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Chinese antiques stolen from museum
By Yu Zhong (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-11-02 21:37
The British Museum is still working closely with local police to trace 15
Chinese antiques stolen last week.
"We have no new information about the lost pieces so far. The case is still
in the hands of the police," Hannah Boulton, a press official with the museum,
told the China Daily.
Fifteen items, mostly jewelry including hairpins, earrings and fingernail
guards dating back to between 700 to 1400 AD, may have been stolen Friday
evening, Xinhua News Agency reported.
The museum told Xinhua that the items were found to be missing on Saturday.
Police suspect the robbery is linked to the theft of 9 Chinese art objects
worth about 60,000 pounds (US$108,000) from the Victoria and Albert Museum in
London last month.
The museum gave no estimate of the value of the stolen pieces.
"We do not put financial values on our pieces, but these are obviously
expensive and historically important," said Boulton.
She said the museum has also appealed to dealers and collectors to watch out
carefully for the missing pieces.
Boulton refused to make any comment on the security system of the museum, but
said the museum has had it strengthened after the theft.
Founded in 1753, the British Museum houses one of the world's greatest
collections of antiquities and artifacts, totalling around 7 million items.
The four kilometres of galleries and corridors in the museum are patrolled
daily by a security force and feature a sophisticated alarm system.
This is not the first theft of Chinese antiques in England.
On October 4, thieves forced open a cabinet in the Victoria and Albert Museum
and stole 9 Chinese objects including three small cups, two miniature animal
figures, a bowl, two small ornamental plaques and a small ritual cylinder -- all
made of a dark green-brown coloured jade.
All date from between the 15th and 19th centuries, except the cylinder, which
is dated earlier than 1,000 BC, AFP reported.
"This appears to have been a well organized theft and the intention may be to
sell these objects quickly," the agency quoted Mark Jones, the museum's
director, as saying.
Shortfalls in museum security were highlighted in September when thieves made
off with "The Scream" and another world-famous painting by Norwegian artist
Edvard Munch from the Munch Museum in Oslo, the AFP reported.
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