Ethiopia called for the return of a 19th-century shield, taken by British soldiers more than 150 years ago from its original location during a military raid. The engraved shield is part of a vast cache of royal, religious, and military artifacts looted during the 1868 Battle of Maqdala, and is now headed to auction in the UK. The battle began when British forces seized a compound of the Coptic Christian Emperor Tewodros II in what was then known as Abyssinia. Released British hostages and British forces looted sites in the northern village where Tewodros was based, taking the objects back to the UK, where many were later circulated for sale.
Abebaw Ayalew, director general of the Ethiopian Heritage Authority, penned a letter to the UK auction house Anderson & Garland calling for the sale to be stopped as the shield had been acquired wrongfully therefore making the sale inappropriate and immoral. The group called for the auction house to restitute the shield to Ethiopian officials so that it can be placed on public display in Ethiopia. The shield, engraved with the phrase “Magdala April 13, 1868” and crafted from animal hide and metal, was set to be auctioned with a price estimate of £800–£1,200 ($1,000–$1,500). The auction was to take place at the house’s Newcastle location, where the object was to be offered alongside a collection of other military antiques on Thursday the 29th of February 2024.
In a cataloging note, the house said the shield was taken in 1868 during “the destruction of Tewodros’ artillery and the burning of Magdala as retribution.” The company did not disclose the shield’s provenance record or details around its current owner. This call from Ethiopian officials is part of a larger project of recovering Maqdala artifacts held in international museums and private collections. In September 2021, Ethiopia successfully reclaimed a trove of objects linked to the Maqdala raid from the Scheherazade Foundation, a private British nonprofit, in what was seen by repatriation advocates at the time as one of the most significant returns of looted material to an African nation.
The withdrawal took place after Abebaw Ayalew’s letter to the auction house on the 23rd of February 2024 where he asked for the sale to be cancelled and for the object to be repatriated back to the Ethiopian government. The Ethiopian embassy said more than 20 private collectors had returned Maqdala items after restitution requests. There has been growing pressure over recent years on all European institutions that hold items taken during the colonial era. Several of the Benin bronzes, looted by British forces in 1897 from what is now Nigeria, have been returned by British institutions after decades of campaigning.
