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.
Detail of a picture spread of “relics from Abyssinia” in the Illustrated London News 20 June 1868
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 buffalo hide shield, returned to Ethiopia by a Scottish academic in May, 2004
Where: The Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa
The shield returned by Fiona Wilson
Professor Fiona Wilson returned this shield that her family had owned in Scotland since the late 19th century.
“Throughout my childhood the shield was hanging in the dining room of my parents’ house,” Fiona Wilson said at the ceremony when she handed over the shield to the Institute of Ethiopian Studies of the Addis Ababa University.
Wilson said her grandfather bought the buffalo-skin decorated in silver in the 1890s from a dealer and everyone believed it was Scottish.
“I discovered that I had become without realising it, the keeper of a small part of Ethiopia’s historical heritage and national treasure and decided to return it”, she added.
What: A tabot, returned by St. John’s Episcopal Church, Edinburgh in 2002
Where: Ethiopia, checking exact location
One of at least 11 Tabots (consecrated altar slabs) seized at Maqdala by British soldiers. This one was taken by a Captain Arbuthnot of the 14th Hussars who may have been an Aide de Camp to General Napier, the leader of the expedition.
On return to Britain, recognising the religious significance of the artefact, he presented the Tabot to St. John’s Episcopal Church at the west end of Princes Street in Edinburgh.
More than 130 years later, it was discovered at the back of a cupboard by the church’s then associate rector The Rev John McLuckie.
McLuckie, who had worked in Addis Ababa in the past, recognised the Tabot. After consulting with people in his church, and finding about AFROMET – the Association for the Return of the Maqdala Ethiopian Treasure – through the internet, he decided to return the Tabot to Ethiopia.
A party from the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, along with hundreds of Afromet supporters, arrived in Edinburgh in January 2002. The Tabot was handed back amid huge celebrations during a service at St John’s. (See The Scotsman’s picture of the handover ceremony)
Archbishop Isaias of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church arrived in Addis Ababa with the Tabot in early February. Hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians came out into the streets to welcome it.
A Tabot is traditionally kept wrapped in cloths at the centre of an Ethiopian Orthodox church.
It focuses the presence of God in every Ethiopian church. Its removal is an act of sacrilege comparable to the removal of the Reserved Sacrament in an Anglican or Catholic church.
It is only ever seen by the priest and represents the Ark of the Covenant, which the Israelites used to carry the Ten Commandments as they travelled to the Promised Land. Ethiopian Christians believe they still possess the original Ark.
Some clues about how it came to Edinburgh in the first place are found in this letter in the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh:
***
CH12/12/596 Letter from Dean Edward Bannerman Ramsay (Dean of Edinburgh) to Rev George Hay Forbes (Burntisland?)
23 Ainslie Place Edinburgh
My Dear Mr Forbes, The late King Theodore of Abyssinia had destroyed the Christian churches or some of them at Magdala – a number of relics of the internal furniture of these churches has been collected and laid up in the government stores. Captain Arbuthnot, who was with Lord Napier’s army when Magdala was taken brought some of these things home. He sent pieces to different clergymen and he sent a block of wood (which he understood had been used at the Comm table and that the xx [fulten, putten, pulten?] was put upon it) to me at St John’s. There is an inscription on it – the wood it is made of is said to be very ancient. Now dear Mr Forbes we much desiderate a translation into English of these Eastern letters. We naturally turn to you to help us. We know how skilled you are in Eastern literature and even if you did not know these Abyssinian letters we thought you could get them deciphered for us. I send therefore a little package, carriage paid, containing the inscription both in papers as copied or traced and also in plaster as a cast, I am yours sincerely and truly,
What: A tabot, returned by Dr Ian MacLennan in 2003
Where: Ethiopia, checking exact location
This tabot was taken from Magdala and brought to England by Hormuzd Rassam, a scholar and Queen Victoria’s Special Representative to Emperor Theodore.
It was later purchased by an English collector who put his entire stock of Ethiopian books and artefacts on sale through Maggs Bros book dealers in Mayfair, London.
