In 2023, The British Museum announced that around 1,500 Greek and Roman artifacts had been stolen, and is now looking to hire a treasure hunter to aid in the recovery efforts, according to an early January report from The London Times.
Included in the stolen artifacts are gold, jewelry, and semi-precious gemstones. Since the original 2023 announcement of the theft, the museum has recovered 654 of these, the most significant of which was 268 gems returned all at once by the United States.
“We want to get as much staffing as we can to try and push ahead,” Tom Harrison, the museum’s Head of the Greece and Rome Department told the Times. “We want to make progress fast in terms of getting things back.”
He noted that there is a fear that the gold pieces have since been melted down, adding to the urgency to find and bring them back.
Harrison, who has been leading the initiative to find and recover the stolen artifacts, added that there is a fear that the gold pieces have since been melted down, adding to the urgency to find and bring them back.
He also believes that the search could go on until he is “retired or under the ground.”
‘Fewer moments of catharsis recently’
At the moment, the “rescue mission” is made up of five people, who are stretched thin. The Treasure Hunter, according to the Times, would focus on “writing letters to dealers, auction houses and collectors around the world.”
The museum has also reportedly experimented with AI (artificial intelligence) to help search for images of the objects, “which is finding quite a lot.”
However, there are “fewer moments of catharsis recently,” he told the Times, acknowledging the dwindling amount of leads and successful finds the museum has had.
But when an “object comes back and you arrive in a little van at the British Museum, you get met by your colleagues to sign it in. It’s good,” he told the Times. “There is a sense of real satisfaction, like bringing them home.”