The British Museum says it has recovered some of the stolen 2,000 items

LONDON – The head of trustees at the British Museum stated Saturday that the museum has recovered some of the 2,000 items believed to had been stolen via an insider, however admitted that the 264-year-old establishment does no longer have data of the whole thing in its huge assortment.

Chairman of trustees George Osborne stated that the museum’s popularity has been broken via its mishandling of the thefts, which has sparked the resignation of its director and raised questions on safety and management.

Osborne advised the BBC Saturday that 2,000 stolen items used to be a “very provisional figure” and workforce have been running to spot the whole thing lacking. The items come with gold jewellery, gem stones and antiquities up to 3,500 years previous. None were on public show just lately.

He stated the museum used to be running with the antiquarian neighborhood and artwork restoration mavens to get the items again.

“We believe we’ve been the victim of thefts over a long period of time and, frankly, more could have been done to prevent them,” he stated. “But I promise you this: it is a mess that we are going to clear up.”

Museum director, Hartwig Fischer, introduced his resignation on Friday, apologizing for failing to take severely sufficient a caution from an artwork historian that artifacts from its assortment have been being bought on eBay. Deputy director, Jonathan Williams, additionally stated he would step apart whilst a overview of the incident is carried out.

In early 2021, British-Danish artwork historian and broker Ittai Gradel contacted the Museum bosses along with his suspicions, however they confident him not anything used to be amiss. However, at the get started of this yr, the museum referred to as in London’s Metropolitan Police drive.

The museum has fired a member of workforce and introduced criminal motion towards them, however no arrests had been made.

Gradel advised The Associated Press Friday he turned into suspicious after purchasing one of 3 items a vendor had indexed on eBay. Gradel traced the two items he didn’t purchase to the museum. The object he purchased wasn’t indexed in the museum’s catalog, however he came upon it had belonged to a person who became over his whole assortment to the museum in 1814.

The historian stated he discovered the id of the vendor via PayPal. He became out to be the museum workforce member who has since been fired.

Gradelsaid Williams had confident him {that a} thorough investigation discovered no improprieties. “He basically told me to sod off and mind my own business.”

Fischer stated in his resignation observation that “it is evident that the British Museum did not respond as comprehensively as it should have in response to the warnings in 2021.” He also apologized to Gradel.

The thefts, and the museum’s bungled response, have plunged the institution into crisis. The 18th-century museum in central London’s Bloomsbury district is one of Britain’s biggest tourist attractions, visited by 6 million people a year. They come to see a collection that ranges from Egyptian mummies and ancient Greek statues to Viking hoards, scrolls bearing 12th-century Chinese poetry and masks created by the Indigenous peoples of Canada.

The thefts have been seized on by those who want the museum to return items taken from around the world during the period of the British Empire, including friezes that once adorned the Parthenon in Athens and the Benin bronzes from west Africa.

“We want to tell the British Museum that they cannot anymore say that Greek (cultural) heritage is more protected in the British Museum,” Despina Koutsoumba, head of the Association of Greek Archaeologists, advised the BBC this week.

Osborne, a former U.K. Treasury chief, said the museum has launched an independent review led by a lawyer and a senior police officer. He said it also had built a state-of-the-art off-site storage facility so the collection would no longer be housed in an “18th-century basement.”

“I don’t myself believe there was a sort of deliberate cover-up, although the review may find that to be the case,” he said.

“But was there some potential groupthink in the museum at the time, at the very top of the museum, that just couldn’t believe that an insider was stealing things, couldn’t believe that one of the members of staff were doing this? Yes, that’s very possible.”