Later this year, thirty-two Asante treasures are returning to Ghana from London for an exhibition at the Manhyia Palace Museum in Kumasi, exactly one hundred and fifty years after British forces plundered the court of the Asante king in 1874.

Each of the two agreements made by the Palace Museum with London’s V&A and British Museum involve renewable three-year loans and were negotiated directly by the current Asantehene (King of Asante), Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, not by the Ghanaian government.

These magnificent gold and silver ornaments are all associated with the Asante royal court. They are of enormous cultural, historical and spiritual significance to the Asante people who believe they carry a meaning far beyond their material value. The ornaments will form part of an important exhibition planned to celebrate the 2024 Silver Jubilee of the Asantehene. They will also commemorate the 150^th anniversary of the 1873-4 Anglo-Asante war.

So, where could this new collaboration lead: to a new era where more 'disputed' artefacts are returned by UK national collections on long-term loan, or the first step on a path to full restitution?

Large quantities of gold objects and regalia were collected by British forces during the Anglo-Asante wars in the 19^th century. Many of these thirty-two objects returning to Ghana were looted on a punitive raid that took place on the Asante capital of Kumasi in February 1874. Some of these treasures arrived in Britain as part of a British indemnity payment, forcibly extracted from the Asantehene at the time, others were sold either at a Prize Auction convened hurriedly at Cape Castle, a site on the Gold Coast, or two months later (April) at another sale held at the crown jewellers Garrard’s. Asante objects were dispersed widely after these auctions and are now held in numerous collections around the world, including the British Museum, the V&A and the Wallace Collection, London.

The V&A is lending seventeen gold or silver items from its collection, including thirteen pieces of Asante royal regalia acquired by the Museum at the 1874 Prize Auction. The British Museum is loaning fifteen items, including a small gold ornament in the form of a lute-harp (sankuo), presented to the British diplomat Thomas Bowdich in 1817 but intended by the Asantehene as a gift for the British Museum.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4, Nana Oforiatta Ayim, a special adviser to Ghana’s culture minister, who described the objects as part of the soul of their nation, said the collaboration is a “good starting point”, but not the end of the story. Both UK museums describe it as an important cultural collaboration; V&A director Tristram Hunt says it "offers a new paradigm for a broader sharing of contested colonial heritage," but insists that it's “not restitution by the back door”.

This form of cultural partnership model is not unprecedented. Both UK museums have negotiated similar agreements. In July 2022, the V&A announced the return of a 3^rd century AD marble head to the Istanbul Archaeology Museum, an arrangement that will be reviewed after the first six years; the British Museum’s loan of a Potlatch mask to Canadian First Nation people in British Columbia has been active since 2005 and is renewable after each three-year period.

But this form of loan arrangement is new for Ghana. Although they've been on the restitution trail for fifty years, this is the first time Ghanaians have succeeded in negotiating a major loan agreement. The country made its first appeal for the return of Asante treasures in the collection of the British Museum in 1974, an event that became the subject of the UK’s first-ever debate on African restitution. However, it's the Asantehene who's pulled off this new arrangement, not the Ghanaian Government. Over several years, the Asantahene's negotiating team, led by the Ghanaian historian Ivor Agyeman-Duah and Malcolm McLeod, the British professor of African and Asante history and former Keeper of Ethnography at the British Museum, has spent decades navigating a delicate path through the UK’s unflinching heritage legislation.

How has this been possible? While the government of Ghana continues to argue for full restitution, the Asantehene's team has agreed to acknowledge the V&A and British Museum's legal title over the treasures. If other parties are comfortable exploiting this model that allows their contested heritage to be shared, the loan can be extended. Full restitution can await the future.

No doubt there are other communities appealing for the return of contested objects that can build on this model, so long as they also agree to put the contentious issue of  ‘ownership’ to one side - at least while existing heritage legislation remains in place. The makes the opportunity for further long-term renewable loans not just feasible, but also inevitable.

But will it ever lead to full repatriation?

V&A director Tristram Hunt may be a significant player in future developments. His full-hearted support to the ‘cultural partnership’ model is not in question. After a visit to Ghana in February 2021, he wrote in his foreword to the Museum’s 2021-22 Annual Review: “We are optimistic that a new partnership model can forge a potential pathway for these important artefacts to be on display in Ghana in the coming years”.

Band or fillet of gold embossed with foliage and scrolls for fastening to leather or other material. Asante.

Probably 19th century. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Could this optimism ever lead to another level involving full repatriation? It's well-known the V&A, like the British Museum, is in no position to negotiate full repatriation. Hence the insistence by Hunt this latest cultural partnership is not "restitution by the back door". Nevertheless, he hasn't been shy about the prospects for repatriating artefacts sometime in the future. Speaking on BBC Radio 4 in June 2022, he expressed a preference to see the National Heritage Act 1983 reviewed, then added:

"It should be the responsibility of trustees to make the case for what should and should not be in their collections, and at the moment they don't have that right because the 1983 Act means they are legally unable to do so".

The British Museum has been too distracted on a slew of other issues to share their views on whether or not a review of heritage legislation is timely. But new management might lead to more transparency and a new willingness to move with changes in society. We certainly hope so.

In the meantime, we're still a very long way from that review. When we approached the major political parties in England for their position on heritage legislation, only the Liberal Democrats confirmed the desirability of a debate.

"Of course, it wouldn't be right for all artefacts to be returned to their place of origin," a Liberal Democrat spokesperson told us. "But it is time that this country took a broader look at the issue. It is right that there is a proper public debate about artefacts and especially those with 'contested heritage'".

So, on balance, we don't believe this is the end of Ghana's campaign to repatriate the Asante treasures held in UK collections, although a great deal more patience and political goodwill would be required before the next chapter in Ghana's restitution saga can be written. The pace may be slow, but campaign progress is nevertheless encouraging.

Photo: Oblong repousse gold ornament with three bands of decoration. Asante, Ghana, 19th century

© Victoria and Albert Museum, London