Hartwig Fischer

The British Museum has appointed National Portrait Gallery chief Nicholas Cullinan as its new director, as the 265-year-old institution grapples with the apparent theft of hundreds of artifacts and growing international scrutiny of its collection.

The number of artifacts that have disappeared from the British Museum is estimated at 2,000, chairman of trustees George Osborne said on Aug. 26, admitting the collection did not have a complete catalogue.

The U.K.'s former chancellor described the missing pieces as "small items of jewelry, gems, bits of gold that were not on public display."

Around 2,000 artefacts including gold jewellery and gems had been stolen from the British Museum over a long period of time, but recovery efforts were already under way, the museum's chair George Osborne said on Saturday.

The director of the British Museum has said he is stepping down with immediate effect after admitting to failings in the museum's investigation into the theft of items from its collection.

Eight ancient glass vessels shattered in the 2020 Beirut explosion go on display at the British Museum from Thursday, walking visitors through the painstaking international project to piece them back together.

In response to recent remarks by British Museum director Hartwig Fischer that the Parthenon Marbles will never be returned to Greece, Dame Janet Suzman, chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, insisted on Saturday they are in the wrong space and in need of the Attic light and blue skies.

When the director of the British Museum, Dr Hartwig Fischer, recently declared that it was the fiduciary owner of the Parthenon Marbles and that their displacement to the British Museum was a "creative act," the reaction was swift. For many, the British Museum was displaying an arrogance still rooted in an imperialist mind-set.

The British Museum is not the legal owner of the Parthenon Marbles and therefore the long-running dispute with Greece over their fate could only be resolved with their unconditional repatriation and not with a lending plan, the director of the Acropolis Museum, Dimitrios Pandermalis, reportedly told German public radio on Wednesday.

Egypt renewed its request for the British Museum to return the prized Rosetta stone to its country of origin.