Italian authorities are looking for a tourist who scribbled graffiti on a wall of the Colosseum, with Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano calling for exemplary punishment for the so-far unidentified man.
The tourist was caught in a video, posted on social media on Saturday, scratching his and his girlfriend’s name with a key on an internal wall of the ancient Roman stone amphitheatre. He left the inscription “Ivan + Hayley 23”.
The message appeared on the Colosseum at a time when Romans already were complaining about hordes of tourists flooding the Eternal City in record numbers this season. A fellow tourist, Ryan Litz, of Orange, California., filmed the incident and posted the video on YouTube and Reddit.
Tourist can be seen smiling, even as the author of the video, speaking in English and using swear words, reprimands him.
The video received over 1,500 social media views and was picked up by Italian media. Litz told The Associated Press on Tuesday he was “dumbfounded” that someone would deface such an important monument.
In a statement released on Monday, Sangiuliano condemned the defacing “of one of the most famous places in the world” as “very serious, unworthy, and a sign of great incivility”.
“I hope that whoever did this … will be identified and punished according to our laws”, he added.
According to the ANSA news agency, the Carabinieri police are investigating, and the man risks a fine of at least 15,000 euros ($16,415) and a jail sentence of up to five years. The incident marked the fourth time this year that such graffiti was reported at the Colosseum.
Built 2,000 years ago, the Colosseum was the biggest amphitheatre in the Roman empire and used to host gladiator fights, executions and animal hunts. Today, it is Italy’s most popular tourist attraction.
According to ANSA, the monument has repeatedly suffered acts of vandalism, with dozens of visitors caught in recent years leaving inscriptions or trying to steal stone fragments from the monument.
In 2014, a Russian tourist was fined 20,000 euros ($25,000) and received a four-year suspended jail sentence for engraving a big letter ‘K’ on a wall of the Colosseum.
The following year, two American tourists were also cited for aggravated damage after they carved their names in the monument. (AP/Reuters)