Pompeii thieves say relics are cursed
The ancient city of Pompeii gets thousands of tourists every year. It is one of Italy's biggest tourist sights. Most tourists leave the city with happy memories and photos, but some take more. They take historic relics, like small statues or mosaic tiles. Many people now regret this. They say the relics have brought them bad luck. Hundreds of people from around the world have returned the relics. Many apologised and wrote about their bad luck. A senior official at the 2,000-year-old Pompeii, Massimo Osanna, talked about the letters. He said one man from Latin America wrote about his life being full of bad luck after he took a small tile from Pompeii. A Spanish man who stole a bronze statue in 1987 complained that the statue had put, "a curse on his entire family". Mr Osanna wants to set up an exhibition of all the letters. He said the letters might be more interesting than the relics. |