The argument that the Parthenon marbles are safer there than in Greece has been dismantled by antiquities thefts, with the British Museum scrambling to repair its reputation as Greece monitors how it is handled.
Culture Minister Lina Mendoni said developments at the museum were being monitored “very carefully”, after saying the marbles the British believed were obtained legally from a Scottish diplomat who took and sold them , had been stolen.
Museum director Hartwig Fischer, a German art historian who said Lord Elgin committed a “creative act” by stealing the marbles with permission from the Ottoman Empire – which did not own them – is resigning following the debacle.
That came after he and museum officials said his resignation was a coincidence unrelated to the thefts of some 2,000 antiquities that a curator, Peter Higgs, had also fired but not prosecuted.
“It is clear that the British Museum has not responded as fully as it should have to the warnings of 2021 and the problem which has now fully emerged,” Fischer said in a statement. “The responsibility for this failure ultimately lies with the director.”
“It is clear that the British Museum has not responded as fully as it should have to the warnings of 2021 and the problem which has now fully emerged,” Fischer said in a statement. “The responsibility for this failure ultimately lies with the director.”
Fischer’s announcement included an apology to the whistleblower, Ittai Gradel, an Anglo-Danish art historian and dealer who said he had seen the stolen antiquities for sale on eBay for a fraction of their value, but that he had been humiliated for informing the museum.
Gradel traced the two items he did not purchase to the museum. The item he purchased was not in the museum catalog, but he discovered that it belonged to a man who gave his entire collection to the museum in 1814.
Gradel said he found the seller’s identity through PayPal and that it was the person at the museum who had since been fired. Gradel said 69 other items he purchased from the same person were then “guilty by association.”
Gradel said Fischer was right to resign and accepted his apology. But he said Deputy Director Jonathan Williams should also resign because he assured him an investigation found no wrongdoing and it was unclear whether there was an investigation.
“We want to tell the British Museum that they can no longer say that Greek (cultural) heritage is more protected at the British Museum,” Despina Koutsoumba, director of the Association of Greek Archaeologists, told the BBC.
The missing items are believed to include gold jewelry and precious stones dating from the 15th century BC to the 19th century AD, and authorities have no inventory of the items, and many are stored in an 18th century basement.
Museum board chairman George Osborne – who offered to lend Greece the stolen Parthenon Marbles on condition that collateral was provided in the form of other valuables – said: “We will make good which didn’t work. »
The thefts have undermined the museum’s claims to be a world-class institution that also displays other items stolen by the British from its former colonies during generations of plundering for storage.
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