# British Museum suing curator for stealing artifacts **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 10, 2025, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-museum-suing-curator-for-stealing-artifacts/1012802 "2025-01-10T15:53:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2025, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-museum-suing-curator-for-stealing-artifacts/1012802/1 "2025-01-10T15:53:13Z")
The suspect has apparently responded: “I thought it was a job requirement for working here.” > **[The British Museum is suing a former curator it says stole 1,800 items and...](https://apnews.com/article/british-museum-stolen-artifacts-ae178b225ecf2378766d22209194ecb7)** > > The British Museum is suing a former curator alleged to have stolen hundreds of artifacts from its collections and offered them for sale online. ---
**Author:** ![StringsandHammers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stringsandhammers/32/17933_2.png) [@StringsandHammers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StringsandHammers)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2025, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-museum-suing-curator-for-stealing-artifacts/1012802/2 "2025-01-10T16:23:14Z")
Am I wrong for not being able to sympathize that artifacts were stolen from a British museum when many of those same artifacts were stolen from poorer, developing areas of the world? “Give us our stuff back, we rightfully stole it first!” I don’t know if that’s exactly the case here but I do know it applies a great deal of the time. ---
**Author:** ![74westy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/74westy/32/3950_2.png) [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2025, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-museum-suing-curator-for-stealing-artifacts/1012802/3 "2025-01-10T16:33:50Z")
I’m generally opposed to theft but I’m a huge fan of irony. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2025, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-museum-suing-curator-for-stealing-artifacts/1012802/4 "2025-01-10T16:35:39Z")
> [@74westy](#): > > I’m generally opposed to theft but I’m a huge fan of irony. - The Director of the B.M could go shoplift some aloe. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2025, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-museum-suing-curator-for-stealing-artifacts/1012802/5 "2025-01-12T03:26:09Z")
> [@StringsandHammers](#): > > “Give us our stuff back, we rightfully stole it first!” But they had a flag! That’s totally important according to these rules they just made up. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2025, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-museum-suing-curator-for-stealing-artifacts/1012802/6 "2025-01-12T04:16:48Z")
According to famous tomb raider Henry Jones, Jr., of Marshall College, you can steal whatever you want and sell it for a profit so long as _it ends up in a museum,_ not the other way around. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2025, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-museum-suing-curator-for-stealing-artifacts/1012802/7 "2025-01-12T04:22:31Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > The suspect has apparently responded: “I thought it was a job requirement for working here.” The article doesn’t quote him as saying anything at well. Where does that quote come from? ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2025, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-museum-suing-curator-for-stealing-artifacts/1012802/8 "2025-01-12T05:03:25Z")
Inscriptions on the Elgin Marbles. ---
**Author:** ![Ellecram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellecram/32/18948_2.png) [@Ellecram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellecram)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2025, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-museum-suing-curator-for-stealing-artifacts/1012802/9 "2025-01-12T05:16:22Z")
> [@74westy](#): > > I’m generally opposed to theft but I’m a huge fan of irony. There should be a museum of irony. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2025, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-museum-suing-curator-for-stealing-artifacts/1012802/10 "2025-01-12T21:14:44Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > Inscriptions on the Elgin Marbles. The Elgin marbles were bought, from the most legitimate owner who existed at the time for them. A better example is the Benin bronzes: Those were just plain stolen. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2025, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-museum-suing-curator-for-stealing-artifacts/1012802/11 "2025-01-12T22:19:41Z")
> [@StringsandHammers](#): > > Am I wrong for not being able to sympathize that artifacts were stolen from a British museum when many of those same artifacts were stolen from poorer, developing areas of the world? I’d say that it’s more complicated than that. First, the people who are currently holding the precious artifacts are not the people who stole the artifacts. They’re new people with new circumstances and motivations that need to be reviewed separately. We can’t control history and we’re not to blame for the things that dead people did, before we were born. We’re guilty of the things that we do during our lives. The British museum is failing to return items to (arguably) their rightful owners, not of stealing items. Second, someone bad doesn’t mean the other side is good. In a battle between two rival drug gangs, you’re just wrong to choose one that is the hero of the story. Likewise, if you have a power outage that caused a double booking at an event space between a soup kitchen and an animal rescue group, you don’t have to choose one group as the villain. Third, there’s _an argument_ to be made that, at some point, the value of an artifact extends less to a geographic region and more to the greater number of humans. The accomplishments of Aristotle are as much a part of my history as a Grecian’s for the most part. And as time goes on and those artifacts continue their existence, that only becomes more true. For all we know, a thousand years from now, there may be no native-born Grecian’s, because we all live on space faring craft, and there may be no Grecian ethnicity, because we’ve all intermixed so much. Artifacts are more for our descendants than they are for us. And, as such, there is a trade-off in giving back artifacts if a region can’t protect and preserve those artifacts, if the dominant beliefs of that region might demand that the artifacts be destroyed as idolatry, if the rulers of the region are tyrannic egomaniacs just as likely to give anything you give them to the next hot babe they’re trying to sex up, with no interest in treating the items as the property and history of their people, and so on. There is a duty to see to it that the rightful holder owns a thing. But most of the rightful holders aren’t born yet. ---
**Author:** ![StringsandHammers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stringsandhammers/32/17933_2.png) [@StringsandHammers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StringsandHammers)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2025, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-museum-suing-curator-for-stealing-artifacts/1012802/12 "2025-01-12T22:41:23Z")
I’m my response is at least half facetitious and I don’t claim to know even half the details of this case. Hiwever this Brit stand up comedian does a really good job of summing up British museums: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/x73PkUvArJY/maxresdefault.jpg "James Acaster On The Absurdity Of The British Empire") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x73PkUvArJY&t=27s) ---
**Author:** ![Tatterdemalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/43a26b/32.png) [@Tatterdemalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tatterdemalion)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2025, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-museum-suing-curator-for-stealing-artifacts/1012802/13 "2025-01-12T23:35:20Z")
> [@Ellecram](#): > > There should be a museum of irony. [https://www.ironmanmuseum.com/](https://www.ironmanmuseum.com/) How about this? ---
**Author:** ![Ellecram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellecram/32/18948_2.png) [@Ellecram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellecram)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2025, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-museum-suing-curator-for-stealing-artifacts/1012802/14 "2025-01-12T23:50:28Z")
> [@Tatterdemalion](#): > > > [@Ellecram](#): > > > > There should be a museum of irony. > > [https://www.ironmanmuseum.com/](https://www.ironmanmuseum.com/) > > How about this? Oh that is splendid! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2025, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-museum-suing-curator-for-stealing-artifacts/1012802/15 "2025-01-13T22:50:21Z")
And my earlier post was a reference to Eddie Izzard’s routine on the topic. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/UTduy7Qkvk8/hqdefault.jpg "Do you have a flag? - Eddie Izzard") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTduy7Qkvk8)