Varieties of Historical Graffiti
In which I examine the different ways graffiti has been employed in the past—and roll my eyes at the shocked reports of visitors defacing the Colosseum. Have they never visited a historic site before?
Last year a young man was caught carving his name - along with his girlfriend’s - into the walls of the Colosseum in Rome. You probably know this, because it made headlines all around the world: “Shocking Video Shows Man Carving Name Into Roman Colosseum!”, “Who Was The Tourist Who Carved His Name Into Rome’s Colosseum?”, “Tourist Who Carved on Wall Unaware of Arena’s Age…”.
My favorite was probably “Italy: Man Filmed Carving His Name on the Colosseum Lives in Britain”, solely because if he had been an American we would have never heard the end of it.
Italian authorities vowed to find the man and punish him to the full extent of the law, and of course I applaud that. But at the same time, I couldn’t help wondering: have they ever been to the Colosseum before?