Many people who have lost a parent will know that strange, intimate moment when you go back to the empty house after the funeral and start sorting through their possessions – the old books, the faded clothes and the odd pieces of broken jewellery. Tirunesh brought her last few things with her on the road out of Maqdala. Along the route, she succumbed to a chest infection, possibly TB, and died, leaving her son Prince Alamayu alone, an orphan. Her attendants held up some of her possessions as they mourned her before her burial. The bulk of her jewellery, including a broken silver-bead bracelet, was then boxed up with her dresses and brought to Britain. They are now in the Victoria & Albert Museum.

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All images ©Victoria & Albert Museum, London