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| -Lurid Crime Tales- |
| Teen tourist faces up to 10 years breaking rocks for palming rock in Greece |
| 2005-03-26 |
| A B.C. teenager accused of taking a stone from the Acropolis will be allowed to return home to Canada pending her trial in Greece. Translation: Will be found guilty in absentia. Madelaine Gierc, 16, of Duncan, was arrested Sunday after a security guard alleged she removed a stone from the 2,500-year-old Parthenon. She was charged with illegally possessing antiquities. "It's just a small stone for my rock collection, Officer." On Tuesday, Investigating Magistrate Melpomeni Chiotou ruled Gierc wouldn't be held until the trial, for which a date hasn't been set. "If she leaves, we are in no rush." If convicted, she faces a maximum of 10 years in prison, but such harsh sentences are rarely imposed. Madelaine's mother, Lael Gierc, said she's elated and relieved that her daughter will be coming home. She told Canadian Press that Madelaine picked up the rock to use as a prop in a photo and was whisked away by a security guard. The girl's father, Tom Gierc, was travelling to Athens to pick up his daughter. Round trip at full fare -- she's got more to fear from him than the Greeks! Under Greece's protection laws, it is illegal to own, buy, sell or excavate antiquities without a special permit. |
| Posted by:Tom |
| #11 "you can a take a piece of me...I'll be history pretty soon" |
| Posted by: the U.N. 2005-03-26 9:11:15 PM |
| #10 Here in East Tennessee we call tourists who are a pain in the ass "Touroids". |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2005-03-26 8:02:38 PM |
| #9 I've been to the Flinders Ranges. Fascinating place. Wasn't me who picked the stone though... I remember Aussie tour guides routinely cracked the joke about tourists-terrorists. They have a point (and now this post is WOT related!) |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2005-03-26 4:42:15 PM |
| #8 When I was working as a tour guide in the Flinders Ranges in South Australia, I took people into the Bunyeroo valley and showed them a layer of meteorite ejecta in the rock strata from the Lake Acraman impact site (590 million years ago) and many hundreds of km away. Fascinating site and only about 4 inches wide, 10 yards long. You can guess the the rest- as I am giving my talk, this German guy picks up a creek stone and starts bashing away at the layer. He didn't get in a second blow! I reorganised my talk after that. |
| Posted by: Grunter 2005-03-26 4:36:13 PM |
| #7 I have seen the Plymouth Rock and find that difficult to believe -- it's a pretty serious-sized chunk of granite (two actually -- a 1774 "oops"), and most tourists would be unequipped to remove any of it. It has also been somewhat enshrined and protected since 1835. But most of all, it is, well, uh, rock shaped. Here is a picture of the Plymouth Rock: http://nanosft.com/plymouth/rock3.html History: http://www.pilgrimhall.org/Rock.htm The most-recent shrine: http://nanosft.com/plymouth/rock1.html |
| Posted by: Tom 2005-03-26 4:29:29 PM |
| #6 same rules at petrified forest.... |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-03-26 4:20:32 PM |
| #5 A book that I like (that I really ought to re-read) is Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad. It is his autobiographical look at the beginning of the Golden Age of European travel, when the wealthiest Americans would board steamships (with their steamer trunks, of course) bound for 18-24 month "Grand Tours" of the Old Country. Twain went on one of those tours, and documented the highs and lows of American culture clashing with Europe's. My favorite detail in the book is his discussion of the trophy hunters...they all brought little rock hammers and happily chipped away little bits of the Acropolis, the Great Pyramids, the Tower of London. By the end of the journey they were lugging around great sacks of unidentifiable rubble. There's a lesson in there somewhere, I'm sure. |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2005-03-26 4:19:55 PM |
| #4 Them missin sites are hard two find. LOL! |
| Posted by: brer Shipman 2005-03-26 4:12:12 PM |
| #3 Yep, I volunteer at a Spanish Missin site (yes in Florida) it's amazing what little kids can find and remove. I figure we reclaim about 10 percent of the stuff. |
| Posted by: brer Shipman 2005-03-26 4:11:29 PM |
| #2 I know this sounds like it's absurd, but it isn't really. The problem is that given time, ants can disassemble the Great Pyramid. The Plymouth Rock is only about half the size now that it originally was. The rest was taken away, one small piece at a time, as souvenirs. Eventually the local authorities had to crack down on the practice. |
| Posted by: Steven Den Beste 2005-03-26 4:02:07 PM |
| #1 The Greeks don't much care for people removing stones from the Acropolis. At least, not since Lord Elgin pocketed a couple of bits for souvenirs. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2005-03-26 3:59:13 PM |