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‘We have received around 150 of them,’ Massimo Osanna tells me, as we peer into four small crates stuffed full of dusty freezer bags Each bag contains a letter and a lump of something – stone, shards of marble, bone I extract one of the samples, a faded brown envelope with a row of Spanish stamps Inside, a lozenge of pumice and an accompanying note ‘This item was removed dishonestly,’ it reads ‘With deep apologies’   ‘We have received so many,’ Osanna continues, ‘that we’ve decided to have an exhibition It will be called: “What I stole from Pompeii”’ In October 2015, Osanna, Pompeii’s archeological superintendent, announced that he’d been receiving a number of unexpected parcels They arrive addressed to the excavation site in Pompeii and the Archeological Museum of Naples, and hold an assortment of stolen fragments Many are accompanied by letters of apology attesting to the vaguely formed fears of an uneasy conscience ‘I would like to return this stone,’ one reads, referring to a teardrop of pumice ‘My boyfriend took it during our holiday to Pompeii in August, and I feel rather wrong about it’ Others are more specific, attributing illness and misfortune to the stolen pieces of rock ‘I wish to return this stone to its original place because my husband is taken long ill,’ a Japanese woman explains ‘Please put it back in the ground’ Correspondents often admit to returning the items in hope of appeasing the gods of misfortune – ‘I am convinced that these pebbles that I took from Italy bring me bad luck,’ begins a letter from Florida, ‘For this reason, I’m sending them back so I can be free’ – while others articulate fears of supernatural forces at play ‘Taken from Pompeii fifteen years ago’, a man from London confesses, returning a small red rock ‘I return it to you so the curse can be lifted’   To understand the curse of Pompeii we must look first to Mount Vesuvius, the double-humped volcano in