The director of the British Museum resigns after the theft of pieces from the collection comes to light

2023-08-25 18:12:07

Hartwig Fisher, director of the British Museum, announced this Friday that he submitted his resignation with immediate effect following the theft of parts of the institution that have come to light in recent weeks.

The 61-year-old German historian admitted in a statement that the museum “did not respond as fully as it should have” to alerts that began appearing in 2021 about the loss of objects from the warehouses from its London headquarters.

This month, the British Museum, which treasures some of the most important archaeological collections in the worldfired an employee after noticing the loss of gold jewelry, semi-precious stones, and glassware dating from the 15th century BC to the 19th century.

British media have pointed to the archaeologist Peter Higgs56, who worked for three decades as an expert on Ancient Greece in the institution, as the presumed guilty of the disappearance of objects, although his family has defended his innocence.

The pieces, which were not on public view, but in collections open only to academics and researchers, disappeared from the museum’s storage for a long period of years and some of them appear for sale on internet pages already in 2016, as the press has revealed.

Fisher, who joined the British Museum in 2015 after a stint at the Dresden State Art Collections, said responsibility for the “problem that has now emerged entirely” rests “ultimately with the director”, so he has submitted his resignation to the board of directors of the institution.

“I will resign as soon as the board has established an interim management team, which will be in charge until a new director is elected,” he said.

“The situation facing the museum is very serious. I sincerely believe that it will emerge from this moment stronger, but sadly I have come to the conclusion that my presence is proving to be a distraction,” he added.