Experts call the disappearance of gold artefacts ‘colossal’, ‘a travesty’ and ‘serious breach of security on the part of SANParks’. The Heritage Monitoring Project reports on the theft of items from the Thulamela collection which recently came to light – months after the incident took place.
Questions are being asked within the heritage, museum and archaeological fraternity, why the theft of the Thulamela gold collection from the Kruger National Park early in December last year remains shrouded in secrecy. Museum insiders we spoke to say they are beginning to suspect that the theft has been swept under the carpet by authorities. They also allege that the reticence of the South African National Parks (SANParks) might be hampering the recovery of the items as it is standard practice to report heritage crimes to Interpol and the industry as soon as possible, as this has proven to aid in the recovery of objects quicker, while alerting other museums who may become future targets.
It also appears that SAPS and the Hawks are still no closer to making arrests despite strong suspicions that the theft was an inside job or at least aided by someone internally – as the artefacts were found missing from a locked display case of tempered glass that only employees of SANParks had keys to.
In mid-December last year, staff at the Stevenson-Hamilton Knowledge Resource Centre in Skukuza discovered a locked but partially empty glass display case. The case had contained gold coins and jewellery items from...
