London, Thanasis Gavos

Ancient Coins, silver necklaces and more than 500 ceramic fragments are included among the antiquities which believed to have been stolen from the British Museumreveals the Times newspaper in London.

Among the missing items is a Greek silver coin acquired by the Museum in 1948, a Roman coin and a German coin. All three appear from museum records to have been lost in 2014.

An Iron Age silver chain is also missing discovered in 1915 and acquired by the British Museum in 1932.

They are missing from the museum collection also, among other things, wooden poppy processing tools for extracting opiumwhich were shaped like birds and frogs, as well as green and blue leaf-shaped beads and pendants.

The details of these lost archaeological treasures, which is not believed anyway that are objects of recent research, follows the revelation that for many years an employee of the British Museum stole objects from the collection from the institution’s warehouses, taking advantage of their incomplete registration.

The case has raised doubts and questions about the storage conditions and the safety of the London institution’s exhibits.

A police source told Times how the missing objects were objects of study for research purposes, without having been adequately recorded. The result, the source said, is that there are fears of a possible defacing them and selling them online, even for a few hundred pounds.

“The suspicion is that we are in front of a possible case of kleptomania”the police source told the British newspaper.

The Times also reports that the 56-year-old Peter Higgs, who was fired from the Museum a few days ago as a suspect for theft of objects, had been promoted to the position of curator of the Greek collections, including the “Elginia Marbles”in January 2021, shortly after he raised the alarm to the museum management regarding stolen objects (in June 2020 according to the newspaper).

He remained in his new position despite it his involvement in allegations of items from the museum’s collection being sold on eBay;

Speaking on BBC radio on Wednesday, the archaeologist Despina Koutsouba expressed concern about how many Greek objects are missing and noted that the British Museum can no longer claim that the Greek cultural heritage is safe in its facilities.

The secretary of the cross-party parliamentary committee on museums Chris Bryant, Labor MP, commented that the case indicates that the British Museum is not competent “to take care of the Elginian Marbles”.

Doubts about the safety of antiquities at the British Museum also expressed the MP of the Welsh party Plaid Cymru Liz Saville-Roberts.

Conversely, the Conservative head of the cross-party parliamentary committee on the British Museum, Tim Lawton, accused Greek officials who, on the occasion of the revelations, are calling for the reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures of “blatant opportunism”.

The revelations, however, caused renewed request also from Nigeria for the return of the so-called Bronzes of Benin, at least 900 artifacts from west Africa which is preserved in London by the British Museum.

Speaking to Sky News, Nigeria’s Director of Museums and Monuments, Aba Issa Tijani, commented: “It is shocking to hear that countries and museums that told us the Benin Bronzes would not be safe in Nigeria are being stolen.”

He added that Nigeria’s new culture minister would demand in a letter to the British Museum within weeks the immediate return of the bronzes.

The German director of the British Museum Hartwig Fischer said that the concerns expressed to the foundation about thefts in 2021 concerned “only a small number of items”. For these items, he added, a search was made and all were located. But he admitted that it seems that there were more items missing from the collection, without the museum being informed about them.

His claim is contradicted by Dutch antiquities dealer Itai Grandel, who said he had informed the museum about the online sale of items from the collection. He had bought about 70 items through eBay as early as 2014.

Mr. Grandel blames the British Museum to cover up the thefts and has called for the immediate dismissal of Mr Fisher and the deputy director of the British Museum, Jonathan Williams, who had replied to him in an email that “there is no indication of wrongdoing” and that “the collection is protected”.

Meanwhile, in its main article the Daily Telegraph talks about “embarrassing failure” of the British Museum to adequately investigate allegations of theft.

He admits that the case makes it “harder to argue against requests for the repatriation of important parts of the collection, such as the “Elginia Marbles”.

The newspaper he is not asking for dismissal of the directors of the British Museum by the chairman of the trustees, George Osborne.

And the Times in its main article refers to the Minister of Culture Lina Mendoni and her statement about strengthening the request for the reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures. “Actually, Greece’s request for the Parthenon sculptures is already strong,” the newspaper comments.