Peter John Higgs, a outstanding curator who was employed on the British Museum for 30 years, has been recognized because the particular person alleged to be answerable for stealing priceless artefacts from the museum’s assortment, The Every day Telegraph newspaper experiences.
Higgs is suspected to have operated for years with out detection and to have spirited away uncategorised objects from the museum’s assortment earlier than promoting them on the e-commerce web site eBay. The report in The Every day Telegraph newspaper states that objects from the museum’s assortment first appeared on eBay as early as 2016.
Higgs largely took small objects of gold jewelry, in addition to valuable gems, from the gathering, a few of which date again to Historical Rome. The objects in query are regarded as price tens of tens of millions of kilos.
The museum yesterday introduced an unbiased overview into why Higgs was in a position to take away objects from the gathering with out detection; the overview is certain to ask troublesome questions on what seems to be an enormous safety breach. Senior figures from the UK’s museum sector are as we speak asking if the British Museum can nonetheless be thought of a accountable custodian of its assortment, which incorporates many objects of contested provenance.
The regulation agency Artwork Restoration Worldwide, which specialises in restitution points, posted on X, previously generally known as Twitter: “Maybe the Parthenon Marbles aren’t protected within the UK in any case”.
Higgs was first employed by the museum in 1993 and labored in a senior curatorial place because the museum’s head of division for Greece and Rome. He is called one of many museum’s so-called ”monuments males”, and was the lead curator of the exhibition Historical Greeks: athletes, warriors and heroes, which was staged on the museum in 2021 and is at the moment on tour.
The Every day Telegraph report states that an unnamed antiquities skilled knowledgeable the museum of the illicit exercise three years in the past, however the museum solely acted in dismissing Higgs earlier this yr. It’s now taking the choice to go public with the information, which comes shortly after the announcement that director Hartwig Fischer is leaving his put up on the museum early subsequent yr.
Higgs was recognized because the alleged thief when he started to promote objects that, not like earlier items, had been comprehensively catalogued by the museum and will thus be traced again to its digital stock. Though he operated underneath a pseudonym on eBay, a portal on his Paypal account linked to his Twitter feed, on which he used his actual title.
On the British Museum’s web site, Higgs is photographed with a 2,000-year-old Libyan statue, which was within the technique of being returned to its nation of origin after being trafficked by Europe.
Within the Telegraph report, Higgs’s household mentioned he’s harmless of all wrongdoing and have vowed to clear his title. No arrests have but been made, though the British Museum has dedicated to pursue authorized motion within the occasion of an arrest.
