Ethiopia, for over century, has been involved in what is now termed the question of the return of Africa’s cultural property.
Long History of Independence
The country, despite its long history of independence, was looted in the last century and a half on two notable occasions: by the British in 1868 and by the Italians in 1935-41.
Ethiopia, over the years, succeeded, however, in obtaining at least partial restoration of its looted property, and further important restitution, the return of the Aksum obelisk, is expected by many to take place in the near future. Ethiopia’s on-going struggle for the return of its cultural heritage, though far from complete, has thus established interesting precedents of relevance to the African continent as a whole.
The Maqdala Expedition
The first of the two acts of looting under review resulted from the attempts by Ethiopian Emperor Tewodros II (reigned 1855-1868) to modernize and unify his country. Faced with persistent Egyptian inroads on his northern and western frontiers, and acutely aware of his country’s technological backwardness, he wrote, in 1862, to Queen Victoria, proposing the opening of friendly relations with Britain.
The British Government, however, feared that this might alienate Egypt, then one of Britain’s principal sources of cotton, and therefore left the Ethiopian monarch’s letter unanswered.
Tewodros
Tewodros, a proud monarch, felt bitterly insulted by Britain’s failure to answer his letter. He was, however, uncertain whether this discourtesy reflected official British policy, or was somehow the result of malice on the part of the British consul Duncan Cameron, whom he mistrusted. The Ethiopian ruler accordingly responded by imprisoning Cameron and a handful of other Europeans, who had for one reason or another displeased him. He had them detained on his mountain fortress of Maqdala (better known in England as Magdala).
The British Government, which felt affronted by this almost unimaginable act of defiance on the part of an African ruler, replied, in 1867, by dispatching an armed expedition.
Those were the days of gun-boat diplomacy by sea, and armed expeditions by land!
Tewodros, a monarch concerned with centralization as well as reform, had by then collected many treasures at Maqdala. These included a thousand of the country’s finest manuscripts, written in the Ethiopian ecclesiastical language, Ge‘ez. The royal treasury, according to the British geographer Clements Markham, an eye-witness, thus contained "tons" of "manuscript books", besides other treasures.
The Battle of Maqdala
In the decisive battle with the British, fought below Maqdala mountain on 10 April 1868, Tewodros defended himself bravely, but his forces were easily crushed by the superior fire-power of the invaders. Recognizing his defeat he at once freed his European prisoners, and attempted to sue for peace.
The British, however, insisted on his unconditional surrender, which he proudly refused. They thereupon launched a final attack on the citadel. Tewodros, unwilling to fall into the hands of his enemies, committed suicide, whereupon resistance came to an end, and British troops quickly occupied the fort.
The Loot from Maqdala
Though the prisoners had been released, and Tewodros was dead, the victorious British troops "dispersed over the amba", or mountain-top of Maqdala, as Markham notes, "in search of plunder. The treasury was soon rifled".
In the course of this operation the soldiers also broke into Maqdala’s principal church, Madhane Alam, which was dedicated to the Saviour of the World, and, though this was an act of sacrilege, looted its eqa-bet, or store-house. Virtually everything they found in the palace and church was taken as booty. The American author H.M. Stanley recalls that the loot was soon "scattered in infinite bewilderment and confusion until they dotted the whole surface of the rocky citadel, the slopes of the hill, and the entire road to the [British] camp two miles off".
Sir Richard Holmes
One of those present at this large-scale looting was Richard (later Sir Richard) Holmes, Assistant in the British Museum's Department of Manuscripts, who had been appointed the expedition's "archaeologist". He states in an official report that the British flag had "not been waved... much more than ten minutes" before he himself entered the fort.
Shortly afterwards, while night was falling, he met a British soldier who was carrying a crown, which he assumed to have been that of the Abun, or head of the Ethiopian Church, and a "solid gold chalice" weighing "at least 6 lbs.". Holmes’s assumption that the crown had belonged to the Patriarch was probably incorrect, for it seems on examination to have been was more likely a royal crown. Be that as it may, Holmes succeeded in purchasing both artifacts for £4. He was, on the same occasion, offered several large manuscripts, but states, in an official report, that he declined them because they were too heavy to carry. The city of Maqdala was then burnt to the ground by British engineers, on 17 April.
