2023-10-18 13:51:14
After launching an appeal to the public online, the institution announced that it had found nearly 350 objects among the 2,000 stolen last August from the London museum’s reserves.
Around 350 objects among the 2,000 that were stolen from the British Museum have been found, its president George Osborne announced on Wednesday, during a parliamentary hearing into these very embarrassing thefts for the famous London institution.
The announcement of these thefts in August was an explosion for this museum, which is one of the most prestigious in the world. Its director, Hartwig Fischer, in office since 2016, immediately announced his resignation.
Some 350 objects “were found. (…) So we have enough to prepare a good exhibition, which was of course not planned before”, declared George Osborne to the deputies. “There is a lot of interest in these objects,” he added.
The stolen pieces are small non-displayed objects, jewelry, semi-precious stones and glassware, which were kept in the museum’s reserves. The “vast majority” were part of the department of Greece and Rome, according to the British Museum.
Call launched online
At the end of September, the institution launched an appeal to the public to help find them, publishing photos online of objects resembling some of the hundreds of stolen coins.
“We were the victims of an internal operation carried out by someone who, we believe, stole from the museum for a long period of time. Many measures were taken to cover up (the thefts). … Many documents have been changed,” George Osborne said.
The institution indicated in mid-August that it had fired an employee while the London police said they had questioned a man, without naming him, but had not launched any prosecution as of yet.
The museum’s acting director, Mark Jones, said the rules for accessing the vaults were changed after the thefts. “From now on, no one is authorized to enter a vault alone and this measure, combined with a large number of other measures, should help prevent this type of theft from happening again,” he assured. to the deputies.
The museum announced plans Wednesday to improve access to its collections and make everything documented and viewable online. This project is expected to take five years.
“It’s a huge task, with 2.4 million files (on objects, editor’s note) to download or update, but more than half has already been done and, when it is completed, everyone will be able to see everything we have,” explains Mark Jones, quoted in the press release.
#objects #British #Museum #among #stolen