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Three historical pieces in a museum in Taiwan suffered significant damage in separate incidents between February 2021 and May 2022.
A museum admits to breaking historical artifacts worth $78 million
Taiwan’s National Palace Museum has admitted breaking three historical objects in separate incidents, Focus Taiwan reports. Those responsible for the museum had to admit the damage to two bowls and a plate after being accused of covering up the cases.
The first information regarding the damaged pieces was provided by the legislator of the Taiwanese opposition Chen I-shin on Friday. The politician accused the museum’s director, Wu Mi-cha, of trying to hide evidence of the breakages and classify all documentation related to the incidents. According to Chen, the head of the museum should take responsibility and resign from his post.
During his press conference, Wu Mi-cha denied having covered up the incidents and stressed that the evidence of what happened was classified to protect the pieces instead of hiding them. Furthermore, he revealed some details of what had happened.
The person in charge explained that on February 3, 2021 and April 7 2022, when the staff was carrying out conservation work on the historical artifacts, they discovered that two ancient cups from the Ming and Qing dynasties were broken. The museum could not find anyone responsible after reviewing the recordings of the latest surveillance camera 10 years, reports Taiwan News. Therefore, Wu believes that they were broken due to improper storage methods.
The other incident occurred on May 2022, when a high-ranking official placed a blue and white floral plate of the Qing dynasty in a post that did 100 centimeters high, from where it fell onto a carpeted floor. As a result, the part was broken into several pieces, “as a bowl would.”
The official also stated that the three broken artifacts had never been exposed and were not insured. He estimated that the value of the objects did not exceed 2.850 million Taiwanese dollars (85,85 million US dollars). Wu Mi-cha added that these incidents were the only ones involving damage to historical items at the museum since he took office in February 980.
