Ethiopian loot: Indiana Jones at the British Museum

British Museum (BM) director Neil MacGregor has decided that there is one small group of objects within his care that no one, not even he, should be allowed to see. These are tabots, which are regarded by Ethiopian Christians as representing the original Ark of the Covenant, the wooden chest which once housed the Ten Commandments. The Ark was placed in the Temple in Jerusalem by King Solomon in the 10th century BC, and the Ethiopian Orthodox church believes that it was later taken to Aksum, in the north of the country.

Tabots are wooden tablets which must be hidden from view, and should only be seen by the senior clergy. It is highly sacrilegious for them to be viewed by other believers, let alone non-believers. There are 11 tabots at the BM, 10 of which are part of a much larger group of Ethiopian objects which were seized at the battle of Maqdala (Magdala) in 1868, which led to the suicide of Emperor Tewodros (Theodorus). Thousands of his treasures were looted, many of which ended up in museums in the UK . . .

The Art Newspaper can reveal that the BM’s tabots were moved earlier this year from its ethnography store in Hackney to their own special room in the basement of the museum’s main building. They were carried by a senior member of the Ethiopian church in Britain and were covered during the transportation. Once inside the special room, and alone, the priest placed the tabots, wrapped in cloth, on a shelf covered with conservation-quality purple velvet. No museum staff, not even curators or conservators, are permitted to enter the locked room.

It is, of course, somewhat pointless for a museum to hold objects that can never be seen by scholars, let alone by the general public. Delicate discussions are therefore underway for a long-term solution.

From the Art Newspaper. The article is quite a lengthy one, and discusses Ethiopian loot held by the V&A, British Library, and the Treasury, as well as private parties and smaller institutions. This is one case where restitution appears to be proceeding relatively smoothly, if slowly; there is broad consensus that the material was taken in a manner both illegal and morally reprehensible, and that it was (and has never ceased to be) of the highest religious and cultural importance to Ethiopia.

Posted by David on October 9, 2004 5:37 PM