‘Treasure Hunter’ Wanted as British Museum Tries to Find Lost Gold

The British Museum is conducting a high-stakes search for hundreds of stolen artifacts and plans to hire an expert to help track them down before they are lost forever.

In 2023, the museum revealed that thousands of objects were missing from its Greek and Roman collections. Professor Tom Harrison, recently promoted to head the department, has been leading the painstaking restoration of a treasure trove of gold jewellery, semi-precious stones and glass dating back to the 15th century BC. harrison told the times He hopes to retrieve the gold before it melts down and admits the search may continue “until I retire or go into the ground.”

Currently, a small team of five people, who have taken on other responsibilities at the museum, are responsible for the restoration work. Harrison plans to recruit someone to “write letters to dealers, auction houses and collectors around the world” once funding is secured. “We want to make progress quickly,” he said.

A museum spokesman told art news The new role, which has not yet been announced, will involve extensive archival research.

The scandal erupted when former director Peter Higgs was fired after being accused of stealing, selling and melting down artifacts for more than a decade. He denies the allegations amid an ongoing civil case against him. The museum has so far recovered 654 of an estimated 1,500 missing items.

The recovery process is grueling. Leads came from the public, but mainly from the team’s own research into private sales, catalogs and historical archives. Harrison notes that the quality of the tips “vary a lot” and the returns are increasingly rare, one or two at a time, although occasional windfalls, like the shipment of 268 gemstones from the United States, offer hope.

Technology plays an increasingly important role in search. Open source investigation and AI-assisted image matching helped track down long-lost artifacts, while the museum ordered a comprehensive audit of its Greek and Roman collections to ensure no other items were lost.

Despite bureaucratic hurdles and long wait times for export permits, each found item sparks waves of joy, Harrison said. He recalled the exciting moment when an item that had been sold many times on eBay, or even disappeared on eBay, finally came back: “It was nice…a real sense of satisfaction, like bringing them home.”

A win like this ensures the team remains optimistic, especially for the gold medal. “People always thought the gold was stolen and melted down. It’s frustrating, but we have little hope of finding any more gold,” Harrison said.