Edinburgh Evening News 17 September 03

A HOLY book seized by British soldiers in a bloody battle in Ethiopia more than a century ago is to be returned to its homeland, thanks to a group of Edinburgh campaigners.

Former city priest the Rev John McLuckie set up Afromet UK - dedicated to returning plundered treasure to the African country - after he found an ancient Ethiopian altar slab hidden at the back of a cupboard at St John's Episcopal Church in Princes Street in 2001.

Earlier this year, members spotted a handwritten copy of the Book of Psalms advertised for sale in a book dealer's catalogue and decided to stump up the £750 to buy it so it could be sent back to Ethiopia.

Now Dr Richard Pankhurst, son of the suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst and a long-time campaigner for the repatriation of Ethiopian loot, is to take it with him when he travels to Addis Ababa later this month.

The 300-year-old book, written in the ancient Ethiopian language of Ge'ez, was part of a huge haul taken in the battle of Magdala in 1868.

British troops invaded Ethiopia after Emperor Theodore II imprisoned a number of Western diplomats and missionaries.

The soldiers stormed the Emperor's mountain fortress of Magdala to free the captives. After the battle, they loaded 200 mules and 15 elephants with gold crowns, swords, altar slabs and manuscripts before burning Magdala to the ground.

The bulk of the plunder made its way into institutions such as the British Museum and Oxford's Bodleian Library.

But a large number of smaller items were taken home by individual soldiers and ended up in private collections.

The seven-inch square volume bought by Afromet was displayed in a leather case, stamped with the words "Taken at Magdala".

A label inside described it as "one of the few surviving manuscripts that is not in the British Museum from the enormous looting which took place after the assault on the fortress of Magdala".

Campaigners claim its return to Ethiopia will increase pressure on the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Windsor Castle and other UK institutions to return hundreds of illuminated manuscripts and other treasures taken at the same battle.

Mr McLuckie, who is now working in the north-east of England, today called on private collectors across the UK to consider returning any pieces of Magdala loot they owned. And he vowed to carry on campaigning for treasures to be handed back.

"There is a strong feeling that this is righting a wrong done 140 years ago and we are determined to keep the pressure on."

Dr Pankhurst, 74, a recognised authority on Ethiopian history and culture, will present the Book of Psalms to the Institute of Ethiopian Studies for display in its museum in Addis Ababa. He said: "Imagine if the UK and US troops currently in Iraq went about looting its museums and holy places.

"The whole world would rise up to condemn such a cultural crime.

"All we are trying to do is to seek to apply the same standards to the question of the Magdala loot."

Afromet - the Association for the Return of the Magdala Ethiopian Treasures - has had other successes.

Months after Mr McLuckie found the altar slab at St John's, an anonymous collector from London returned an amulet that had been ripped from around Emperor Theodore's neck after he committed suicide at Magdala.

And in July this year, Irish doctor Ian MacLennan bought another altar slab and flew to Addis Ababa to hand it over to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.