Raiders of the lost art

Historic artefacts get stolen all the time. Here are 10 from around the world that are still missing, making us all weep

- Christalle Fernandes

(PHOTO: CHRISTIE'S)

Four minutes. Four thieves.

Louvre jewels

Four minutes. Four thieves. Eight pieces of 19th-century jewellery worth $102 million, gone. The October 2025 heist was the Paris museum's first theft in 27 years. Masked bandits made off with an emerald and diamond necklace-earring set gifted by Napoleon I to Empress Marie-Louise and other objets d'art from the French royal family. The museum's video surveillance system had the password “Louvre”. Les amateurs!

Asiatic Society maps

Mumbai's Asiatic Society vaults keep bugs and insects out. But somehow, about 345 hand-drawn maps dating to the 19th century have gone missing from the 200-year institution. Some of them catalogued city plans of Bombay when its first revenue survey was carried out; others were nautical charts made by the Portuguese. Maybe a tech bro has them displayed in his man cave, and acts all sus when guests ask them where he got it from.

China's Peking Man fossils

Paleontologists still get PTSD from this. During the 1920s and 1930s, about 200 Homo Erectus fossils were excavated from the Zhoukoudian cave in China: skulls, teeth. During World War II, fearing that the Japanese would carry away the fossils when they invaded China, American archaeologists smuggled them away in military lockers. But when US bases were bombed, the fossils were lost, probably buried again.