US tourist who stole Roman ruins as gift for her boyfriend gives it BACK and apologizes for being an ‘American a**hole’
A US tourist who stole Roman ruins as a gift for her boyfriend gave it BACK and apologized for being an "American a**hole."
The woman, named Jess, sent the ancient ruin fragment along with an apology note to the National Museum three years after she apparently it.
The package arrived this week from Atlanta, Georgia National Roman Museum director Stéphane Verger, .
A picture shared by the museum showed the woman had written "To Sam, love Jess, Rome 2017," on the fragment.
She also sent an apology letter to the museum, in which she explained she took something that was not "rightfully mine," reported.
She apologized for taking the item, writing on it, and "being such an American a**hole."
“I feel terrible for not only stealing this item from its rightful place, but placing writing on it,” the note said, according to The Guardian.
“It was a big mistake on my part and only now, as an adult, do I realise just how thoughtless and despicable it was," she added.
Nation Roman Museum shared a social media post on the package, and warned people against taking artifacts.
"Finding an archaeological artifact and taking it away with you, damaging it or even deciding to steal it is a gesture that can cost you," the museum wrote.
"Taking away an artifact from a museum or archaeological area means not only not understanding the value of historical testimony, of a fragile object, which must be treated with due precautions, but also depriving it of the information it carries with it and consequently, of reality that can document," the museum added.
The museum clarified that the artifact was not taken from the museum, but was a fragment found in the city of Rome.
Verger told Il Messaggero that the museum suspects the woman must have been young when she took the fragment.
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"It made an impact on me precisely because she is young – she understood that she had made a mistake," Verger said.
Verger said the museum wonders if Jess may have been inspired by another woman named Nicole, who returned artifacts she took from Pompeii in Italy during a trip in 2005.
Like Jess, Nicole – who was from Canada – returned the artifact.