It was spotted in Maggs’ catalogue by Dr Ian MacLennan, an Irish doctor who was a member of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. He bought it for an undisclosed sum, flew it back to Ethiopia and handed it over to the Orthodox church in July 2003.
What: A silver gilt crown with glass decorations returned to Ethiopia in 1924
Where: Unknown
The British Government agreed to return this Maqdala crown to Ethiopia during a state visit by Ras Tafari Makonnen (the future Emperor Haile Sellassie, who was then Regent and Heir to the Throne).
Ras Tafari Makonnen left Addis Ababa in April, 1924, starting an historic visit to Palestine, Egypt, and Europe to mark Ethiopia’s entry into the League of Nations.
The Regent’s eventual arrival in Britain, quite unexpectedly, and by a strange quirk of official British thinking, opened up the question of the loot which the Napier expedition had taken from Maqdala, Emperor Tewodros’s capital, over half a century earlier.
The British Government was unaccustomed to dealing with women who were rulers in their own right. The Foreign Office was therefore at a loss how to honour Ethiopia’s reigning woman ruler – Empress Zawditu.
Britain, having, as they believed, no suitable decoration for the Empress, someone in the Foreign Office had the bright idea that she should instead be given “Emperor Tewodros’s crown”. The brainwave was duly conveyed to Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary of Britain’s first Labour Government. He gave it idea his full support.
On 7 July, the very day of Regent Tafari’s arrival, one of the Prime Minister’s aides, Mr F.F. P. Adams, of the Foreign Office, wrote a “Very Urgent” letter on the matter to the Secretary of the Board of Education. This was because the latter was responsible for the Victoria and Albert Museum, in South Kensington. This institution, together with the British Museum, was one of the two principal repositories of the loot from Maqdala.
He wrote: “In view of the ineligibility of women for the highest British Orders, such as those which have been or about to be conferred upon the Ras Taffari, the bestowal of an inferior decoration on the Empress might be misinterpreted; it is, therefore, considered necessary in the circumstances to give her a present. It is thought that the only gift which would give her any real satisfaction, and which would also appeal to all classes of opinion in Abyssinia, would be the restoration of the Crown of Emperor Theodore, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Whatever artistic interest may attach to this exhibit can be but small in comparison with its historic and sentimental value for the Abyssinians, and it is considered that the restoration would give that country more solid satisfaction and gratification than any gift which could be made to them by any other country”.
On 11 July officials of the Foreign Office rushed off to speak with Sir Amherst Selby Bigge, of the Board of Education, from whom they learnt, to their surprise, that there was, not one crown, but two, both of which had been taken from Maqdala.
A Foreign Office official reported: “It appears that there are two crowns, the first a highly ornate and rather barbaric headgear is listed in the Museum as the imperial crown and if it is decided to return it to the Empress, it would probably be possible to do so by arrangement with the Secretary of State for India who, it appears, lent it to the Museum.
“The second crown, though less showy, is from an artistic point of view the superior article. It is listed in the Museum as the crown of the Abouna, but it appears open to doubt whether it is not really King Theodore’s crown. This second crown it will be impossible to restore, as nothing short of an Act of Parliament could get it out of the possession of the Museum; besides to restore it would create a very difficult precedent. We would be bebattled with demands to restore the Elgin marbles to Greece, not to mention other objects of interest which have been acquired from time to time as a result of military operations”.
He continued: “”If you think, after inspection, that the first crown… would serve the purpose in view and would not actually whet Abyssinian appetites for more and lead to demands for the second crown and a valuable chalice which we acquired at the same time, we will take the matter up with the Secretary of State for India. If, however, you are satisfied that nothing but the second crown… would produce the desired effect in Abyssinia then I am afraid we must let the whole matter drop”.
What Mr. Murray, most remarkably, did not say, but what we now know, is that the two crowns were of entirely different composition. The first crown, which he proposed sending as a gift to Empress Zawditu, was silver-gilt, with coloured glass decorations, whereas the second, which he wanted to retain in Britain, was made of gold, and therefore presumably infinitey more valuable.
This latter crown, according to Sophia Shirley of today’s Victioria and Albert Museum, is made “mainly of high carat gold (more than 18 carat) alloyed with silver sand copper”, and, according to Louise Hofman, also of the V. & A., weighs no less than 2,488.8 grammes.
