British Museum reveals first estimate of stolen artifacts
Around 2,000 historical artifacts, thought to be worth tens of millions of pounds, have been stolen from the British Museum’s vault, according to an estimate by George Osborne, the chair of the institution’s board of trustees.
The world famous London-based institution revealed earlier this month that a collection of antiquities dating from the 15th century BC to the 1800s have disappeared from storage and were likely stolen and sold online by a museum employee, who has since been fired.
“I will give you an estimate of around 2,000. But I have to say that’s a very provisional figure,” Osborne told the BBC on Saturday.
He added that, although some items had been recovered, it was “a silver lining to a dark cloud.”
Osborne acknowledged that the reputation of the museum has been damaged, but argued that the stolen objects were “small items of jewelry, gems and bits of gold,” rather than “the incredible items that we have on display in public.” He added that the museum has taken steps to improve security, while staff focus on “cleaning up the mess” and cataloguing the missing artifacts.
On Friday, museum director Hartwig Firscher resigned after admitting that proper measures had not been taken to prevent the theft.
The custodians were first alerted in February 2021, when antique dealer Ittai Gradel claimed that items from a collection donated to the museum in 1814 had been posted for sale on Ebay. The claims were dismissed at the time as “an outright lie,” with Fischer later saying: “our investigation concluded that those items were all accounted for.”
Former curators have criticized the British Museum for its “incredibly poor” security.
In light of the theft, Greece has renewed calls to return the Parthenon Marbles, which were removed from Athens in the 19th century, arguing that the British Museum can no longer say that “Greek cultural heritage is more protected” there than in Greece. Britain, however, has refused to return the sculptures, citing legal hurdles.
