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Jan 06, 2024

Exquisite jewellery and ancient coins among British Museum’s missing treasures

Silver necklaces, ancient coins and more than 500 ceramic fragments are among treasures missing from the British Museum, The Times can reveal. Other artefacts lost over the past ten years include

Silver necklaces, ancient coins and more than 500 ceramic fragments are among treasures missing from the British Museum, The Times can reveal.

Other artefacts lost over the past ten years include wooden opium poppy scorers shaped like birds and frogs, as well as green and blue glazed leaf pendants and beads.

The revelation comes as the museum faces one of the worst scandals in its history over the alleged theft and destruction of potentially thousands of precious items.

The Times has been told that a suspected thief spent at least 20 years plundering the museum’s vaults and exploiting its failure to catalogue which artefacts it held.

Many of the objects were not on public display and were being “studied endlessly for research” in the basement