'Around 2000' pieces stolen from British Museum, some already recovered

“About 2000” works of art were stolen from the British Museum but some have already been recovered, the president of the prestigious cultural institution said on Saturday, the day after the resignation of the museum director. In office since 2016, Hartwig Fischer, 60, resigned from the management of the British Museum on Friday, under pressure since the announcement on August 16 of the disappearance of a series of pieces from the collections, some dating back to the 15th century BC.

Asked about the BBC on Saturday, the president of the museum, the former Conservative minister George Osborne, said he did not know precisely how many objects were missing but “I will give an estimate of around 2000”. “We have started to find stolen parts which is a clearing in the storm,” he added.

The stolen objects are small unexposed pieces kept in the reserves of the museum, which does not have a complete inventory of its collections acquired over the centuries. “Someone with knowledge of what is not listed has a big advantage,” said George Osborne, believing that the museum “must accelerate the process already underway to establish a complete inventory”.

The announcement of the thefts was a detonation for the museum and "damaged the reputation of the British Museum", according to George Osborne. "We believe we have been victims of theft over a long period of time and frankly more could have been done to prevent it." “Was there at the time a belief within the museum, at the highest level, that refused to believe that an insider was stealing objects, to believe that one of the staff was doing this? Yes, it is very possible,” he said.

Founded in 1753, the British Museum includes in its collections of eight million pieces the famous Rosetta Stone, a stele that has made it possible to decipher the hieroglyphs, and is one of the most visited attractions in the United Kingdom. The institution had indicated in mid-August that it had dismissed an employee while the London police said that they had questioned a man, without naming him, but had not launched any prosecution as such.