Moai monolithic human figure carved by the Rapa Nui people in the British Museum, London, United Kingdom. Rapa Nui leaders have asked for its return. (Takashi Images / Shutterstock.com)
“The British Museum has been the victim of theft,” said former British Museum trustee Nigel Boardman in a statement. “We are absolutely determined to use our review in order to get to the bottom of what happened.”
Boardman was referring to news that the museum discovered “gold jewelry, gems, and glass dating back as far as the 15th century B.C. were missing from a storeroom,” reports The Washington Post. The museum has since fired an employee.
From our partners:
The irony is thick. In 2014, Queen’s Counsel Geoffrey Robertson told The Guardian, “The trustees of the British Museum have become the world’s largest receivers of stolen property, and the great majority of their loot is not even on public display.”
From The Washington Post: “We will throw our efforts into recovering the stolen goods that we previously stole’ may not be the flex that the national museum spin-doctors think it is,” Dan Hicks, an Oxford professor of contemporary archaeology, wrote on the social media platform, X, previously known as Twitter.”
By: MARK FRAUENFELDER
Originally published at Boing Boing
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