A British museum is to repatriate two locks of hair taken from the corpse of an Ethiopian emperor during one of the most colourful military campaigns of the Victorian era.
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Monday’s decision by the National Army Museum in Chelsea marks the latest breakthrough in Ethiopia’s long campaign to reclaim hundreds of artefacts seized during Sir Robert Napier’s punitive expedition to Abyssinia in 1868.
The museum said it had agreed to an Ethiopian government request made last year to return the hair of Theodore II, who shot himself with a duelling pistol given to him by Queen Victoria rather than be captured by Napier’s forces.
“Having spent considerable time researching the provenance and cultural sensitivities around this matter, we believe the Ethiopian government claim to repatriate is reasonable,” Terri Dendy, a senior museum curator, said.
The Ethiopian government welcomed the return of the braids, a move it hopes will precede the return of hundreds of other artefacts from the “Magdala Treasures” held in a dozen libraries and museums across Britain.
Last year, Tristram Hunt, director of the Victoria and Albert, raised the possibility of sending some of the museum’s Magdala artefacts, including the emperor’s gold crown and chalice, to Ethiopia on a long-term loan.
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“This exemplary gesture of goodwill by the National Army Museum signifies the dawn of a new level of shared understanding in our complex industry,” the Ethiopian embassy in London said in a statement.
It predicted a “display of jubilant euphoria” when the locks arrive in Ethiopia.
Theodore, known in Ethiopia as Tewodros, is widely revered in his homeland, a view that was not shared by Ethiopians at the time after he brutally suppressed a series of rebellions and killed 7,000 prisoners during a single mass execution.
He later took all European nationals living under his jurisdiction hostage after Queen Victoria ignored a demand to join a Christian crusade against Egyptian Muslim invaders. The British consul was kept in chains for two years, while a British missionary was forced to watch as Theodore beat his two servants to death.
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After emissaries sent by Britain to reason with him were also taken prisoner, Sir Robert Napier of the Bombay Army marched an expeditionary force that included 44 elephants across 400 miles of largely uncharted mountainous terrain to reach Magdala.
After releasing the European hostages and having 300 Ethiopian prisoners thrown off a cliff once their hands and feet had been chopped off, Theodore killed himself just before Napier’s men, who suffered just two fatalities, reached the fortress.
But the subsequent looting, with 15 elephants and 200 mules required to carry back the booty, was controversial even at the time. It was criticised by William Gladstone, who called for the restoration of the treasures.
Some artefacts have been handed back, including one of the emperor’s crowns in 1924 and a royal cap and seal returned by the Queen when she visited Ethiopia in the Sixties.
Ethiopia has said the emperor’s locks will be interred inside the emperor’s tomb at the Holy Trinity monastery in the north of the country later this year.