On 14 July, 1924, which was a full week after Tafari’s arrival, the Foreign Office accordingly rushed off a letter to the India Office. Emphasising once again the need for urgency, it stated that King George V would be granting their distinguished Ethiopian visitor a farewell audience the following Friday, and that they were: “anxious, if possible, that on that occasion His Majesty should be able to inform the Ras that it is the intention to present the Empress with this crown, which has great sentimental value for the Abyssinians”.
The Secretary of State, as expected, duly gave his consent, on the following day, 15 July. The “rather barbaric” crown was then packed at the museum that same day – and was therefore not in fact seen by the Regent, or any of his compatriots, in the course of their visit.
The proposed repatriation was accordingly announced by King George, in a brief farewell speech to Ras Tafari, on 18 July 1924. The King is quoted in Emperor Haile Sellassie’s later “Autobiography” as saying, “We are returning to you the crown of Emperor Theodore which the commander of the British army at the time of the Magdala campaign had brought back”.
The Foreign Office decided that, to attain maximum publicity, the crown’s presentation should be carried out by the British Minister in Addis Ababa.
Final restitution was in fact delayed, for almost a year.
It’s current whereabouts are unknown. Professor Richard Pankhurst – the son of suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst and the founder of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies – believed it was plundered again by Italian forces who occupied -parts of Ethiopia during World War 11.
What: The Amulet which Emperor Tewodros of Ethiopia was wearing on 13 April 1868, the day of his dramatic suicide at Maqdala, returned to Ethiopia on 28 September 2002
Where: The Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa
It is now possible to piece together the greater part of the Amulet story. To do so we must however begin by going over part of the ground touched upon in these columns in the last two weeks.
The Suicide
Tewodros, rather than fall into the hands of his enemies, committed suicide, we would recall, on 13 April 1868. Lifting his pistol to his mouth he fired it, and fell down dead, thereby gaining a unique posittion in his country’s history. Within only a matter of moments British soldiers rushed into the citadel.
The British seizure of the fortress was followed, as we have seen, by extensive looting. Clements Markham, one of the leading British historians of the campaign, notes in his “History of the Abyssinian Expedition”, p. 359, that, immediately after the capture of the fortress, “the troops dispersed over the amba in search of plunder”.
Another eye-witness, the American writer Henry Stanley, writing of the loot in his book “Coomassie and Magdala”, pp. 457-9, observes: “There was an infinite variety of gold, and silver, and brass crosses… heaps of parchment royally illuminated; stacks of bibles; missals, and numberless albums… Over a space growing more and more extended in infinite bewilderment until they dotted the whole surface of the rocky citadel, the slopes of the hill, and the entire camp two miles off”.
Tewodros’s body
The British troops had by then found Tewodros’s body. This is reported by Markham, who recalls (p. 353) that “a crowd [of soldiers] came round the body, gave three cheers over it, as if it had been that of a dead fox, and then began to cut and tear the clothes to pieces until it was nearly naked”.
The above account is confirmed by Stanley. He reports (p. 459) seeing a “mob… of officers and men, rudely jostling each other in the endeavour to get possession of a small piece of Theodore’s blood-stained shirt”.
Sapper Bailey
Tewodros, in accordance with Ethiopian tradition, was wearing an Amulet round his neck when he died. This too was looted – by a certain Sapper Henry Bailey of the Tenth Regiment of the British Royal Engineers.
Sapper Bailey, we know for certain, was one of the first to enter the fortress of Maqdala. This is evident from a statement by his commanding officer, Major Pritchard, which appeared in the London Times, of 11 July, 1868. Thus quotes the major as stating that Bailey was “one of the first on the wall of Magdala”.
This caught the notice of the local press. Bailey was a Notting Hill man, so the Bayswater Chronicle, of 18 July, carried the following report:
“One of the HEROES OF MAGDALA – We understand that Henry Bailey, Sapper, 10th. Company Royal Engineers, who so nobly rushed off into Magdala and planted the British flag in that fortress was honourably mentioned in the despatches of Sir R. Napier, and whose name was read out on parade at Brompton barracks, Chatham, on Friday, July 10th., is the nephew of Mr. Dunford, superintendent to the late volunteer Fire Brigade of Notting-hill”.
