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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Travel

‘I woz here!’ Why do tourists keep defacing the Colosseum?

A graffiti filled bathroom in New York
‘Every message left on a wall is a way of reaching through time itself,’ supposedly. Photograph: Ira Berger/Alamy

Name: Bad graffiti.

Age: At least since someone carved “I hope your piles again become sore” on a wall in Pompeii almost 2,000 years ago.

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