[LifeStyle] ‘I woz here!’ Why do tourists keep defacing the Colosseum?

[BirSaNN]

Visitors have been caught carving their names into one of the world’s most famous buildings. Is this the best way to achieve immortality? And where do toilets fit in?

‘I woz here!’ Why do tourists keep defacing the Colosseum?
Visitors have been caught carving their names into one of the world’s most famous buildings. Is this the best way to achieve immortality? And where do toilets fit in?

Tue 18 Jul 2023 15.19 BST
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Name: Bad graffiti.

Age: At least since someone carved “I hope your piles again become sore” on a wall in Pompeii almost 2,000 years ago.

Appearance: Very rarely appropriate.

Graffiti is such an eyesore. I couldn’t disagree more. Graffiti has historical significance. It can tell us a lot about civilisations that lived thousands of years ago. Go to the Colosseum in Rome. I bet it has some great examples.

It does. Such as “Ivan + Hayley 23”. You’re talking about Ivan Dimitrov from Bristol, who was filmed in June in a viral video called “Asshole tourist carves name in Colosseum in Rome”.

It’s awful. Yes, but cut the guy some slack. He didn’t know how old the Colosseum was. He wrote a letter of apology to the mayor of Rome saying that “only after what happened did I learn about the antiquity of the monument”.

Or there’s just the letter N. OK, that was by the 17-year-old Swiss girl who was caught defacing the Colosseum this month. But who knows what she was going to write? It might have been something profound. You’re right, though, defacing ancient monuments is never a good idea. Better to stick to trees.

Don’t do that either! Why? Because trees are living things and deliberately cutting through bark leaves them open to fatal invasion by pests or disease? God, you’re no fun.

My point is that graffiti anywhere is bad. You say “bad”, but I prefer “historically significant”. Thanks to graffiti, when I walk around my neighbourhood I’m confronted with a running commentary of all the key issues that face my community.

And what issues are they? Well, um, there’s the issue of Covid being a conspiracy.

Stop! Don’t you see, though? Every message left on a wall, no matter how libellous, is a way of reaching through time itself. It’s a way of telling future generations one simple message: “I woz ere.”

Where, exactly? Judging by the density of graffiti that I see, mainly the inside of a Wetherspoon’s toilet cubicle.

This is so depressing. Oh, come on, there is some great toilet door graffiti. One did the rounds a few years ago that read: “Since writing on bathroom stalls is done neither for wealth nor critical acclaim, it is the purest form of art. Discuss.”

Ugh, I think I preferred “Ivan + Hayley 23”. Me too. Let’s go and carve it into the Tower of Jericho!

Do say: “Graffiti enables us to achieve permanence in our transient existence.”

Don’t say: “Covid is a hoax, 5G is the killer.”

link: https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2023/jul/18/i-woz-here-why-do-tourists-keep-defacing-the-colosseum