AFROMET press release 27 January 04

Ethiopian campaigners today wrote to the Queen, asking her to return six holy manuscripts seized in a battle more than 130 years ago.

The illuminated manuscripts were part of a huge haul of treasure taken by British soldiers when they invaded Ethiopia in 1868.

Six of the most beautiful books - including one set of the gospels and two accounts of the miracles of Jesus and Mary - were presented to Queen Victoria when the troops returned from the campaign. They remain part of Queen Elizabeth II's private collection currently kept in the Royal Library in Windsor Castle.

The Association for the Return of the Magdala Ethiopian Treasures (AFROMET) today called on the Queen to hand them back.

Prof Richard Pankhurst, Vice Chair of AFROMET, wrote to the Queen, stating: "AFROMET would appeal to Your Majesty to lead the way by returning these manuscripts to their country of origin."

Prof Pankhurst, son of the suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst, described the illuminated books as "six of the finest Ethiopian religious manuscripts in existence". He added: "These were specially selected for Queen Victoria, and are therefore, from the artistic point of view, virtually without equal anywhere in the world."

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 on April xx, 1868, defeated his forces and freed 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, including more than 400 manuscripts, made its way into institutions like 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.

AFROMET has great hopes that the Queen will agree to its request – because she has shown great willingness to return other pieces of Magdala treasure in the past.

The Queen returned Emperor Theodore's royal cap and seal during a state visit to Ethiopia in 1965.

Over the years a tiny fraction of this loot has been returned to Ethiopia. An Ethiopic manuscript of the Kebra Nagast, or Glory of Kings (the national epic), was returned by the British Museum in 1873 at the request of Emperor Yohannes IV.

One of Emperor Theodore's crowns kept in the Victoria and Albert Museum was returned to Empress Zawditu in 1925 after the visit to Europe of Ras Tafari Makonnen, the future Emperor Haile Sellassie.

More recently, St John's Episcopal Church in Edinburgh returned a tabot – a sacred representation of the Ark of the Covenant - in January 2002. Thousands of people crowded the streets of Addis Ababa to greet its return.