The Amulet
Bailey, as one of the first to enter the fort, was, not surprisingly, one of the first to come across Tewodros’s body. This enabled him, as we now know, to snatch the deceased monarch’s Amulet.
Bailey certifies this in a note which he subsequently affixed to the still card on which the amulet was pasted. His statement reads as follows:
Tewodros’s Amulet
“I hereby certify that this charm was taken from the neck of King Theodore on the 12th. [a mistake for 13th.] of April 1868, as he lay dead inside the gates of Magdala by me. Henry Bailey, Sapper, 10th. Compy. R.E.” [i.e. 10th. Company Royal Engineers]
Bailey had, however, apparently no interest in keeping the “charm” as he called it. He accordingly gave it to his uncle, Mr. C.W. Dunford, who lived nearby at Sudbury Road, Notting Hill. This he did on 5 August, as certified by another note he attached to the amulet. It reads: “Presented to me by Mr. C.W. Dunford of Sudbury Road, Bayswater, on the 5th. August 1968. Henry Bailey, Sapper, 10th. company R.E”.
The Amulet Lost to View
Tewodros’s Amulet, like much else of the loot from Maqdala, then disappears from view. It is apparently not hear for an entire century – until 1968, when the present writer published a photograph of it with a brief note in Ethiopia Observer, Volume 6, Number 3, p. 291.
This publication of the above article has thus far not been noted on the press.
The Anonymous Donor
The Amulet’s then owner was firmly convinced that the Amulet should be returned to Ethiopia – at an appropriate moment, when its return could contribute to the wider cause of the restitution of Ethiopia’s looted heritage. That time came with the establishment, in 2000, of AFROMET: the Association for the Return of Maqdala Ethiopian Treasures; and the subsequent return, in 2002, of the Tabot most fortuitously discovered, and returned, by the Rev. John McLuckie of Edinburgh.
The present writer accordingly repatriated the Amulet, on behalf of the anonymous donor, at the end of September of this year.
AFROMET gave the Amulet’s return its full support, and organised an important and well-attended Press Conference, which was held at the Sheraton Hotel, Addis Ababa, on Saturday 2 November at 10am. The event was introduced by AFROMET Vice-Chair Ato Tafari Wossen, and featured an exhibition on Maqdala organised by AFROMET-member artist Zeryehun Yetemgata. Professor Andreas Eshete, the Association’s Chair, began by explaining the aims and objectives, as well as the history, of AFROMET, and paid tribute to the importance of the return of the Tabot from Scotland, after which Mr. Tony Hickey read out a message of support from the Rev. John McLuckie of AFROMET-UK.
The New IES Library
The present writer thereupon related the story of the loot from Maqdala, and of the Amulet, and emphasised the importance of building the new IES Library. AFROMET-member Ato Hailu Habtu then read out the Ge’ez text of the Amulet, presented a provisional English translation of it, and explained that the document revealed that Tewodros’s christening or baptismal name had been Sarsa Dengel.
After this Professor Andreas presented the historic artifact to the Professor Baye Yimam, the Director of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies. This gift was conceived as AFROMET’s contribution to the Institute’s New Library Project which is now actively underway.
Professor Baye Yimam, in receiving the gift from AFROMET, emphasised the historic importance of the Amulet, and observed that through it we felt that we were almost in Tewodros’s presence.
William Gladstone
All this cannot but remind us of the discussion in the British House of Commons, on 30 June 1871, when the great British statesman, William Gladstone, commenting on loot taken from Maqdala, observed, as quoted in “Hansard”:
“He deeply regretted that those articles were ever brought from Abyssinia, and could not conceive why they were so brought. They [the British people] were never at war with Abyssinia… he [Gladstone] deeply lamented, for the sake of all concerned, that those articles, to us insignificant, though to the Abyssinians probably sacred and imposing symbols, or at least hallowed by association, were thought fit to be brought away by the British army”.
