Defacing Monuments
Today we’re going to be taking a look at a few different cases of historical, important monuments (naturally occurring and otherwise) being defaced and vandalized by humans. Some of these are quite shocking and I just truly don’t know what these people were thinking.
Luxor, Egypt
The first case we’ll talk about is in Egypt at the Luxor Temple, an ancient temple complex on the banks of the Nile River constructed in roughly 1400 BC. So this is an extremely old, historically important temple covered with carvings and ancient sculptures. In May, 2013 a then-13-year-old tourist from China was visiting Luxor Temple with his parents when he pulled out what’s believed to be a piece of chalk and wrote “Ding Jihao was here” on a 3,500-year-old stone relief carving.
Another tourist noticed this, took a photo of the graffiti, and shared it to Chinese social media website Weibo with the caption “The saddest moment in Egypt, I'm so embarrassed that I want to hide myself. I said to the Egyptian tour guide, 'I'm really sorry'” (Peralta, 2013). Within days social media sleuths had found the boy responsible and once his parents found out about this incident they issued an apology stating “We want to apologize to the Egyptian people and to people who have paid attention to this case across China” (Peralta, 2013).
This, and other vandalism cases like it by Chinese tourists, triggered a new law in China that aimed to force Chinese travellers to behave properly at tourist attractions and historical sites.
Easter Island (Rapa Nui)
Next we move to the middle of the Pacific Ocean to talk about the next incident. In March, 2008 a 26-year-old Finnish tourist was visiting the island and while enjoying the ancient Moai sculptures, he broke the earlobe off one. It shattered into dozens of fragments in the process. Authorities on the island were furious and claimed that he wanted to steal a piece of a sculpture’s volcanic rock carved between 400 and 1,000 years ago.
There was understandable uproar from the local and international community, with the then-mayor of Easter Island saying on public radio “if an ear is cut off, then an ear gets cut” (Croissant, 2015), implying that the tourist should have his own ear cut off as punishment. In the end, however, the tourist was detained in his hotel room for 13 days and ordered to pay an undisclosed fine for damaging a national monument.
Castilla-La Mancha, Spain
In February, 2022, local residents of Castilla-La Mancha were absolutely shocked to see that some of the ancient cave paintings on Peñón del Muerto had been painted over with a huge Spanish flag. In Spain all rock art like this is under regional jurisdiction and is protected by heritage laws.
The art covered by the flag was three anthropomorphic paintings originating from the Neolithic period, between 6,000 and 7,000 years ago. The local mayor called this act “profoundly unpatriotic” (Spanish News Today, 2022) and experts believe this was a planned out attack on the artwork since they would have needed a ladder to carry out the painting.
As a result of this, the Anasma Organization, which works to spread the tourist, artistic, and cultural values and attractions of the region, is planning to stop revealing the locations of rock art when any new ones are discovered in an attempt to preserve them.
Big Bend National Park, Texas
Finally, we have a case out of the USA. On December 26, 2021 people were exploring this park, the largest protected area of Chihuahuan topography and ecology in the US. There are several important historical monuments and artifacts in the park but these visitors were in the Indian Head section when they scratched their names and the date into a large rock that had ancient rock art on it.
The vandalized rock art is believed to be between 3,000 and 8,000 years old, making it one of the oldest examples of a petroglyph in North America. In a press release the Big Bend National Park Superintendent said “Big Bend National Park belongs to all of us. Damaging natural features and rock art destroys the very beauty and history that the American people want to protect in our parks. With each instance of vandalism, part of our Nation’s heritage is lost forever” (Croissant, 2022). After the vandalism, some other well-meaning hikers tried to wipe off the marks with water, making things worse. The press release goes on to say not to try to clean vandalized rocks yourself but report them so specialized staff can address the issue.
With special equipment and a lot of effort, some of these marks were able to be removed from the rock, however it is still permanently damaged in parts.
Everyone has to remember to treat ancient monuments, both human-made and natural, as works of precious art and historical significance. Just because there’s no security guard or alarms in a National Park or historical location doesn’t mean you can just do whatever you want.
Works Cited
Croissant, Morgane. “7 Cringe-Worthy Cases of Vandalism Defacing Natural and Cultural Landmarks”. Matador Network. 2015. https://matadornetwork.com/life/7-cringe-worthy-cases-of-tourists-defacing-natural-and-cultural-landmarks-around-the-world/
Croissant, Morgane. “Vandals Permanently Damaged Some of North America’s Oldest Surviving Rock Art”. Matador Network. 2022. https://matadornetwork.com/read/vandalized-rock-art-big-bend/
Peralta, Edyer. “Parents of Teen Who Defaced Egyptian Artifact Apologize”. NPR. 2013. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/05/28/186893564/parents-of-teen-who-defaced-egyptian-artifact-apologize
Shustack, Mary. “30 Times Vandals Defaced Treasured Landmarks”. Cheapism. 2022. https://www.cheapism.com/tourist-vandalism/
“Vandals Graffiti Spanish Flag Over 6,000-Year-Old Rock Art”. Spanish News Today. 2022. https://spanishnewstoday.com/vandals_graffiti_spanish_flag_over_6_000_year_old_rock_art_1733715-a.html