Dr Hirut Kassaw, Ethiopia’s Minister of Culture and Tourism, described the National Army Museum’s agreement to return two locks of hair, removed from the body of the Abyssinian Emperor Tewodros II, as a “brave and principled decision”. 

It also marked the first stage in a restitution strategy launched by the Ethiopian government to “pick off the most vulnerable of the looted items and make an unassailable case for them to be returned,” according to a spokesperson from the country's Embassy in London.

“We decided because of the introduction of the UK human remains legislation relating to museums, the high-ranking nature of the subject – Emperor Tewodros – and the resulting publicity if we were successful heightening interest in the whole issue of loot and restitution, we would approach the National Army Museum first", said the Embassy spokesperson. 

Ethiopia’s earlier request to return the locks of hair had been rebuffed, although the National Army Museum (NAM) did agree a request to remove the image of the Emperor’s hair from its website. 

Ethiopia’s new restitution strategy, initiated after the Museum’s three-year refurbishment (completed in March 2017), resulted in what Ethiopians describe as a more “enlightened approach” by the Museum. The Embassy gave two reasons: “the NAM recognised it was the humane thing to do, but secondly, as the Head of the NAM explained when the hair was returned, the museum was under no legal obligation to make restitution as the museum is not subject to the human rights legislation!”.

The relevance to the Museum of exhibiting locks of hair removed from the dead body of the Emperor Tewodros played a role in the NAM Council’s final decision to agree the Ethiopian’s appeal. Other factors taken into account were published in the Minutes of the Council’s meeting, held in May 2018: Ethiopia was requesting the recovery of the hair alone, not other artefacts from the Museum’s collection; on its return, the hair would be buried and not displayed; Ethiopia considers a lock of hair as ‘human remains’, even though hair is not recognised as ‘human remains’ in British legislation. 

The NAM benefits from a modern set of governing powers. Its Royal Charter grants powers ‘to sell, lease, exchange or otherwise dispose of any property of the Council which the Council considers to be not required for its purposes’ Further consultations with ACE, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport and the Foreign Office were held before recommending the hair’s return to Ethiopia.

The Embassy has been keen to emphasise the “National Army Museum deserves full credit for its action and for the goodwill they showed in complying with the Embassy’s request”.

The Emperor’s locks of hair will now be reinterred with his grave, located at a monastery in northern Ethiopia. 

Background to the Battle of Maqdala

For many years, the Ethiopian Government has lobbied for the return of hundreds of looted religious, cultural and historical items held in British collections - royal and religious regalia, Tabots (sacred plaques believed by Ethiopian Christians to symbolise the Ark of the Covenant), illuminated manuscripts and ‘human remains’ - seized by troops during a punitive expedition by the British to Abyssinia (modern day Ethiopia). 

The episode is a little known and inglorious chapter in British imperial history, also one of its most ambitious and expensive campaigns.

In 1867, an overwhelming army of 13,000 British troops under General Sir Robert Napier was despatched from India to rescue a handful of Europeans (including the British Consul), held hostage for several years by the Abyssinian Emperor Tewodros II. The campaign involved an impressive logistical operation, including the construction of roads and a railway across 400 miles of mountainous terrain.  It took over three months for Napier's expedition to reach Tewodros's mountain fortress at Maqdala (now known as Amba Mariam).  The tragedy which then unfolded involved the crushing defeat of the Emperor’s army, followed by the seizure of Maqdala on the 13th April 1868 and the suicide of the Emperor using a gun presented to him by Queen Victoria. 

Widespread looting by soldiers at Maqdala and at the Christian church at Medhane Alem followed the battle.  A clear act of sacrilege, this looting has been largely ignored in military narratives about the campaign.  Newspaper journalists who were present, including the Anglo-American journalist Henry M. Stanley, witnessed British soldiers tearing strips off the Emperor’s clothing and a soldier cutting locks of hair from the dead Emperor’s body.

Collecting trophies of war and their distribution as ‘prize money’ was common among armies during the colonial era. But the unedifying involvement of the British Museum's trustees by supporting the expedition with the aim of acquiring items for British national collections was described by its former Director, David Wilson, as ‘one of the less glorious episodes in the history of the Museum’. *

On the orders of General Napier, the British military authorities organised a two-day auction of plundered items just days after the looting had finished.  It is said that fifteen elephants and nearly two hundred mules were deployed to transport the plunder to the site of the auction. The proceeds, totalling £5,000, were then shared among the troops, according to rank, as ‘prize money’ - a reward payment for a successful campaign. 

Among those present throughout this auction was Richard (later Sir Richard) Holmes, an Assistant in the British Museum’s Manuscript Department who’d been appointed as ‘competent archaeologist’ to the expedition. Holmes aggressively bid and secured over 300 manuscripts on behalf of the Museum, as well as other royal artefacts removed from the Emperor’s treasury. He was later awarded both an ex gratia payment by the Museum’s trustees and a campaign medal.

Even the British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, criticised the scale of this looting. Gladstone and Napier both felt the looted items should be held in Britain only until they could be returned safely to Ethiopia. Apparently, that time has never arrived.

Of the many hundreds of items known to have been seized following the battle, only a few have been returned to Ethiopia.  The earliest restitutions include a Kebra Nagast (Book of Kings), returned following a request from Emperor Yohannes in 1872 and a silver crown, presented to Ras Teferi in 1924 by King George V.  Other returns have been made by private individuals.  Meanwhile, about a dozen UK institutions plus several private collections hold many other major items of sacred, historic or cultural importance to Ethiopia, acquired through purchase, bequest or gift following the auction. These institutions include the British Museum, British Library, Victoria & Albert Museum, Royal Library at Windsor Castle, Bodleian Library, Edinburgh University Library, John Rylands University Library, Manchester, Westminster Abbey and several regimental museums.

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

Photo: The storming of Maqdala, 1868 (watercolour), detail 

Courtesy of the Council of the National Army Museum, LondonNew Paragraph