'Tourist Returns Stolen Artefacts From Pompeii 'After Suffering Curse'

[appalachiablue]

'Tourist returns stolen artefacts from Pompeii 'after suffering curse.' Canadian woman sends back pilfered ceramics, blaming them for years of bad luck. By Angela Giuffrida, The Guardian, Oct. 11, 2020.

A tourist who pilfered fragments from the ancient city of Pompeii 15 years ago has returned the artefacts, claiming they were “cursed”. The Canadian woman, identified only as Nicole, sent a package containing two mosaic tiles, parts of an amphora and a piece of ceramics to a travel agent in Pompeii, in southern Italy, alongside a letter of confession.

Nicole, who was in her early 20s when she visited Pompeii’s archaeological park in 2005, blamed the theft for a run of misfortune that she had suffered in the years since, including having breast cancer twice and experiencing financial hardship. “Please, take them back, they bring bad luck,” she wrote. At the time of the theft, she said she wanted to have a piece of history that “nobody could have” but that the relics had “so much negative energy … linked to that land of destruction”.

Pompeii was buried in volcanic ash after the catastrophic eruption of the Mount Vesuvius in AD79 and lay buried until the 16th century, when its rediscovery transformed the understanding of life in the classical world.

The ancient site is one of Italy’s most visited attractions and for years has had to deal with the problem of tourists stealing from it. Nicole wrote in her letter that she had learned her lesson and wanted “forgiveness from God”. "I am now 36 and had breast cancer twice,” she said. “The last time ending in a double mastectomy. My family and I also had financial problems. We’re good people and I don’t want to pass this curse on to my family or children.”

Nicole is not the only one to repent. The package contained another confessional letter from a couple, also from Canada, along with some stones stolen from the site in 2005...

More, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/11/tourist-returns-cursed-artefacts-pilfered-from-pompeii



- View of Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius.



- The Forum with Vesuvius in the background.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompeii

[madaboutharry]

1. I will be the first to say this:

Good for Nicole that she returned the artifacts. However, I could assure her that her having stolen them had absolutely nothing to do with her illnesses or other hardships.

Life is random. There are no such things as curses.

[hlthe2b]

6. If she truly believes it was cursed, it really doesn't matter that these events were random..

She was right to return them. People that deface or steal such invaluable artifacts deserve their karma--even if the bad things that follow are really random.

[raccoon]

7. I agree, But fine with me if these people believe these objects at

But fine with me if these people believe these objects are cursed. Then they’ll quit taking them. hopefully.

[vercetti2021]

2. Disrespectful to the dead

Bad karma can come. Just like disrespecting the Hawaiian gods by taking a lava rock or black sand from the island

[appalachiablue]

4. I don't doubt it. Not one to question beliefs & actions, I hope life

settles down some after all she's been thru.

[Tanuki]

3. Several years ago I visited the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona.

There are numerous signs reminding people not to pick up pieces of petrified wood as souvenirs but apparently some people do anyway. At one of the visitor centers they have a small "Conscience Musem," displaying pieces of petrified wood that people took and later sent back because they felt guilty or believed they were being cursed with bad luck for stealing. One little boy claimed that he "found it in his shoe when he got home."

[appalachiablue]

5. Interesting, thanks for sharing this.