Charles Davis writes “from
afromet.org
Posted to mailing list at
museum-security.org.
A handwritten copy of the Book of Psalms that British troops
looted from Ethiopia in the 19th century will be returned.
A group that works to return looted treasures to Ethiopia said
Tuesday that it will take the 300-year-old book to Addis Ababa, the
capital of the eastern African nation, later this month. British
soldiers took the book and other treasures when they stormed the
mountain fortress of Emperor Theodore II at Magdala during an
invasion of Ethiopia in 1868. The Association for the Return of the
Magdala Ethiopian Treasures bought the book from a private dealer for
$1,200 earlier this year. The volume is in a leather case stamped
with the words “Taken at Magdala.” It is written in the ancient
Ethiopian language of Geez. A label inside describes it as “one of
the few surviving manuscripts that is not in the British Museum from
the enormous looting which took place after the assault on the
fortress of Magdala.””
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