The director of the British Museum mentioned he would resign after admitting to failings in his investigation of the theft of things from the museum’s assortment.
The museum was alerted greater than two years in the past to the potential theft or disappearance of precious artefacts when an artwork historian grew to become suspicious about objects on the market on-line.
However the museum’s director, Hartwig Fischer, mentioned that he didn’t take the warning critically sufficient and introduced his resignation on Friday as investigators work out what occurred to lots of of lacking objects, together with gold jewelry, semi-precious gems and antiquities relationship to the fifteenth century BC.
Fischer, a German artwork historian who had led the museum since 2016, mentioned that there might have been a greater response to the warnings that an worker could have been stealing objects and the failings “should in the end” relaxation with him.
“It’s evident that the British Museum didn’t reply as comprehensively because it ought to have,” he mentioned in a press release.
“The accountability for that failure should in the end relaxation with the director.”
The museum, one in every of London’s hottest vacationer sights, mentioned final week a member of workers had been dismissed after objects together with gold jewelry and gems relationship from the fifteenth century BC to the nineteenth century AD, had been discovered stolen from a storeroom.
Police mentioned on Thursday that they had interviewed however not charged an unnamed man over the stolen artefacts.
The British Museum initially mentioned within the assertion that Fischer would step down “with instant impact”, however later eliminated these phrases and mentioned he would resign as soon as an interim chief had been discovered.
Fischer mentioned that he withdrew remarks made in regards to the artwork seller who first alerted the museum’s authorities to the stolen objects. He claimed earlier this week that Ittai Gradel, an antiquities seller, withheld details about the dimensions of the stolen objects when he contacted the museum.
Fischer expressed “honest remorse” over the “misjudged” feedback.
Gradel mentioned that Fischer had finished the precise factor by stepping down, and he accepted his apology. However he mentioned the deputy director, Jonathan Williams, also needs to resign, including that Williams had assured him {that a} thorough investigation discovered no improprieties.
The museum mentioned on Friday that Williams would step apart throughout the unbiased evaluation.
“He principally instructed me to sod off and thoughts my very own enterprise,” Gradel mentioned. “It’s past me how any accountable museum particular person might see this proof with out all alarm bells going off instantly.”
The museum’s board of trustees, chaired by former Finance Minister George Osborne, accepted Fischer’s resignation.
“We’re going to repair what has gone improper,” Osborne mentioned.
“The museum has a mission that lasts throughout generations. We are going to study, restore confidence and should be admired as soon as once more,” he mentioned.
The museum has additionally attracted controversy as a result of it has resisted calls from communities around the globe to return objects of historic significance that had been acquired or stolen throughout the period of the British Empire and Britain’s colonial rule.
Probably the most notorious of those disputes embody marble carvings from the Parthenon in Greece and the Benin bronzes from West Africa.
“We wish to inform the British Museum that they can not any extra say that Greek [cultural] heritage is extra protected within the British Museum,” Despina Koutsoumba, head of the Affiliation of Greek Archaeologists, instructed the BBC this week.
Al Jazeera’s Sonia Gallego, reporting from London, mentioned the resignation tops every week of turmoil for the museum and highlighted the longstanding controversy of the museum’s continued declare over the Parthenon sculptures, in any other case generally known as the Elgin Marbles.
“Greece’s minister of tradition has mentioned that the entire argument for them being housed on the British Museum – for safety, for safekeeping – actually now must be questioned,” Gallego mentioned.
Greece desires the sculptures returned to “their nation of origin as quickly as potential”, she added.