The British military authorities, in accordance with the custom of the day, accepted the principle of looting, but sought to regularize it (and thus to transfer the booty from the ordinary soldiers to the officer class.) The loot collected by the troops was accordingly collected, and transported, on 15 elephants and nearly 200 mules, to the nearby Dalanta plain. There, on 20 and 21 April 1868, the army held a two-day auction to raise "prize money" for the men.
"Bidders Were Not Scarce"
"Bidders", Stanley states, "were not scarce", for "every officer and civilian desired some souvenir", including "richly illuminated bibles and manuscripts". Holmes, acting on behalf of the British Museum, was one of the principal purchasers. Stanley describes him as "in his full glory", for, "armed with ample funds", he outbid all other would-be purchasers ‘in most things’. The sale raised a total of £5,000, which gave each soldier "a trifle over four pounds".
A Vast Quantity of Loot
As a result of the Maqdala campaign - and Holmes' energy and funds - the British Museum (today the British Library), the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum), and several other British institutions, became the receivers of a vast quantity of artifacts stolen from Ethiopia.
The British Museum/Library acquired no less than 350 of Ethiopia’s finest manuscripts, many of them beautifully illuminated, while a further six exceptionally well decorated specimens were retained in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, where the Emperor's cap and imperial seal were also deposited. Sir Robert Napier, the British commander, later presented a manuscript to the Royal Library in Vienna, while two others reached the German Kaiser, and a further two the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris.
Almost 200 other volumes looted from Maqdala were subsequently acquired by the Bodleian Library in Oxford, Cambridge University Library, the John Rylands Library in Manchester, and several smaller British collections. Several of these manuscripts, significantly, are inscribed with the words Madhane Alam, i.e. the name of the principal church at Maqdala.
Ecclesiastical and Secular
The majority of these manuscripts, like most Ethiopian literature of former days, was ecclesiastical. The Maqdala loot, which contains many virtually identical texts, thus includes numerous Bibles, theological treatises, and lives of saints, not a few of them beautifully illustrated, which are of fundamental importance for the study of Ethiopian art and culture. There was, however, also a considerable amount of secular material, notably marginalia containing records of land grants and sales, and marriages, as well as the tax documents of Emperor Tewodros, the only such Ethiopian data known to exist for the period prior to the twentieth century.
Many Valuables
Many other valuable articles were also brought to Great Britain. They included two crowns, one of them the one purchased by Holmes, which was made of high carat gold, the other silver gilt; also a golden chalice, and a number of beautiful silver and other processional crosses. Most of these treasures ended up in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Two of Tewodros's remarkably fine tents, made of gaily coloured cloth, are now in the Museum of Mankind.
Ten Tabots
The loot reaching the British Museum also included ten tabot, or holy altar slabs, presumably seized as part of the loot from one or other of Maqdala’s two churches. One of these tabots is inscribed, significantly enough, with the name Madhane Alam, the church from which it was taken.
Such looting, it may be contended, was in no way justified, either by Tewodros’ imprisonment of the European captives, or by his subsequent resistance to the Napier expedition.
First Requests for Repatriation - and the Mystery of the Kwer’ata Re‘esu
The sudden, and unexpected, death of Tewodros was followed by three years of chaos, in which various Ethiopian chiefs, as was predictable, struggled for the succession. One of them duly emerged as Emperor Yohannes IV. On 10 August 1872, barely half a year after his coronation, he dispatched letters to Queen Victoria and to the British Foreign Secretary, Earl Granville, requesting the return of a manuscript and an icon, both of which had been removed from Maqdala. This was, as far as we know, the first request for the restitution of cultural property ever made by an African ruler - and is thus memorable!
A "Kebra Nagast"
The manuscript, a Kebra Nagast, or "Glory of Kings’, embodying the legend of the origin of the Ethiopian ruling dynasty, was of major importance. Beside a text of considerable cultural significance, its marginalia contained "historical and other documents relating. mostly to the City of Axum and its church", as John Winter Jones, an official of the British Museum, was later to note.
Kwer’ata Re‘esu
The icon, a Kwer’ata Re‘esu, or painting of Christ with the Crown of Thorns, was also of crucial significance in Ethiopian history. Since at least the seventeenth century it had been carried by the country's rulers on campaigns, and was an emblem before which courtiers swore loyalty in times of trouble.
Next Week: What happened next!