Heart of stone

It's all very well wanting to take home a souvenir of your foreign holiday - but don't do what one American couple did and break off a piece of Italy's famous Colosseum to put into their suitcase - as you may well face an attack of the guilts as they did and post it back 25 years later...

A mysterious package arrived in Rome from Greensboro, North Carolina. It contained a pocket-sized piece of stone that two American tourists had snapped off the Colosseum when they had visited Rome 25 years ago.

There was a note included in the package from Janice Johnsen, who said she never felt comfortable keeping the terracotta fragment, but her eldest son's death had prompted her to set things right.

The note read, "We should have done this sooner.

"Every time I looked at my souvenir collection and came across that piece it made me feel guilty.

'"Over the years, I started thinking that if all the visitors to that beautiful monument took a piece of it away with them nothing would be left standing. It was a selfish and superficial act," added the note.

Mrs Johnsen didn't tell her husband, Mike, about her decision until after she had returned the artifact. She mailed it anonymously, but put her return address on the package.

Although Mrs Johnsen said in her letter to Italian authorities that the rock came from the Colosseum, the office said the piece probably came from a bit farther away, such as the Forum or the ancient Palatine Hill.

The archaeological office, which examined the chunk, said even though it didn't come from the Colosseum ‘the gesture of returning the piece by the US couple is still important.'

Rome's archeological officials haven't missed a trick and have tuned the story of the guilt ridden stone into publicity for the city's tourism industry. They said that the episode ‘proved that Rome and its monuments are the dream of all the world's tourists."

Lazio Tourism Chief Claudio Mancini said, "The message is that visitors to our city continue to cherish it even after so many years," and invited the couple back to the city.  

It is against the law in Italy to export ancient artifacts without permission. Rome has been cracking down on archaeological theft of late.

Picture by beggs