A Chinese teenager carved graffiti into a piece of Ancient Egyptian artwork, sparking a wave of controversy amongst Chinese online users.
According to the BBC, the 15-year-old boy from Nanjing wrote, "Ding Jinhao was here," into a Luxor temple complex.
A microblogger named Sina Weibo posted a photo of the graffiti on his site, after he discovered the carvings during his trip to Luxor, located on the bank of the Nile, three weeks ago.
Ding's parents have since publicly apologized in a local newspaper, after the boy's name, birthday and school were posted on the Internet.
"We want to apologize to the Egyption people and to people who have paid attention to this case across China," Ding's mother said to reporters for Modern Express, a local paper, Saturday.
She mentioned that her son, who is a middle school student in the northeastern city of Nanjing, wrote the graffiti when he was younger, and has since recognized the grave nature of his artistry.
Despite the boy's realization and recognition, Chinese online users are still in an uproar over the carvings in the 3,000-year-old cultural relic.
According to state-run news service XinHua, the event has sparked commentary in the country over a positive national image. Mainland Chinese say they do not want to be associated with such tomfoolery.
Zhou Xiaoping, an official with the Jiangsu Provincial Tourism Administration, told XinHua that a country's image is a collective reflection of its citizens.
"If Chinese nationals reduce their acts of graffiti or spitting, for example, the image of China will also be improved."
One user under the name "luowei" commented on the initial blog post that first called out Ding Jinhao, saying, "It is a sick cultural habit to damage relics for the sake of one's own emotions."
Ding's father has plead with the public to spare his son from excessive bashing, saying it is "too much pressure for him to take."
Earlier in 2013, a tourist carved a similar message onto an ancient iron jar in Beijing's Palace Museum in the Forbidden City.
