AFP, LONDON
The British Museum said it had closed a number of exhibits after a fired information technology (IT) contractor “shut down” some of its systems, in one of several unrelated incidents targeting European museums on Saturday.
The London venue, one of the UK capital’s biggest tourist draws and best known for housing the Rosetta Stone and the Parthenon Marbles, said police had arrested the suspect.
“An IT contractor who was dismissed last week trespassed into the museum and shut down several of our systems,” a museum spokesman said. “We are working hard to get the museum back to being fully operational, but with regret our temporary exhibitions have been closed today and will remain so over the weekend.”
A worker holding an umbrella guides tourists at the British Museum in London on June 12, 2023.
Photo: AP
Meanwhile in the Netherlands, the Drents Museum in Assen said it was closed for the weekend after robbers used explosives to break in and steal three antique bracelets and a gold helmet.
Police were alerted to an explosion early on Saturday, with the thieves stealing the golden helmet of Cotofenesti, dating from the mid-fifth century BC, the museum said on its Web site.
The helmet — the centerpiece of a temporary exhibition — was on loan from Romania’s National History Museum in Bucharest.
In Paris, the world-famous Orsay Museum was forced to disable its own ticketing system for several hours on Friday after falling victim to a fraudulent scheme involving “mirror sites,” it said on Saturday.
The museum, home to works by Vincent van Gogh and other master painters, was on Friday alerted that visitors trying to buy tickets online were being redirected without realizing it to bogus ticket sales Web sites.
After suspending online ticketing services for some of Friday, operations were back to normal Saturday, it said.
A spokesperson for London’s Metropolitan Police said officers responded to the British Museum late on Thursday following reports that a man on-site had “caused damage” to its security and IT systems.
Police arrested the man in his 50s at the scene on suspicion of burglary and criminal damage.
He has been bailed “pending further enquiries,” the spokesperson added.
Part of the museum’s permanent collection was also closed on Friday following the incident, Britain’s Press Association news agency reported.
A message on the museum’s Web site on Saturday said that it was “open, but due to an IT infrastructure issue some galleries have had to be closed.”
The incident is the latest embarrassing security lapse for the museum after allegations emerged in 2023 that a former employee was suspected of selling items stolen from its vast collection.
About 1,800 objects were disclosed as missing or stolen in August 2023.
The museum dismissed a staff member suspected of involvement in what it called “an inside job,” and alerted police who have interviewed a person but made no arrests.
Hundreds of the items have since been recovered.
Following a furor around that scandal, Hartwig Fischer, the director of the museum at the time, resigned.
After a temporary head was appointed, Nicholas Cullinan — who was previously in charge of the National Portrait Gallery — took over the role last year.
