If the British Museum ever does return its collection of Tabots to Ethiopia, nobody here will ever miss them.

You’ve probably never heard of them; you’ve certainly never seen them. Neither has any other visitor to the Museum, nor even its own curators. In fact, if you were a trustee of the British Museum and ask to see what all the fuss is about, you wouldn’t be allowed to see them either.

Since they entered the Museum, these eleven sacred plaques have been sealed away at a secret location ‘specially set aside for the purpose’, out of sight and never made available for exhibition or study in 150 years.

Their significance to worshippers in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and their unsuitability to be held in the British Museum – any museum - is the reason why we've been campaigning for their return. It’s also why we decided last week to press the Museum to give answers to the questions they've refused to answer for more than 30 years.

The Museum must reply to our Freedom of Information request (FOI) within the next 20 working days. We’ve asked them to provide details of all the appeals made to return the Tabots since 1990, details of their responses and details of when trustees met to discuss these different appeals, what decisions they made and why.

In the event they refuse to provide this information, or give an inadequate response, our legal team at Leigh Day will advise us on the merits of launching proceedings against the British Museum in the Information Tribunal, or otherwise by making a formal complaint to the Charity Commission.

Complete silence by the Museum’s trustees to explain why they're so reluctant to return a group of sacred objects that serve no educational purpose and why they are ignoring the legal grounds that already exist for their return to Ethiopia is concerning. It begs the question whether the Museum's trustees are entirely conversant with the issue of the Tabots.

Tabots are sacred plaques, representations of the Ark of the Covenant which are of huge significance to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Indeed, a church cannot fully function as a place of worship when deprived of its Tabot. Although only ordained priests are allowed to view them, Tabots are paraded in the streets on Church holy days, concealed under a cloth, revered by the faithful. Ironically, it’s precisely because the Museum is aware of this religious rule of concealment that it has agreed never to make the Tabots available for exhibition or study in the future.

“The issue is very much one of faith,” said former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey underscoring the religious grounds for their return. “It is cruel to deprive believers of access to faith and Tabots are essential to Ethiopian worship”.

Nine of the Museum’s eleven Tabots are connected to the looting that took place in 1868, when an army of 13,000 British soldiers overthrew the spear-wielding forces of Emperor Tewodros II (1855-68) at his mountain fortress at Maqdala, Abyssinia (now Ethiopia). Looting was a legitimised practice across Africa throughout the colonial era, when the proceeds from ‘Prize Auctions’ were used to offset the expenses of a military campaign. Attending the auction that followed the battle at Maqdala was resident archaeologist Richard Holmes from the British Museum. Holmes had been sent with the army to snap up objects for the Museum’s collection, the only time a British Museum official was ever despatched to collect objects with an army expedition.  In his 2002 history of the Museum, former director David Wilson described the British Museum’s trustees involvement as “one of the less glorious episodes in the history of the Museum”*.

The evidence is clear these nine Tabots were looted in a naked act of sacrilege. This should be a good enough reason to return their ownership to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. But of course, objects plundered during the colonial era do not qualify for repatriation from Britain's national collections. Almost without exception, the British Museum's governing legislation was drafted as a way of keeping its collections together. However, the case for returning the Tabots is different: there are legal grounds that enable these unsuitable objects to be returned under existing legislation. The Museum’s trustees neither need the permission of Parliament nor an amendment to the Museum’s governing Act. An exemption – it shouldn't be described as a loophole – exists within the British Museum Act 1963, approved by Parliament almost 60 years ago, which enables trustees to dispose of objects they consider are ‘unfit to be retained’.

In September 2021 a legal opinion by Samantha Knights QC of Matrix Chambers, commissioned by legal firm Leigh Day on behalf of The Scheherazade Foundation, confirmed the Tabots can be returned to their country of origin. Trustees were sent a copy of this opinion, but they've provided no response.

The exemption in Section 5(1)(c) of the Act may be little known, but it’s still hard to understand why the Museum’s trustees are stubbornly refusing to exercise it. After all, how much more ‘unfit to be retained’ does a sacred object need to be if the Museum itself has agreed it will never be exhibited or made available for study and especially when, according to the Museum’s governing Act, it can be disposed of without detriment to the interests of students.

The Museum has suggested the Tabots might be placed on loan to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in London. But Ethiopia wants full ownership of these Tabots to be transferred to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. In which case, it's not the place of the British Museum to determine where the Tabots should be held.

Our objective for submitting this FOI request is simple. To date, the Museum’s trustees have provided no explanation why they refuse to apply the exemption. We want to understand why they are ignoring it when grounds for returning the Tabots are overwhelming. If trustees believe the opposite, let’s understand their reasons why.

* David M. Wilson, The British Museum: A History (British Museum Press, 2002), p. 173-4

After this was written.....

On the expiry of the 20 working day period to respond, the British Museum wrote to us requesting further time to consider the public interest test for two qualified exemptions to disclosure. The FOIA permits the Museum to extend the time to respond beyond the 20 working days to a "reasonable time". We have asked the Museum when they intend to provide their response.

Photo: Priests carrying sacred Tabots, Timkat Festival

Courtesy of Flickr