Article

2005-03-26 -Lurid Crime Tales-

Teen tourist faces up to 10 years breaking rocks for palming rock in Greece

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Posted by Tom 2005-03-26 2:27:24 PM|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#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|| 2005-03-26 3:59:13 PM|| Front Page Top

#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|| [http://denbeste.nu/Chizumatic/] 2005-03-26 4:02:07 PM|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2005-03-26 4:11:29 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 Them missin sites are hard two find. LOL!

Posted by brer Shipman 2005-03-26 4:12:12 PM|| 2005-03-26 4:12:12 PM|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2005-03-26 4:19:55 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 same rules at petrified forest....

Posted by Frank G 2005-03-26 4:20:32 PM|| 2005-03-26 4:20:32 PM|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2005-03-26 4:29:29 PM|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2005-03-26 4:36:13 PM|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2005-03-26 4:42:15 PM|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2005-03-26 8:02:38 PM|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2005-03-26 9:11:15 PM|| Front Page Top

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