A few Norwegian kids landed themselves in serious trouble last weekend when they accidentally desecrated a 5,000-year-old rock carving while trying to spruce it up, the Telegraph Reports.
When the two kids happened upon the rock carving on the island of Tro, they thought they could improve it by etching into it a few times to make it more visible. They didn’t realize they had just ruined one of the first depictions of skiing in history. The boys turned themselves in when someone reported the vandalism to authorities.
Videos by VICE
“It’s a sad, sad story,” county archeologist Tor-Kristian Storvik told the Telegraph. “The new lines are both in and outside where the old marks had been. We will never again be able to experience these carvings again the way we have for the last 5,000 years.”
Local officials are also predictably pissed, calling the kids vandals for defacing the carving. Local mayor Bård Anders Langø said the incident was a “tragedy” for Norway’s cultural heritage, not to mention tourism.
“We have talked to the perpetrators and their families, and they want to apologize for what they have done,” Langø said. “It was done out of good intentions. They were trying to make it more visible actually, and I don’t think they understood how serious it was.”
The carving was considered a national artifact and protected under the country’s Cultural Heritage Act, so the little conservators could face criminal charges for their stunt. Sometimes you try to do a nice thing, and it just royally backfires, you know?
Read: We Are All the Taiwanese Kid Who Punched a Hole in a $1.5 Million Painting