Museum retrieves many lost artefacts
Some of the estimated 2,000 artefacts stolen from the British Museum have already been recovered, George Osborne has said.
The former chancellor, who is now chairman of the museum’s trustees, said “groupthink” may have prevented the institution’s leadership from believing that treasures had been taken. Director Hartwig Fischer has resigned and his deputy, Jonathan Williams, has stepped back in the wake of the scandal, which Osborne conceded had damaged the British Museum’s reputation.
An unnamed member of staff suspected of involvement has been sacked and the museum said it is taking legal action, while a police investigation is under way.
Osborne yesterday told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We have started to recover some of the stolen items, which is a silver lining to a dark cloud.”
The museum is working with the art loss register and members of the antiquarian community are helping to return some of the missing items, he said,
The artefacts stolen were “small items of jewellery, gems, bits of gold that were not on public display”.
Osborne admitted the museum did not have a complete catalogue of everything in its collection.
“Someone with knowledge of what’s not registered has a big advantage in removing some of those items,” he said.
“Obviously, a clear outcome from what has happened is that the British Museum has to accelerate the process that was already under way of getting a complete register of the items in our collection.
“It’s certainly been damaging to the British Museum’s reputation. That’s why I’m apologising on behalf of the museum.
“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.”