The Maqdala Campaign

The Association for the Return of the Ethiopian Maqdala Treasures (AFROMET) is campaigning for the return of the Maqdala manuscripts that were looted by the British in 1868.

Background
The Maqdala manuscripts and other treasures – including crowns and chalices - were looted from Maqdala, the mountain fortress of Emperor Tewodros in northern Ethiopia, in 1868, during the British Napier expedition.

Emperor Tewodros committed suicide rather than be taken prisoner by the British; his body was set upon by souvenir seekers – officers and soldiers alike – who stripped him of his clothes and tore out his hair. The British desecrated religious buildings, looted icons and totally destroyed the Maqdala fortress. See the AFROMET Memo to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee of the UK, 2000 for full details.

Professor Pankhurst and AFROMET
Professor Richard Pankhurst – son of Sylvia and grandson of Emmeline – lives in Addis Ababa and came to Britain in July 2000 to request the return of the loot in his capacity as secretary of AFROMET. Oral hearings at the British parliament had been suspended in June 2000 so AFROMET was denied a fair hearing by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee; AFROMET was consequently denied the opportunity to put forward very strong arguments for the return of the loot.

Memo tells the full story
A six-page memo from AFROMET has provided parliament with evidence and will be a permanent record of the request for the return of the treasure, but it could not replace the opportunity to put the arguments face to face as the situation surely deserves. In July 2000 letters were sent to 30 British MPs about the Maqdala loot. Individual members of the Anglo-Ethiopian Society are involved in the campaign.

Professor Pankhurst addressed a meeting of the British Ethiopia All-Party Parliamentary group on Thursday 20th July. The parliamentary report Cultural Property: Return and Illicit Trade was published on 25th July 2000 by the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport. On the subject of objects taken before 1907 it states that the judgement is likely to be historical and ethical rather than legal, and no less difficult for that’. The Museums Association emphasised that “every repatriation request has to be considered separately”. This was supported by the Museums and Galleries Commission, which considered that “each request needs to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, while mindful of the implications for the wider museum community”.

The museums are charities and must act in accordance with charity law and the individual charity’s constitution. Under charity law trustees cannot give away property without the approval of a designated authority – the Charity Commission, the Attorney General or the courts, as appropriate. The Charity Commission stated that: “trustees have to balance any moral case to return particular items of cultural property with their responsibilities to keep the property in the public domain for the public benefit”.

Furthermore, museums “may be constrained from returning an object by the terms of a particular gift”. But this is not the case with the Maqdala manuscript since Napier himself has recommended that it be returned.

It concedes that British museums are going to face increasing claims for the return of artefacts and goes some way to address what Britain should do about items acquired in the past and whose presence in British museums causes distress to those from whom they were originally taken. It proposes the establishment of a body to mediate between claimants and institutions.

The Maqdala manuscripts are sacred treasures whose looting caused, and continues to cause, great distress to the very many millions of Ethiopians who are extremely devout Christians.

Precedents have been set for the Maqdala loot to be returned – Queens Victoria and Elizabeth II have returned certain (relatively inferior) pieces. In 1911, Lady Valerie Meux bequeathed manuscripts from her private collection to Emperor Menilek; the will was overturned on the grounds that ‘he was dead’ but he did not die until 1913, and in any case he had heirs! The Irish government has promised to return some manuscripts (currently at the Chester Beaton Library in Dublin) at an Ethiopian studies conference in Addis Ababa later this year (2,000). If they do so, this will set another precedent.

Gladstone Furious, Napier remorseful
Mr Gladstone spoke on 30th June 1872 in the House of Commons, on a request that Parliament should pay for an Ethiopian crown thought to belong to the Abun [head of Ethiopian church], but which Professor Pankhurst thinks belonged to Emperor Tewodros, and a golden chalice.

HANSARD reports the relevant part of the speech as follows:

"He (Mr Gladstone) deeply regretted that these articles were ever brought from Abyssinia, and could not conceive why they were so brought. They were never at war with Abyssinia. They were never at war with the people or churches of Abyssinia. They were at war with Theodore... and he deeply lamented, for the sake of the country, and for the sake of all concerned, that those articles, to us insignificant, though probably to the Abyssinians sacred and imposing symbols, or at least hallowed by association, were thought fit to be brought away by the British Army”.
 
The British Museum, in applying for the money, had said that the two items would “constitute a permanent record of the most remarkable event of the present time”. But was it the business of the Museum to accumulate records of the most remarkable events of the present time? In his (Mr Gladstone's) opinion, it was the business of the Museum to do everything else almost except that.

Gladstone then refers to a letter from Napier. He continues: