BRITISH MUSEUM’S DIRECTOR RESIGNS

The British Museum was alerted more than two years ago to the possible theft or disappearance of valuable artifacts when an art historian became suspicious about objects for sale on eBay.

But the museum’s director, Hartwig Fischer, said Friday that he didn’t treat the whistleblower’s warning seriously enough and announced his resignation as investigators figure out what happened to hundreds of missing pieces, including gold jewelry, semi-precious gems and antiquities dating to the 15th century B.C.

“It is evident that the British Museum did not respond as comprehensively as it should have in response to the warnings in 2021, and to the problem that has now fully emerged,” Fischer said in a statement. “The responsibility for that failure must ultimately rest with the director.”

Most were small items kept in a storeroom and none had been on display recently, the museum said.

The museum fired a staff member more than a week ago and said legal action would be taken against that person. London’s Metropolitan Police are investigating and the museum has ordered an independent review of security as well as a “vigorous program to recover the missing items.”

The 264-year-old British Museum is a major London tourist attraction, drawing visitors from around the world. Its collection includes the Rosetta Stone that unlocked the language of ancient Egypt, scrolls bearing 12th-century Chinese poetry and masks created by the Indigenous people of Canada.

The museum has also attracted controversy because it has resisted calls from communities around the world to return items of historical significance that were acquired during the era of the British Empire. The most famous of these disputes include marble carvings from the Parthenon in Greece and the Benin bronzes from west Africa.

Fischer’s announcement included an apology to the whistleblower, Ittai Gradel, a British-Danish art historian and dealer.

Gradel told The Associated Press he became suspicious after buying one of three objects a seller had listed on eBay. Gradel traced the two items he didn’t buy to the museum. The object he bought wasn’t listed in the museum’s catalog, but he discovered it had been owned by a man who turned over his entire collection to the museum in 1814.

Gradel said he found the identity of the seller through PayPal and it was the person at the museum who has since been sacked.