Ittai Gradel

Ittai Gradel (29 January 1965 – 28 April 2026) was a British-Danish academic and antiquities dealer known for exposing thefts of artefacts from the British Museum.

Early life Ittai Gradel was born in Haifa, Israel, on 29 January 1965. His father was British and his mother Danish, and he was the second child after his brother, Kim Oren Gradel. The family was Jewish, and moved to Denmark when he was two. he never obtained Danish citizenship. Gradel had a strong interest in the British Museum, and after he finished school at the age of 18, he went to London where he worked part-time on the London Underground and in a fish-and-chip shop, spending his free time at the museum.

Career Gradel held various positions at Aarhus University and the University of Copenhagen, and he was a visiting fellow at Brasenose College, Oxford in 2004–5. He also worked in the Department of Classics, University of Reading from 2005 to 2008. and later published as a paperback in 2004 . In 2025, he published a book with Nils Arne Pedersen titled The Lost Novel of King Solomon and the Demons.

Discovery of thefts at the British Museum Gradel first bought items from a seller named sultan1966 on eBay in 2014. The seller informed Gradel that he inherited the items from his grandfather who owned a junk shop in York between the wars, and over the years Gradel bought around 70 items from the seller. He became suspicious about the provenance of objects offered for sale by sultan1966 in 2016 when he saw a first-century Roman cameo featuring the fertility god Priapus listed for sale for £40 (but actually worth £15,000). He recognised the item from a line drawing in a 1920s book on British Museum's gem collection, but it was quickly removed from eBay listing. Checking his own purchases, the British Museum's records and other sources he found three items that could be proven to be from the museum's collection. He suspected that all the items he bought from the seller as well as 150 items he purchased from a third party originated from the museum. He was later informed by a retired keeper that one collection of 942 uncatalogued gems at the museum was found to have only seven left when checked. Peter Higgs, alleged to have stolen the items, was dismissed and the museum pursued a civil case against him for the theft of over 1,800 items. The revelation of thefts at the museum led to renewed calls for the return of artefacts such as the Elgin Marbles and Benin Bronzes.

Gradel returned 61 items he purchased from eBay directly to the British Museum. He deposited a larger set of 270 gems he suspected to be from the museum with the Thorvaldsens Museum, which repatriated the gems to the British Museum.

Gradel was named Personality of the Year by Apollo Magazine in 2024.

Death Gradel was diagnosed with renal cancer in 2010, which returned in 2022. He died from the disease on 28 April 2026, aged 61. He received an award from the British Museum in recognition of his "very significant contribution" days before his death.