Two years after a whistleblower alerted the British Museum to alleged stolen artifacts circulating the internet, the case rages on.
What would you do if you found a listing for precious artifacts under $50 while scrolling on eBay? Buy them to add a conversation piece to your decor? Alert the site to suspicious seller activity?
Well, that’s exactly what happened to Danish antiquities dealer Ittai Gradel in 2013. As he was online shopping on eBay, he saw a seller advertising a “glass gem from the 19th century.” Recognizing this gem as a 2nd-century Roman agate with Medusa imagery, he bought it from the seller, Sultan1996, and spent no more than 20 dollars. When he sent the gem to a collector, it was appraised for well over $1,000. Over the next couple of years, Sultan1996 continued to list incredible finds on his page and Gradel kept purchasing them. In one case, Gradel ended up sending an extra 620 dollars for a Greco-Roman Ptolemaic ring that turned out to be over 2,000 years old.
Ittai Gradel. (Image: The Telegraph)
Nevertheless, after a while, Gradel became wary about just how Sultan1996 was finding and selling such artifacts. After he inquired about the origins of these items, Gradel received a slightly suspicious answer—supposedly, Sultan1996 had inherited these items from his father who had owned a pawn shop in York but died in 1952—but thought nothing of it. As the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) writes, Gradel claimed he had “encountered every dealer’s dream seller,” even going as far as to call the seller “clueless.” This online seller-buyer relationship, between the seasoned art dealer and the supposedly oblivious seller, continued for a few more years.
In 2016, everything changed. Sultan1996 was auctioning a piece of stone onyx Roman jewelry for $50, ARTnews reports. Even though the listing “attracted no bids” (perhaps because people thought it was a poorly executed copy), an anonymous art dealer determined that the true value of the jewel was anywhere between $31,890 and $63,780, having seen it in the British Museum’s collections before. The same year, Gradel noticed that Sultan1996 had posted a fragment of a Roman sardonyx cameo engraved with the head and shoulder of a girl. When Gradel went to ask about it, the seller quickly removed it from his page, responding that he had changed his mind. Apparently, the sardonyx belonged to his sister and she didn’t want to sell it anymore. As the WSJ reports, Gradel didn’t think much about it until 2020, when he stumbled upon a description of this exact sardonyx cameo on the British Museum’s website.
The eBay description of the sardonyx cameo that Gradel screenshotted in 2020. (Image: DailyMail)
Almost as though he were playing a real-life game of Clue, but without the color-coded character names and mini-weapon replicas, Gradel began compiling all the evidence. In February 2021, he sent a series of emails to the British Museum, alleging the potential theft of the museum’s collections of Greco-Roman antiquities. In email correspondence between the two parties, the British Museum’s Deputy Director, Jonathan Williams, replied that “there was no suggestion of wrongdoing” and that the “collection was protected.” Though Gradel persisted, the museum brushed away his concerns. It seems they weren’t that concerned, especially as another dealer, Malcolm Hay, had bought one of Sultan1996’s items but promptly returned it to the museum.
Even though the Brits like to claim they have everything under control, this decision, like many others, came back to bite them. In August 2023, the museum suddenly released a cryptic statement announcing that they had sacked an unnamed staff member suspected of looting jewels from their private collection. Nevertheless, the internet’s need to spread the art world’s gossip overpowered the museum’s request for privacy: on 17 August, the Telegraph reported that the man who had been fired was Peter John Higgs, a curator of Greek and Roman art who had worked at the museum for over 30 years. It didn’t take long for the public to find this connection—Higgs used the username Sultan1996 for both his Twitter and eBay accounts. So much for high security, right? Higgs was a renowned curator at the museum and was even called to be an expert for a case on a trafficked sculpture of Persephone that was seized at Heathrow on suspicion of trafficking. The looted artifact was successfully repatriated to Libya in 2021.
Higgs (left) next to Mohamed Elkoni (right), the Charge d'Affaires of the Libyan embassy, with the Persephone statue in the middle. (Image: The Art Newspaper)
According to another anonymous dealer, Higgs had been looting items from the museum’s collections, especially from the Townley collection of Graeco-Roman artifacts, for years. The museum further confirmed that the stolen artifacts and jewels from this collection date anywhere between the 15th century BCE to the late-1800s. Various sources interviewed by DailyMail lamented that “the museum’s failure to catalogue all eight million pieces in its collection made it easier for the perpetrator to carry out the thefts.” As a result of this, the chance of the museum recovering all its artifacts is slim. First and foremost, these were artifacts that were not on display but kept in a separate area for academic and research purposes. This means that, unlike the catalogs of information available to the public about items currently on display, these items have no photos online and aren’t as well-known to the public. It is entirely possible that many of these artifacts have already made their way outside of the U.K., in the possession of private collectors, art dealers, or even the criminal underground. In his statement to The Guardian, Gradel said:
“As far as I understand, these individual items were not described, only a sum total. So, 935 gems are missing and the problem is, if they can’t be identified, how can they return to the museum? They have been lying there without any registration at all for over 200 years…because who could ever find out?”
