Of all the stolen objects, the *ku* is perhaps the one whose theft is least likely to be understood by whoever holds it. It would not be recognized as a Gardner Museum object by anyone without specific knowledge of the case. It might pass for a decorative antique, a reproduction, or a piece of modest significance. Its actual significance—as a ritual object of extraordinary antiquity, made for ceremonial use in a Bronze Age civilization more than three thousand years ago—would be invisible to anyone who didn’t know what they were looking at.
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## The Investigative Record: What Thirty-Six Years Produced
The Gardner investigation is the longest continuously active major art theft case in FBI history. Understanding what the investigation has and has not established requires separating the documented evidentiary record from the investigative hypotheses that have been advanced over three decades.
What has been established through public evidence:
The theft occurred at 1:24 a.m. on March 18, 1990. Two men entered through the employee entrance after Rick Abath buzzed them in. Both guards were restrained. Thirteen objects were removed. The thieves were inside for 81 minutes and departed at approximately 2:45 a.m. The guards were found at 8:15 a.m.
The motion sensor log documented the thieves’ movements through the museum. It showed they spent the most time in the Dutch Room and the Short Gallery. It confirmed the sequence in which they worked.
The surveillance videotapes were removed by the thieves and have never been recovered. The footage they contained—whatever the cameras recorded on the night of March 18—is presumed destroyed.