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This week, the British Museum in London launched authorized proceedings in opposition to considered one of its former curators, Peter Higgs, who’s accused of stealing as much as 2,000 objects from its assortment. The archaeologist who first noticed stolen objects, nonetheless, has described the authorized motion as “locking the secure door after the horse has bolted”.
Higgs was the museum’s curator of Historical Greek collections, not too long ago promoted to the performing head of the Greece and Rome division. Final yr he was sacked following revelations that a lot of objects had been broken or gone lacking and this week the museum sued Higgs for the return of any remaining artefacts in his possession.
In 2020 Martin Henig, an skilled in engraved gem stones, recognized a part of a Roman signet ring, which was accessible on the market, as belonging to the British Museum. After the merchandise was returned, Henig, with the scholar and artwork seller Ittai Gradel, discovered proof of different objects on the market which had seemingly been stolen from the gathering. Regardless of their makes an attempt to focus on this to the museum, their warnings to administrators have been dismissed.
Henig mentioned: “The authorized motion may be very a lot a case of locking the secure door after the horse has bolted, although perhaps it’ll carry to mild a couple of extra of the stolen objects. The affair leaves me feeling very unhappy and depressed. A part of the issue needs to be underfunding. However inevitably the establishment bears among the culpability for its negligence. The gems needs to be given the identical consideration, care and cataloguing talent accorded to the traditional cash within the museum that are accorded rather more consideration.”
A variety of the stolen objects ended up on the market on the web public sale website eBay, typically at costs far beneath their true worth. In 2002, Higgs advised the Instances newspaper that among the museum’s in depth Greek and Roman assortment had not been catalogued for greater than a century, describing its strongrooms as “chaos down right here”. An undercover reporter for the Instances posing as a piece expertise trainee beneath the supervision of Higgs walked out of the museum with the foot of a statue from the third century BC, valued at £20,000.
Jason Felch, an writer and investigative reporter who has spent a decade researching the illicit antiquities commerce, mentioned the Instances investigation ought to have been a wake-up name to the museum. He means that the impression a scarcity of funding for the museum sector has on salaries can be a trigger for concern: “One clear signal of the deeper issues on the museum is prominently displayed on its web site: a job itemizing for Higgs’s position, curator of the Greek and Roman assortment. It pays simply £33,803 per yr. Paradoxically, it was the British Museum’s present chairman George Osborne who, as chancellor of the exchequer, championed austerity measures that slashed cultural spending within the UK.”
In court docket filings, the museum’s lawyer Daniel Burgess mentioned Higgs used pretend names, created false paperwork and manipulated the museum’s data to cowl his tracks. A police investigation into the case is ongoing and no prices have been made. Higgs denies the allegations.
Aisling Prior, curator on the workplace for artwork in Dublin mentioned: “All through historical past, it’s been assumed that artists and curators are particularly moral, probably due to the vocational, and generally selfless characterisation of the professions. Due to this fact it’s surprising when so many valuable objects go lacking from such a well-known establishment and when such an esteemed curator as Peter Higgs is accused of the theft. This authorized motion by the British Museum is a outstanding admission that none of his superiors have been conscious of his alleged prison exercise for the ten years previous his dismissal. The British Museum needs to be ashamed of its personal document of custodianship.”
The British Museum mentioned it had no additional remark when contacted by The Artwork Newspaper. The Artwork Newspaper was unable to achieve Peter Higgs for remark.
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