The Robbing of the Most Visited UK Attraction, the British Museum

Note from the author: As the situation evolves, the information within this article may not relate to the current situation. This article does not represent the opinion or ideals of this newspaper and contains merely facts.

If one goes to London, there are places worth visiting, including the famous British Museum. This architectural beauty contains many artefacts of humanity’s history, with famous ones like the Elgin Marbles, the Rosetta Stone, and the Benin Bronzes. However, although things seem normal inside the museum, behind the scenes (or displays) is an ongoing investigation into a scandal and theft of at least 2000 items. I’m sure you’re asking: “How could this have happened?”. Today, we’re looking into the depths of this theft, what we currently know, how it went unnoticed, and the immense backlash.

Although we still don’t know the details, here are the facts we know. It wasn’t a “robbing the museum at gunpoint” kind of theft, but most likely over a multi-year period. Mr Peter Higgs, senior curator of Greek and Roman art and employee for 30 years, has been accused of stealing “gems of semiprecious stones and glass” by the museum from its vaults and has been dismissed after the scandal came to light. He is suspected of pocketing items and selling them on eBay for personal profit. However, the Metropolitan Police has not made any arrests as they continue investigating the matter. The museum’s director, Mr. Hartwig Fischer, has resigned pending the scandal, while his deputy has “stepped back” as the investigation begins.

An antique dealer had warned the museum in early 2021. He contacted the British Museum, telling them a curator was selling items from the collection on eBay. One of the items offered on eBay for sale was a fragment of an onyx cameo with a young woman and a fertility symbol with a minimum price of £40 in 2016 (though there were no bids at the time). Its estimated value was between £25,000 and £50,000. The dealer, Mr. Ittai Gradel, emailed the British Museum and noted his findings, as well as the fact the seller of that fragment, “sultan1966,” correlated to the Twitter name of Mr. Higgs. Unfortunately, the museum dismissed Mr. Gradel’s warnings at the time.

So how did someone pull off a theft at this most famed museum? Well, we cannot say the thief(s) were clever to the extent of what degree, though indeed the museum itself had some flaws. Notably, the security flaws and lack of cataloguing of some 8 million items in its possession contributed to a failure to prevent theft, and it isn’t just recently these problems have been pointed out.

In the past few decades, there have been many shout-outs about the incomplete listing of artefacts, which makes the British Museum vulnerable when finding out what’s missing. Picture with me, if you will, from the thief’s perspective. A person with common sense would know stealing world-famous artefacts like the Rosetta Stone is virtually impossible (security would catch you red-handed). However, how would anyone catch a sneaky thief who stole some smaller, less recognizable items and sold them on the market? It is why the missing items are things like jewellery, which can be transformed and sold separately as individual gems and molten, reshaped gold. It’s not much of a surprise the museum didn’t catch the thief.

Now comes the million-dollar question (though the answer is obvious): Why would someone risk getting arrested and thrown in jail just to steal some palm-sized thousand-year-old gems? Well, the answer is for personal gain. For example, even selling an artefact for a percentage of its actual price still gives a decent amount. To the thief, the item isn’t worth more than its market value, unlike how an archaeologist would handle it. In the past, some thieves have justified their actions as “returning cultural heritage to its rightful owner,” and “putting them on display for people to see, instead of it ending up in a storeroom or vault.” To some people, these reasons do have a point, though, to others, they’re baseless claims. So what do you think? Is such theft justified?

With such a big scandal, it’s time to talk about backlash, which mostly comes from other countries. After the thefts became evident, there have been calls from states like China, Nigeria, and Greece to return artefacts in the British Museum to their respective homelands, citing that the British Museum is no longer safe for those precious pieces of history to be after the theft. China wants back roughly 23,000 ancient objects, Nigeria the famous Benin Bronzes, and Greece the Elgin Marbles (Parthenon Sculptures). You see, the ongoing dispute over these items the museum claims as its own has to do with its British colonial history. Founded in 1753, the British Museum became a place where the loot the expanding British empire took was collected and stored, evolving into what we see today. However, some items in its collection, especially the most famous and well-known ones, have long been disputed. The museum says these artefacts are safer in their hands, while the countries of origin want them back for cultural restitution, saying the British stole them in the first place. Currently, the British Museum Act of 1963 bars the British Museum from handing back items from its collection, and that has been a reason the museum has been leveraging. So it seems unless English law is changed, that will still be a legitimate excuse.

At the end of the day, although it is unclear whether artefacts will get returned to their home countries, we can be sure this scandal will severely damage the reputation of the British Museum. What do you think about it? Should items be returned? Post your thoughts in the comments. That’s the end of this production from the New News Newsminute. Thank you for reading, and please share this article so more people can catch up on the latest news updates.