The pain of theft

It would be too easy to comment that the theft of antiquities from the British Museum, allegedly by a staff member who has since been sacked, is a sign of divine providence: the repository of much of humanity's history, some of it of dubious provenance or evident theft, is getting a taste of its own medicine, and proving to be a far less adequate custodian of that incomparable treasure than it claims to be.

The museum could reply that one bad actor does not spoil its self-ordained task of showcasing the course of civilization. It has noted that the crime was discovered, steps are being taken to recover the lost artifacts and the museum will learn from this. Of course, this is not the first time that antiquities have been endangered while in its care, most notably the scrubbing of parts of the Parthenon sculptures in 1938 and 1939. Perhaps the deeper resonance of this recent...