George Osborne, the chair of the British Museum, announced on Saturday that the institution has started to retrieve some artifacts that were stolen and sold online.
Osborne’s remarks come in the wake of news that the museum ignored warnings that objects ostensibly from its collection were being sold online.
According to the museum, the majority of the lost items were small pieces kept in a storeroom of one collection. They comprise gold jewelry, gems of semi-precious stones, and glass gems dating from the 15th century BC to the 19th century AD. None of the objects had lately been on exhibit in public.
Former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Osborne stated that over 2,000 antiquities went stolen, some of which have already been recovered.
“We’re dealing with lots of honest people who will return stolen items, others may not”, Osborne continued.
The controversy appears to have started in 2021 when a Danish art dealer contacted the British Museum to claim he had seen several artifacts he thought were from the museum’s collection for sale online. The British Museum first claimed to have conducted a comprehensive inquiry, but a subsequent investigation found the first response to be insufficient, according to Osborne.
“We obviously have to improve security”, Osborne added.
The British Museum, one of the most well-known and prestigious museums in the world, was founded in 1753. Its presentation of remarkable ancient relics such as the Rosetta Stone and the Parthenon Sculptures regularly draws visitors from all over the world.
The incident has been profoundly embarrassing for the museum, considering its prestige and the repeated calls for the institution to return many of its treasures, many of which were stolen during the British Empire’s reign.
Hartwig Fischer, the Museum’s director, resigned on Friday and an unknown employee was fired on Wednesday.
“Yes, the museum has made mistakes. Yes, we’ve apologized for them. But we’re cleaning up the mess and we’re going to be that British museum that I think the nation and the world can be proud of”, he added.
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