{"id":166980,"date":"2023-08-28T09:19:49","date_gmt":"2023-08-28T09:19:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/culture.org\/?p=166980"},"modified":"2023-08-28T09:19:49","modified_gmt":"2023-08-28T09:19:49","slug":"alleged-theft-from-the-british-museum-precious-artifacts-surface-on-ebay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/culture.org\/news\/alleged-theft-from-the-british-museum-precious-artifacts-surface-on-ebay\/","title":{"rendered":"Alleged Theft from the British Museum: Precious Artifacts Surface on eBay"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A scandal erupts as priceless artifacts allegedly stolen from the British Museum surface on eBay. Peter John Higgs is accused but remains uncharged.<\/span><\/p>\n           <!--  <script type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n                jQuery(document).ready(function() {\r\n                    jQuery(\".key-accordion-item .key-menu\").on(\"click\", function() {\r\n                        if (jQuery(this).parent().hasClass(\"active\")) {\r\n                            jQuery(this).next().slideUp();\r\n                            jQuery(this).parent().removeClass(\"active\");\r\n                        } else {\r\n                            jQuery(\".key-content\").slideUp();\r\n                            jQuery(\".key-accordion-item\").removeClass(\"active\");\r\n                            jQuery(this).parent().addClass(\"active\");\r\n                            jQuery(this).next().slideDown();\r\n                        }\r\n                    });\r\n                })\r\n            <\/script> -->\r\n\r\n\r\n            <!-- start html -->\r\n\r\n            <div class=\"news-key-takeaway-wapper\">\r\n                                <span style=\"background-color:#9259b9;\">Key Takeaways<\/span>\r\n                <ul class=\"news-key-nbox\" style=\"border-color:#9259b9;background-color:rgba(146, 89, 185, 0.1);\">\r\n                                                        <li>A piece of Roman jewelry, allegedly stolen from the British Museum, appeared on eBay with a starting bid of just \u00a340, while its estimated worth ranges from \u00a325,000 to \u00a350,000.<\/li>\r\n                                                                    <li>Peter John Higgs, a curator with 30 years of service at the British Museum, is suspected of being behind the theft.<\/li>\r\n                                                                    <li>eBay and the British Museum are working closely with law enforcement agencies to resolve the case.<\/li>\r\n                                                <\/ul>\r\n            <\/div>\r\n            \n<h2><b>eBay Listings Raise Eyebrows: The British Museum Scandal Unfolds<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You&#8217;d think eBay would be the last place you&#8217;d find <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/culture.org\/art-and-culture\/stolen-antiquities-worth-725000-repatriated-to-yemen-a-step-towards-restoring-cultural-heritage\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">stolen artifacts<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> from the British Museum, right? Well, think again. A piece of Roman jewelry with an estimated value of \u00a325,000 to \u00a350,000 had surfaced on the platform with a surprisingly low starting bid of just \u00a340. Now, how could that happen, you wonder?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to a report by The Telegraph, the precious objects allegedly taken from the British Museum were listed for sale on eBay as far back as 2016. The person suspected of orchestrating this audacious act? None other than Peter John Higgs, a celebrated curator who has served the museum for three decades. Talk about a curveball!<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Piecing Together the eBay Puzzle<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Curiously enough, the Roman jewelry piece listed on eBay garnered zero bids. The seller, operating under the username &#8220;Sultan1966,&#8221; seemed to have vanished into the digital ether, as further searches produced no additional listings under that name.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Notably, art historian Bendor Grosvenor had unearthed the item&#8217;s museum classification details, which showed its production dating between the 1st and 2nd centuries. And if you\u2019re searching the museum\u2019s online database, don&#8217;t bother. The entry for the item merely states, &#8220;not on display,&#8221; making the mystery even murkier.<\/span><\/p>\n                        <!-- <div class=\"container-c\"> -->\r\n                        <!-- <div class=\"row justify-content-between\"> -->\r\n                        <!-- <div class=\"col-post-800\"> -->\r\n                        <!-- start html -->\r\n                        <div class=\"blockquote-wapper\">\r\n                            <div>\r\n                                <span class=\"text_quot\">\r\n                                    <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A scandal erupts as priceless artifacts allegedly stolen from the British Museum surface on eBay. Peter John Higgs is accused but remains uncharged.<\/span><\/p>\n                                <\/span>\r\n\r\n                                <div class=\"quot_icon\">\r\n                                    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-content\/themes\/culture\/icons\/i_quot.svg\" type=\"image\/svg+xml\">\r\n                                <\/div>\r\n                            <\/div>\r\n\r\n                            <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"quot_tick\" src=\"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-content\/themes\/culture\/icons\/i_quot_tri.svg\" type=\"image\/svg+xml\">\r\n                        <\/div>\r\n                        <!-- end html -->\r\n                        <!-- <\/div> -->\r\n                        <!-- <\/div> -->\r\n                        <!-- <\/div> -->\r\n                                    \n<h2><b>The Artifacts Beyond the Auction: What Else Is Going On?<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jason Feltch, the man behind the Chasing Aphrodite blog, did not mince words. He posted, &#8220;Most of it [ancient material on eBay] is assumed to be fake. But apparently there are also some things straight from the bowels of the British Museum on there.&#8221; His post also linked to a page full of unverified images, pointing at the vast, gray marketplace that eBay can sometimes be.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Who\u2019s Saying What: The Official Stances<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An eBay spokesperson stated that the company maintains a &#8220;dedicated law enforcement liaison team&#8221; and is cooperating fully with the Metropolitan Police. &#8220;If we identify that a listing on our site is stolen, we immediately remove it,&#8221; they added, assuring that eBay takes the sale of stolen property seriously.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Similarly, the British Museum declined to offer further comments due to the ongoing police investigation. This has raised questions, especially from the Chasing Aphrodite blog, about why no pictures of the missing objects have been released, or why Higgs hasn&#8217;t been arrested.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Museums: A Trust Betrayed?<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Martyn Whittock, historian and author, put it succinctly when he said, &#8220;Museums are repositories of yesterday for today and tomorrow\u2026 it\u2019s not for anybody to put [items] on eBay.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Higgs was once the head of the department for Greece and Rome at the British Museum and was the lead curator for the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/culture.org\/art-and-culture\/the-hottest-art-exhibitions-to-explore-this-summer-in-europe-and-the-us\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">exhibition<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> &#8220;Ancient Greeks: athletes, warriors, and heroes,&#8221; in 2021. But now, it seems, his family is in a race against time to clear his name. His son Greg told The Times, &#8220;He\u2019s not done anything. He\u2019s lost his job and his reputation, and I don\u2019t think it was fair. It couldn\u2019t have been him.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, where does this leave us? No arrests have been made yet, but the British Museum is prepared for legal action should an arrest occur. In the meantime, the art world remains on tenterhooks, as one of its most trusted institutions faces an unsettling scandal that\u2019s left more questions than answers.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":10028,"featured_media":167070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3588],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-166980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166980"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10028"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}