What: An Ethiopian soldier’s leather wallet with bullets
Where: King’s Own Royal Regiment Museum, Market Square, Lancaster, LA1 1HT
The museum entry reads: “Leather wallet containing bullets taken from one of the Abyssinian soldiers.”
Accession Number: KO0229/05
What: An “interesting small collection” from Ethiopia and the 1868 Abyssinian Campaign. No details of items.
Where: The National Museum of Ireland
“In terms of numbers … the sub-Saharan African collection is quite modest, between three thousand and four thousand objects. Of these roughly one third are from Ghana. Other countries well represented are the former British colonies of Sierra Leone, Nigeria (the latter unevenly), and South Africa. East Africa fares less well by comparison. Of non-British territories, there are interesting small collections from Zaire, Madagascar, and Ethiopia, and scattered objects commemorate British military involvement in various parts of Africa (the Abyssinia campaign of 1868, the battles of Tofrik in 1885 and Omdurman in 1898).“
Hart, W. (1995). African Art in the National Museum of Ireland. African Arts, 28(2), 35-91. doi:10.2307/3337224
“Our database shows c 37 items that are linked to Abyssinia. They entered the NMI collections in the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. They include swords, belts, daggers and other items.
“Some were transferred from the Royal Dublin Society, others donated by former military men or purchased by the Museum from individuals.”
Email from Dr Edith Andrees, Curator of Silver and Metalwork, Numismatics, Scientific Instruments 04/02/2021
What: The seal that Emperor Tewodros used to sign his orders and correspondence
Where: Returned by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II during her state visit to Ethiopia in February, 1965. Checking current whereabouts.
The Birmingham Daily Post had a report on the return of the seal and a crown in its edition of Feb. 8, 1965:
The Queen returns Ethiopian crown
The Birmingham Daily Post
Monday, Feb. 8, 1965
ASMARA, Sunday
THE QUEEN tonight returned to Ethiopia the crown and seal of the Emperor Theodore, taken by British troops during the Abyssinian campaign of 1868.
At a farewell banquet in her honour, she told her host, Emperor Halle Selassie, that the gesture was “a token of our gratitude and esteem for your throne and person.”
Tremendous applause greeted her statement. The Queen added: For my husband and myself these last seven days have been unforgettable.”
Earlier today. the Queen attended service at a newly built cathedral in Axum, 100 miles from here, the ancient Christian capital of Ethiopia where the Queen of Sheba is reputed to have lived.
For the first time in hundreds of years women in Axum were allowed to worship in church. Ten centuries ago a Jewess named Judith led the last of a aeries of invasions on Axum. It may have been because of her role in the sacking of the city that the fourth-century shrine of St. Mary was banned to women.
Today, by decree of Emperor Haile Selassie, 600 women were admitted to the cathedral.
What: A shotel sword thought to belong to Werner Münzinger, British Consul during the time of the Abyssinian campaign
Where: The Royal Collection, Britain
The database entry has a picture and reads: “Sword (shotel) with a long, sickle-shaped, two-edged, steel blade with a prominent centre ridge and a wooden I-shaped hilt overlaid in silver, jewelled with carbuncles, with the inscription ‘Munzingee [Münzinger?] to Dillan. Abyssinia, 1868’. Plain leather scabbard covered with red velvet.”
Munzinger is likely to be Werner Münzinger (1832-1875), an explorer of East Africa and British Consul during the time of the Abyssinian campaign of 1868.
“Recorded in the 1910 catalogue of Arms and Armour at Sandringham House with the note ‘Obtained during the British Expedition of 1867-6 (C. Purdon Clarke, Arms and Armour at Sandringham : The Indian Collection Presented by the Princes, Chiefs and Nobles of India to His Majesty King Edward VII, When Prince of Wales, on the Occasion of His Visit to India in 1875-1876; Also Some Asiatic, African and European Weapons and War-relics, no. 570)”
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Colonial collections in British military museums: Of objects, materiality and sentiment
By Henrietta Lidchi and Nicole Hartwell
from Museums, Society and the Creation of Value, 2021, Routledge – £33/£120
Colonialism and the Object: Empire, Material Culture and the Museum
Edited by Tim Barringer, Tom Flynn
Routledge, 1997 – £35/£105 (Limited free preview)
Dividing the spoils: Perspectives on military collections and the British empire
Edited by Henrietta Lidchi and Stuart Allan
Manchester University Press, 2020 – £25/£80 (Free preview)
Reinventing Africa: Museums, Material Culture, and Popular Imagination in Late Victorian and Edwardian England
By Annie E. Coombes
Yale University Press, 1994. $35 (Free preview, cheaper second hand editions available online)
Legacies of Empire
The National War Museum, Edinburgh Castle
27 Nov 2020 – 29 Jan 2023
Examines the histories connected to objects brought back from colonial conflict by the military forces of the British Empire.
Baggage and Belonging: Military Collections and the British Empire, 1750 – 1900
A collaborative research partnership between the National Museums of Scotland and the National Army Museum that reappraises motivations for military collecting. It investigates cultures of collecting by members of the British armed forces while on campaign and garrison duty in Africa and India during the late 18th and 19th centuries.
Hidden in Plain Sight: Non-European collections in military culture
A series of workshops of anthropology and military history experts organised by The Royal Society of Edinburgh, held from 2013-2015, that appraised the state of research into non-European military collections.
Military Encounters – Reassessing military collecting in North America and Tibet
Researcher Rosanna Nicolson surveyed military collections from two British campaigns that bookend the period of high imperialism: the Seven Years’ War in North America (1754-63) and the Younghusband Mission to Tibet (1903-04). British Academy/Leverhulme Trust project – 2014.
The Museum Ethnographers Group Blog has a post on the project.
I don’t do things by halves – the incredible conservation of the James Bruce drinking horn – Part 1 :: Part 2
by Lydia Messerschmidt
A two-part article on the restoration of a drinking horn that was taken by the Scottish explorer James Bruce of Kinnaird on 21 May 1772 after the Second Battle of Sarbakusa, Ethiopia. Now in the National War Museum in Edinburgh Castle. – FREE
Framing colonial war loot: The ‘captured’ spolia opima of Kunwar Singh
by Nicole M Hartwell
Journal of the History of Collections, Sept. 29, 2021– FREE