Since the self-theft scandal**, the British Museum has fallen into a credibility crisis, and many countries have demanded that the British Museum return the cultural relics as soon as possible. Recently, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in an interview with the United Kingdom that Greece asked the British Museum to return the Parthenon stone sculptures, "There is nothing to dispute about the ownership of these cultural relics, they are Greek, they were stolen." ”
In mid-August this year, it was revealed that some of the British Museum's collections were "missing, stolen or damaged", and 350 artifacts have been recovered, but a large number of artifacts are still missing. The United Kingdom** reported that theft of artefacts from British museums is not uncommon due to incomplete registration and cataloguing of cultural relics and many vulnerabilities in security systems.
The British Museum has admitted to self-theft.
Recently, George Osborne, chairman of the board of directors of the British Museum, recently acknowledged the theft of antiquities, "It is our duty to look after these antiquities, but we have failed to do so." He said again that the stolen British Museum's precious collections were "most likely stolen by staff we trust". The investigation into the theft is still ongoing, and the results are expected to be announced in the coming months.
Osborne also said that museums cannot pretend that it didn't happen, that it doesn't matter, or that they weren't warned years ago. According to the UK**, the British Museum received reports of theft of artifacts as early as 2021, but the results of the investigation at the time showed that "no signs of wrongdoing were found". According to the museum, the thieves took many measures to cover up their actions, and some of the records of the artifacts were tampered with, apparently by the guards themselves.
In order to recover the stolen 2,000 artifacts as soon as possible, the British Museum's official website launched a stolen artifacts page in September this year to open the public for help. The British Museum said that the museum would not share full information about the missing artefacts at this time, based on the advice of relevant antiquities experts. However, the UK** believes that the main reason for the inaccuracy of the information is that the museum has never catalogued and registered stolen artefacts. According to the Art Statistics, about half of the British Museum's collections are never fully catalogued.
As early as 2002, a 2,500-year-old Greek statue was stolen from the British Museum, according to the British **. The British Museum said at the time that the Greek classical gallery, where the statue was located, was open to the public, but there were no guards on duty, which led to the loss of the artifact.
According to information released by the British Museum in 2019, while the museum has a collection of 8 million pieces, only about 80,000 pieces are on display. British criminology professor Emmeline Taylor said in an interview that most of the attention has been focused on the security of cultural objects on display to the public, and the safety of cultural objects that are not on display has been neglected. The artefacts stolen from the British Museum this year are the ones that are not on display.
There have been cases of loss of collections in a number of museums.
The theft of artefacts from the British Museum has been widely criticized, with some commentators suggesting that it highlights some of the major deficiencies in the management of artefacts in British museums, such as catalogue loopholes, lack of transparency in collections, and lack of accountability in collection management.
According to the British Daily Mail, the British Imperial War Museum and the Natural History Museum have admitted that more than 1,000 important artifacts have been missing. The Natural History Museum said more than 540 items were lost, destroyed or stolen. The Imperial War Museum has recorded 560 missing items since 2018, of which 69 items have been valued. A spokesperson for the museum said the losses occurred "long before the collection management system was established." According to reports, the construction of the Imperial War Museum's collection database began in 2007 and was officially completed in 2017. The museum, for its part, described the missing objects as "usually low-value, mass-produced items" and said that "in most cases, there are still copies or digitized versions".
The BBC reported that data from the National Museum of Wales, which manages its 5.3 million collections, showed that nearly 2,000 artifacts were lost in its collection. The National Museum of Wales is made up of 7 institutions including the National Museum of Cardiff and the National Historical Museum of St. Fagan. Some of the artifacts were only discovered missing during last year's survey, the museum said, "despite strict collection management and security procedures in place, some losses are inevitable due to the sheer size of the collections and the fact that at least 1.3 million people visit the seven museums each year." ”
Let the protection of cultural relics develop in the direction of justice".
After the theft of cultural relics from the British Museum, Greece, Nigeria, Egypt, Ghana and many other countries once again urged the British Museum to return the antiquities.
Greek Minister of Culture and Sports Lena Menzoni said that Greece has been asking the British Museum to return the Parthenon stone sculptures, and the safety problems exposed by the loss of cultural relics from the British Museum have made Greece's demands even stronger. Zahid Hawass, a prominent Egyptian archaeologist and former minister of antiquities, believes that the theft of the British Museum's collection is a "global catastrophe" and a "grave crime" against the World Heritage Site, and that the British Museum should also include Egyptian antiquities, including the Rosetta Stone. Nigeria, for its part, demanded that the British Museum return the Beninese bronzes;India demanded the return of the Amaravati Stupa;Ghana demanded the return of its **jewelry.
Bert Ribeiro-Adi, chairman of the British Parliament's cross-party parliamentary group on African reparations, believes that Britain should amend the British Museums Act 1963 to prohibit the return of Greek Parthenon stone carvings and Beninese bronzes. She said that the relevant parties should reach an agreement on the return of cultural relics, and in this way, promote legislation to "let the protection of cultural relics develop in the direction of justice".
A UK** poll earlier this year showed that 53% of British respondents said they would like to see the Parthenon stone sculptures returned to Greece. Of those who supported the restitution, 88 percent said the carvings rightfully belonged to Greece.
Dan Hicks, author of Savage Museum and professor of archaeology at the University of Oxford, argues that the British Museum and some other British museums still believe that "they have some sort of privilege to take possession of antiquities without explanation" and that "the theft scandal should prompt them to change their position as custodians of antiquities".
LONDON, Dec. 14) --
*:People**.