Graffiti at Karnak Temple, Egypt | Graffiti in a Buddhist cave temple, Kuda Cave, India | Graffiti in a ruin at Mancos Valley, Colorado, USA |
Graffiti is utterly deplorable. Deplorable until the graffiti itself becomes old enough to assumes historic proportions. Other than defacing of age old monuments, the three pictures above, have one other thing in common. They were all inscribed in 1887. I am sure statistically, there are hundreds of graffiti all over the world inscribed in a particular year in at least different three places of historical importance, except that I have witnessed them myself.
Ever since finding the second 1887 graffiti in Kude cave near Pune in 2009, I was on the look out for graffiti inscribed in that year and was blown away when I found one last month in an Anasazi ruin in the Ute Tribal Park in Colorado.
In this age of Internet, once you start looking for something, you invariably find “stuff”. For instance, two more examples of graffiti inscribed in 1887: one in Britain, the other in a high security prison of Alcatraz, SFO.
Then I found this law passed by City of Langford in California, USA; Law # 1887 that prohibits graffiti. Talk about coincidences.
P.S. If you happen to have a photo of graffiti inscribed in 1887, please send them my way.
