Amidst the hustle and bustle of London, a legal battle ensues as the venerable British Museum confronts a former curator accused of pilfering numerous artifacts from its esteemed collections and peddling them online. The accused, Peter Higgs, found himself in the museum’s crosshairs following the discovery of over 1,800 missing items, leading to his dismissal in July 2023.
Legal representatives of the institution assert that Higgs exploited his privileged position to abscond with ancient relics, including precious gems, opulent gold jewelry, and other priceless treasures, clandestinely whisking them away from storage rooms over the span of a decade. Presiding over the case, High Court judge Heather Williams mandated that Higgs either disclose or return any unlawfully held items within a stringent four-week timeframe, further demanding access to his digital transaction records on platforms such as eBay and PayPal.
To date, the museum has managed to recover a mere fraction of the pilfered artifacts, with 356 items successfully retrieved, while harboring hopes for the eventual retrieval of more. Daniel Burgess, legal counsel for the museum, underscored the cultural and historical significance of the stolen pieces, emphasizing Higgs’s elaborate attempts to obfuscate his illicit activities through aliases, falsified documentation, tampering with official records, and underselling artifacts below their true worth.
Despite having served within the museum’s Greece and Rome department for over twenty years, Higgs vehemently refutes the allegations leveled against him and expresses intent to contest the museum’s legal assertions. His absence from Tuesday’s court proceedings, purportedly due to ill health, was noted by his legal representatives. Concurrently, law enforcement continues its independent investigation into the matter, with Higgs as yet unindicted.
The repercussions of this scandal reverberate throughout the museum’s hierarchy, with director Hartwig Fischer tendering his resignation in the wake of the artifact losses becoming public knowledge in August. Acknowledging culpability for overlooking warnings from art historians regarding the sale of museum pieces on online platforms, chairman of trustees George Osborne conceded to the tarnishing of the institution’s 265-year-old reputation.
Situated in the heart of London’s Bloomsbury district, the 18th-century British Museum stands as a premier destination for tourists, drawing in excess of six million visitors annually. Patrons flock to behold a vast array of exhibits ranging from Egyptian mummies and ancient Greek sculptures to Viking treasures, ancient Chinese manuscripts, and masks crafted by Canada’s indigenous peoples.
