Ethiopians seek return of looted treasures from Britain

Ethiopians are making another effort for the repatriation of "priceless" religious manuscripts and artifacts, and other valuables, looted as war booty by victorious Europeans, reports Panafrican new agency PANA.

The treasure includes a 17th-century icon depicting (Jesus) Christ with the crown of thorns, looted by the British more than 130 years ago.

According to PANA, the British Expeditionary Force under Gen. Robert Napier, later Lord Napier of Maqdala, captured the fort of Maqdala, Emperor Tewodros's mountain citadel in north-western Ethiopia and freed numerous foreigners, including Britons.

The foreigners were made captive by the monarch who committed suicide on the same day, they were freed. the victorious troops looted the royal treasures and churches at Maqdaga before they destroyed the fort.

An association for the Return of the Maqdala Ethiopian Treasures officially launched its activities at a public gathering in Addis Ababa Tuesday, marking the 131st anniversary of the fall of Maqdala.

The association, comprising scholars and noted personalities at home and abroad, appealed on the occasion to African scholars to support its efforts.

It said it was time that similar endeavors are made by other African countries to repatriate their national treasures either looted or stolen and taken to Europe or other parts of the world. Endrias Eshete, president of the association, said the group had been "embolden" by the success of the efforts in recent years of another Ethiopian association to recover the Axum Obelisk, which was looted by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini when his troops invaded Ethiopia in 1936.

The Obelisk was taken to Rome on Mussolini's order and reerected in close proximity of the Colosseum where it stands to this day opposite the headquarters of FAO in Rome.

Two members of the association -- Richard Pankhurst, a noted British historian on Ethiopia and founder of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies at the Addis Ababa University, and Seymour Mclean, a Jamaican historian on Africa -- addressed the gathering highlighting the contents and historical significance of the looted Maqdala treasures, with slides.

They urged African scholars in Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa and other countries to come out in support of the return of the Maqdala treasures, as they had done earlier in the international campaign for the return of the Axum Obelisk.

"International morality at the turn of the new millennium now is on the side of Africans to recover their treasures Europeans had looted since the 19th century," Pankhurst said.

The treasures looted from Maqdala include some 400 important church manuscripts in parchments, illuminated illustrations of the Holy Bible, most of them now in the British Library in London, ecclesiastical documents and gold crosses.

The one considered "priceless" among the treasures is a notable icon depicting Christ with a crown of thorns, which Ethiopian monarchs and their armies took with them whenever they went on a major war since the 17th century, according to Pankhusrt.