards and tiles?
Bad Luck, Hot Rocks: Conscience Letters and Photographs from the Petrified Forest
I did see a few bits of petrified wood (aside from the obviously massive ones.)
But you can get wood from dealers all around the area, so not worth breaking the law. That and I have some really good samples from Texas.
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Countless people have had bad things happen to them without swiping any artifacts from anywhere. Perhaps if people who think they are cursed take a moment to consider that they are human, and like all humans will encounter plenty of negative things in their lives whether or not the have done something that may have caused a “curse” they will realize that there are no such things as curses…only meaningless ancient superstitions that somehow refuse to die.
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Yep.
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Years ago I had a neighbor who had big chunks of petrified wood laying around his yard. He delighted in hauling out his Geiger counter and showing visitors how it “screamed” when in proximity to the mineral samples. Seems that the Dakota Sandstone layer is full of uranium, and water pulled from it can cause cancer. “Bad luck”? or cause and effect?
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OH awesome!!! My family on my dad’s side immigrated from Bohemia to Central Texas in the late 1800s and we still had land down there and would visit growing up. I remember my uncle taking me to walk in the creek and I had found a few small things, and he was like, “When I was a kid, we would find big ones like this.” and pulls up a chuck as big as my arm. I was like O_O. Still have it!
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Not surprised that someone self-centered and thoughtless enough to steal artifacts also thinks the cause of all troubles is all about her. At least in this case it balanced out and undid her selfish choice- I’m sure if things had gone better for her, this self-described “good person” would be repeating this behavior at other sites.
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Stupid tourists, didn’t the Brady Bunch Hawaiian episode teach them anything?
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Ooh a curse! When I was in archaeology field school I swiped a lot of Iron Age and Roman potsherds, especially storage jar and amphora handles from the pottery reading discard bins. It was cheaper than buying souvenirs, and everyone thought getting a genuine 2,000+ year old artifact was pretty cool. The Israeli interrogators in the airport asked me why I was taking home garbage.
A family friend later told me he was having visitations by spirits that he attributed to my potsherd gift, although I haven’t experienced anything similar from my little “museum” at home, though.
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when i was in high school, a friend of mine went on a family vacation to mexico, and he swiped me a rock from a sacrificial altar at one of the temples they went to. i bet i still have it somewhere… come to think of it, maybe that thing IS cursed…!
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I know if I reach an afterlife my first plan is to find out if someone ever found a piece of that bicentennial mug I broke in 1976, and then haunt the hell out of them
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In ancient Rome, when somebody stole your stuff you would retroactively gift said stuff to one of the gods. Roman gods don’t like it if people steal their stuff (even if they just got title to it after it had already been stolen) and so, at least theoretically, Terrible Things would happen to the thief in retribution for their heinous act. That didn’t stop theft in ancient Rome altogether, though, so in practice results must have been mixed.
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Yeah. OTOH, if someone makes a connection between doing an irresponsible or selfish thing and having negative outcomes befall them, I’m all for it. I wish more people would consider the impacts of their actions, not just on themselves, but the planet as a whole.
Ancient superstitions: making people “woke” one curse at a time?
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When I was 12, I smashed some pumpkins in the next neighborhood over and thought I got away with it. Now we have global warming, Trump is president, and I’m divorced.
On the whole, I’ll take it.
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Only one way to fix it now…
ETA, oops we already did that part.
Aw, shucks.
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Sorry, no returns without a receipt.
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A selection of letters and returned artifacts has been put on display at the Pompeii Antiquarium
it seems they take advantage of the situation by strenghtening the rumors.
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I think it’s great if that discourages other tourists from stealing artifacts!
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Coat all artifacts with bio-toxins and let would-be thieves beware. If that’s too much work, hire me to carve some gods that really like vengeance. Cursed, one way or the other.
