ARTS & CULTURE

British Museum Will Make Digital Copies of

Its Objects
October 30, 2023

People walk through the atrium of the British Museum in London, Britain, September 28,
2023. (REUTERS/Hollie Adams)

British Museum Will Make Digital Copies of Its Objects 

by VOA - Voice of America English News

 0:00 2:45  

 Pop-out player  Direct link 

The British Museum, in London, recently announced plans to make digital copies of all
the objects it keeps. The museum said in August that about 2,000 items had been stolen
or were missing.

The museum is one of the busiest in the world.

It holds objects such as the Rosetta Stone, the Parthenon Marbles — known as the Elgin
Marbles — and ancient stones and jewelry.

The leader, or chair of the museum, is George Osborne. He recently told the Culture,
Media and Sport Committee of Parliament that he believed a person who worked at the
museum was responsible.
Osborne called it “an inside job by someone…who the museum had put trust in.” He said
the person took items from the museum little by little.

FILE - Women stand by a marble statue of a naked youth thought to represent Greek god
Dionysos, center, from the east pediment of the Parthenon at the British Museum in
London, on Jan. 8, 2015. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)

The museum’s director at the time was German art historian Hartwig Fischer. Fischer
left the job in August after serving since 2016. He said the blame for the thefts “must
ultimately” rest with him. He added the museum did not react as it should have when
concerns first came up that someone had been stealing.

“There are lots of lessons to be learned,” Osborne said.

The museum head said about 350 of the 2,000 items have been found and are in the
process of being returned.

Stolen items included gold rings, earrings and other jewelry from the ancient Greek and
Roman times.
 An oval plasma intaglio is seen in this undated handout image obtained by Reuters on
September 26, 2023. (A. Masson-Berghoff/British Museum/Handout via REUTERS)

The director of the museum for the time being is Mark Jones. He said the museum is
confident “that a theft of this kind can never happen again.” Jones added that one way to
improve the museum’s security is to show more items to the public instead of, as he said,
“simply by locking items away.”

The project to digitize about 8 million items will take five years.

In September, the museum asked for help in finding the missing items. The organization
launched a phone number for people to call if they had information.

I’m Dan Friedell.

Dan Friedell adapted this story for Learning English based on a report by Reuters.

__________________________________________________

Words in This Story

digital –adj. existing in electronic form on a computer

item –n. an individual or separate thing

theft –n. an act of stealing

ultimately –adv. in the end

lock –v. to secure something with a lock so it cannot be reached by people who are not
permitted to get to it

We want to hear from you. Where do you think the museum’s items wound up? Will they
all get returned?