With a doctorate in Roman religion and a university chair, Ittai Gradel, who has died of cancer aged 61, might have confined his achievements to a successful scholarly career. However, in 2008, bored with routine bureaucracy, he left his post at Reading University, and returned to his native Denmark to deal in antiquities.
His disillusionment with academia was reinforced when, a few years later, he discovered that large-scale thefts had been taking place from the British Museum’s collections. At first reluctant to believe the accumulating evidence, Gradel contacted the museum in 2021 only when it became impossible to deny – and was told nothing was missing.