As of 16 August, the museum “launched an independent review of security” and “will now be taking legal action against the individual [Higgs]” as they revealed in their statement. George Osborne, Chair of the British Museum, Hartwig Fischer, Director of the British Museum, and Sir Nigel Boardman, a Member of the British Museum’s Board, all released their own statements in conjunction with the museum’s, expressing their sadness and disappointment at the events. Though there are so many unanswered questions and shocked reactions from the public, as this is an active case with the Metropolitan police, the museum has not been and will not be open for any comments. Nevertheless, in a statement to the Art Newspaper, a spokesperson for eBay wrote:
“Our dedicated law enforcement liaison team is in close contact with the Metropolitan Police and is supporting the investigation into this case. eBay does not tolerate the sale of stolen property. If we identify that a listing on our site is stolen, we immediately remove it and work with law enforcement to support investigations and keep our site safe.”
Gradel working from his office in Denmark. (Image: The Wall Street Journal)
Cases like these bring to light the museum’s brazen past statements that attempt to justify the continued holding of these artifacts despite the systematic looting and plundering that the British have enacted over centuries. Many countries who have previously been denied efforts to repatriate their cultural heritage, such as Nigeria, Sudan, Greece, and China, have used this massive security breach as an opportunity to ardently call for the return of their artifacts.
Objects looted from the Benin palace with members of the Benin punitive raid, circa 1897. (Image: Al Jazeera)
For example, in their “violent colonisation” of Nigeria, the British Forces stole thousands of pieces of cultural heritage, as Nosmot Gbadamosi from Al Jazeera surveyed. This consistent looting from the early-20th century has now prompted a $15m initiative by the Open Society to aid in the repatriation of countries’ stolen cultural heritage. In 2020, Nigeria formed the Legacy Restoration Trust, “to act as an intermediary and manage negotiations with foreign museums” which negotiated in the successful return of the Benin Bronzes and an Ife head from the MET in 2021. Their negotiations with the British Museum, however, are currently at an “impasse.”
Bronze artifacts from the Benin Kingdom in Nigeria on display at the MET. (Image: Al Jazeera)
Nigeria isn’t the only country who has had these problems. For years, Greece has been lobbying for the return of its Parthenon Marbles (the decorative friezes from the Temple of Athena on the Acropolis) and one of the Caryatids. In fact, there is an empty space in the Parthenon Museum in Athens where the curators have put a plaque saying that the Caryatids are awaiting the return of their sister from where she currently is located in Athens. The looting of both these artifacts can be attributed to none other than Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, or Lord Elgin as he was known, who organized a systematic looting of the Athenian Acropolis in the first half of the 19th century. Justice Geoffrey Robertson QC says that the British Museum “should wash its hands of blood and return Elgin’s loot.” Recently, however, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak denied these requests. Despite trying to quell what they deem a common misconception, the British Museum seems to implicitly perpetuate the belief that “there’s nowhere to house them in Greece and that the Greek authorities can't look after them.” Though this may not apply to the Greeks, as their recently constructed Parthenon is a state-of-the-art facility, this is a statement they have made about many other countries’ capabilities to house their own artifacts. A Chinese TikTok that “tells the story of a jade teapot…looking for its way back to China” has garnered international attention since early-September, with Chinese newspapers “formally request[ing] the British Museum to return all Chinese cultural relics acquired through improper channels.”
Right now, the museum is calling for the world to help them in their search of the more than 2,000 missing artifacts, with a statement on their website requesting those with information to contact them. Through their work with the Art Loss Register—the world’s largest database for stolen art—60 artifacts have been returned while another 300 have been identified, according to TIME.
It’s ironic that the museum is calling for the retrieval of stolen art when their shelves display the stolen cultural heritage and property of nations from six different continents. The fact that the museum is calling for the retrieval of stolen art back to their collections— when their shelves display the stolen cultural heritage and property of nations from six different continents— has turned the case into a source of giggles. Compiled below are tweets of several X users:
Tweet: @JimMFelton
Tweet: @samirasawlani
So what does this case tell us about the world of art theft and museums? First of all, eBay is a great place to sell antiquities, unless you are dealing with seasoned dealers and/or investigators. (Let the record show however that I, in no way, am condoning the looting and selling of British Museum collections. Definitely don’t try this at home!) Second, there is no such thing as a “safe” museum: all museums are impacted by thefts, whether they are inside or outside jobs. Third, in not choosing to catalog their private collection, the British Museum has successfully opened a door that they cannot shove closed anytime soon. As the floodgates from this case continue to spill open, it is my hope that more and more countries will come forward to air their grievances against the British Museum and their unethical practices of displaying stolen artifacts. One day, I hope that all the heritage that has been relentlessly plundered by the colonizing efforts of the Brits will be returned to their rightful countries and displayed in galleries across the world.
It’s hard to believe that all of this started with a commercial transaction. If there is anything that the art world has taught us, however, it is that sometimes the most complex cases begin in the most mundane settings. Who knows what other problems can be solved by something as simple as scrolling through eBay?
(Cover Image: The British Museum, via Conde Nast Traveler)
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