Founded in 1753, the British Museum is one of London's major institutions that attracts over 4 million visitors a year. In the renowned museum, visitors can immerse themselves in several millennia of cultural history over 75,000 m2 and admire important artefacts such as the Lindow Man, a bog body from the 1st century, or the Rosetta Stone, which made it possible to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics. In total, the museum collection comprises around 8 million objects.
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But some of them are now missing, as was discovered earlier this year. The objects in question are gold jewellery, jewellery with semi-precious stones and glass art from the 15th-19th centuries. None of these objects had been on public display recently, and they were mainly used for research and kept in a storage room at the museum. "We called in the police, imposed emergency measures to increase security, set up an independent review into what happened," said George Osborne, chairman of the British Museum, in a press release. The investigation so far has led to the identification of the individual "we believe to be responsible", Osborne added.
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The focus is now on the recovery of the stolen items, and finding out what could have been done to stop the incident and make sure it doesn't happen again.
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"This is a highly unusual incident. I know I speak for all colleagues when I say that we take the safeguarding of all the items in our care extremely seriously. The Museum apologises for what has happened, but we have now brought an end to this – and we are determined to put things right. We have already tightened our security arrangements and we are working alongside outside experts to complete a definitive account of what is missing, damaged and stolen. This will allow us to throw our efforts into the recovery of objects," says Hartwig Fischer, Director of the British Museum.
