Stolen

I learned about all this in art history classes in college, 50 years ago - and almost nothing has changed in the situation since back then. It's not just the British Museum, of course .... the Vatican Museums have a bunch of stolen stuff, including bits of the Parthenon, which they refuse to return. Because nothing says 'doing God's work' like running a for-profit world-class art museum :(.

And it's not just art. One of the American Museum of Natural History's most famous pieces, the Cape York meteorite, is one they paid Robert Perry for after he stole it from the native people of Green;and.