Artifacts Stolen in Massive Archaeological Theft Recovered in Canterbury

Following a tip last week, police in Canterbury, England, have recovered most of the 2,000 items stolen in January from the storerooms and archives of the Canterbury Archaeological Trust. The BBC reports the items included 850 rare Anglo-Saxon glass beads, coins and bone objects. No arrests have yet been made, but the investigation is under way.

Sometime in late January, thieves smashed through a wall in one of the trust’s storerooms, cutting through electrical and water pipes and stirring up asbestos. They ransacked the storerooms, taking boxes of artifacts and also raiding the educational loans collection, stealing tools, replica metal axes, and other artifacts, such as a bust of Queen Victoria.

Matthew Weaver at the Guardian reports that the theft was likely not planned. Instead, the trust believes that metal thieves who have been stripping copper from surrounding abandoned buildings broke into what they thought was an empty building and came across the artifacts. Read more.