[expensive_news]

Not to derail, but this reminds me of a cave in Southern Arizona. Graffiti is banned and it’s heavily enforced, but there is ‘historic’ graffiti from the 1920-40s that is preserved. I always found this case very interesting.

[Aloha]

Thats my point - when does it transform from Graffiti to Artifact - 50 years? 100 years? 500? its still an interesting thought.

[DropInIn]

I'll put forth that nothing of this sort, from the semiconductor age onwards, can be an artifact as we have far more readily available and detailed records to work from.

Such graffiti is only an artifact when it's purpose, history and other aspects are lost to time due to lack of alternative documentation.

In effectively all cases these days there is simply no additional value obtained from graffiti like this, unlike that of street artists doing murals or painting trains.

[hunter-gatherer]

I believe it is 50 years in the US. I can't find it on mobile, but I remember reading an article a while back about some simple "john was here" on some anasazi petroglyph that hadn't been removed because it was from the late 1800s or early 1900s and was considered historic.

https://www.nps.gov/subjects/nationalregister/how-to-list-a-...