LONDON: The British Museum said it had closed a number of exhibits after a fired 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.”

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 Saturday, with the thieves stealing the golden helmet of Cotofenesti, dating from the mid-fifth century BC, the museum said on its website.

The helmet — the centrepiece of a temporary exhibition — was on loan from Romania’s National History Museum in Bucharest.

Published in Dawn, January 26th, 2025