An unidentified tourist who visited the nearly 2,000-year-old Colosseum in Rome has sparked outrage in Italy after he was filmed carving his name and his apparent girlfriend’s name into a wall at the historic site.
Italy’s culture and tourism ministers have vowed to find and punish the tourist who was seen scratching “Ivan+Haley 23” into one of the Colosseum’s walls.
The incident went viral after Ryan Lutz, a fellow tourist, recorded a video of the man as he etched the words into a brick wall with his keys. “Are you serious, man?” Lutz asks the misbehaving tourist as he films him. “That’s f—ed up, man.” The graffiti artist then turns around and flashes a grin to the camera while a woman, possibly the man’s girlfriend, watches beside him. “Stupid a–hole,” Lutz mutters as he walks away.
The incident comes at a time when Romans are already complaining about hordes of tourists flooding the Eternal City in record numbers this season.