Objects taken at Maqdala in 1868, and their returns

On 13 April 1868, at the mountain fortress of Maqdala in northern Ethiopia, Emperor Tewodros II died by suicide. He used a pistol that Queen Victoria had once given him, rather than be taken by the British force that had just defeated his army. In the days that followed, soldiers carried objects out of the fortress and its church.

The expedition had a cause. Tewodros, emperor from 1855, wrote to Queen Victoria in 1862 and asked for British help. The British Museum says the letter was never passed to her. He then held the British consul and other Europeans hostage. Britain sent troops under Sir Robert Napier. The British Museum counts 13,000 British and Indian soldiers, and the V&A says about 12,000. They won a battle at Aroge on 10 April and the battle at Maqdala on 13 April.

The British Museum says soldiers and freed hostages took objects from the fortress and the church. Crosses, crowns, chalices, weapons, textiles, jewellery and manuscripts were among them, and so were tabots, consecrated altar tablets. By military order the fortress was destroyed on 17 April. On 20 and 21 April an army committee sold the objects on the Delanta Plain to raise prize money for officers and troops. The BBC, citing historians, reports that about 15 elephants and 200 mules carried the loads. The sources give no total for the sale and no prices.

Richard Rivington Holmes, a British Museum manuscripts assistant who travelled with the army, bought 13 objects at the sale. Napier bought objects too. The British Museum now holds more than 90 objects, including 11 inscribed tabots. They have never been on public display. The museum keeps them in a place set apart, in consultation with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. About 90 Ethiopian objects, mostly linked to the expedition, are at the V&A. More than 300 manuscripts went to the British Library. Tewodros’s son, Prince Alemayehu, aged seven, was taken to Britain. He died in 1879, aged 18.

Some objects have been returned. On 27 January 2002 a tabot, found in a cupboard at St John’s Scottish Episcopal Church in Edinburgh, was handed to the Ethiopian archbishop. In November 2002 the BBC reported that an unnamed donor had returned a sacred amulet. On 20 March 2019 the National Army Museum handed two locks of Tewodros’s hair to Ethiopia’s culture minister. The museum had received them in 1959. On 8 September 2021 objects bought privately by the Scheherazade Foundation, set up by the writer Tahir Shah, were handed over in London. The Art Newspaper calls it the largest single restitution of Maqdala objects. On 21 September 2023 the ambassador received a lock of Prince Alemayehu’s hair, a tabot, three silver cups and a shield. In February 2024, the Art Newspaper reports, a shield engraved “Magdala 13th April 1868” was withdrawn from auction after Ethiopia identified it as loot.

The large collections remain in Britain. Ethiopia’s ambassador has said at least 1,500 items are in the United Kingdom, as The Art Newspaper reported in 2019. The V&A’s crown and chalice from Gondar have been in its collection since 2005. The V&A says a 1983 Act stops it from giving objects away for good. The British Museum says it is open to dialogue. Buckingham Palace has refused to return Alemayehu’s remains, the BBC reports.

The latest facts date from April 2026. The V&A published an essay on its Ethiopian collections on 7 April. On 9 April The Art Newspaper reported that talks about a long-term loan of the crown and chalice appear to have stalled.