A Canadian tourist has returned fragments they removed from the ancient city of Pompeii. This restitution took place fifty years after the fragment was originally removed. The return was not the result of a demand by the Italian government, or any form of legal action – but happened merely because the person who took it realised that returning it was the right thing to do.

This is not the first time something like this has happened – a fragment of the Colosseum was returned in similar circumstances in 2009. If only some museums could take similar decisions, realising that they need to put right things that they did wrongly in the past.

Policing vast sites like Pompeii is not easy

From:
Daily Telegraph

By Nick Squires, Rome
1:50PM GMT 31 Oct 2014
Pompeii artefact returned fifty years after it went missing by the honeymooning woman who stole it

A Canadian tourist has returned a 2,000-year-old terracotta artefact to Pompeii – half a century after she stole it on a trip to the archaeological site on her honeymoon.

The woman from Montreal, who is in her seventies, said the theft of the first century AD terracotta roof decoration had weighed on her conscience for decades.
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Attention on the Eurozone crisis has focused on Greece, but other countries such as Italy have also had to make massive cuts to government budgets, bringing similar problems to their archaeological sites.

From:
Daily Star (Lebanon)

Austerity strikes at Italy’s crumbling treasures
April 13, 2012 12:03 AM
By Gildas Le Roux
Agence France Presse

ROME: After slashing arts budgets and with its most famous monuments badly in need of repair, Italy’s government is increasingly looking to private investors to help it preserve a priceless cultural heritage.

The biggest initiative so far, however, is faltering after billionaire Diego Della Valle said he might pull his 25 million euros ($33 million) to restore the Coliseum following union protests and investigations into the project.
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