It is genuinely my pleasure to report that the British Museum was being stolen from over a period of years and it didn’t notice. In fact, it probably never would have if it wasn’t for an anonymous snitch European expert.
The secret armchair detective first became suspicious that something shady was going on in 2016, when they noticed that valuable artefacts — which they were pretty sure they had seen on the museums’ catalogues — were showing up on eBay. One was worth between AUD$50,000 and $100,000 but didn’t get a single bid.
In 2020, while London was in lockdown, the anonymous expert spotted a Roman onyx jewel on the site that they had definitely seen in the museum’s catalogue, which confirmed their suspicions. So, they reached out to the British Museum via a contact and reported their findings to a senior staff member, who assured them it would all be looked into… only for them to be ghosted.
According to the Telegraph, they wrote to a friend that they suspected the museum didn’t want to accept the thefts had happened right under its nose, since that would be “hugely embarrassing”.
Yeah, it definitely would be, especially when you recall this cursed institution has more than 8 million items in its possession. A huge part of the British Museum’s justification for not returning ancient artefacts to their countries of origin is that it reckons it can take better care of them than everyone else. So given all that icky white saviorism and paternalism, it’s certainly not a good look for shit to go missing for YEARS without anyone noticing.
Fast forward three years and the British Museum has (finally) announced that yes, some items are missing.
The items are dated to be from 15th century BC to the 19th century AD, though the museum has said none of them were on display — they were all in storage and mostly for research and academic use.
Police have become involved in the thefts and a Greek artefact curator has been sacked in relation to the missing items (though no one has been arrested or charged). The stolen goods include gold jewellery and gemstones. Now, the hunt is on to recover the artefacts, which mostly weren’t insured.
There’s certainly an irony here, isn’t there?
“This is a highly unusual incident,” British Museum director Hartwig Fischer said, per Sydney Morning Herald.
“I know I speak for all colleagues when I say that we take the safeguarding of all the items in our care extremely seriously.
“We have already tightened our security arrangements and we are working alongside outside experts to complete a definitive account of what is missing, damaged and stolen. This will allow us to throw our efforts into the recovery of objects.”
Honestly, if any of the items that disappeared were contested by their countries of origin… well, now’s their chance to get ’em back. Just gotta bid on them on eBay.
