British Museum: nearly 350 objects found out of the 2000 stolen

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 what it takes to prepare a good exhibition, which was of course not planned before,” George Osborne declared 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 from the Department of Greece and Rome, according to the British Museum.

At the end of September, the institution launched an appeal to the public for help in finding them, publishing photos online of objects resembling some of the hundreds of stolen coins. “We were the victims of an inside operation by someone who we believed was stealing from the museum for a long period of time,” George Osborne said. “Many measures were taken to cover up (the thefts). (...) Many documents have been modified,” he added.

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 allowed 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.