In May 2019 The Art Newspaper reported that an Ethiopian culture-ministry delegation visited the British Museum to discuss returning 11 tabots taken during the 1868 British expedition against Maqdala.
The sacred tablets, wrapped and sealed so museum staff may not touch or even look at them, are central to Ethiopian Orthodox worship, and the delegation wanted them cared for by the Church at home rather than left in London storage.
The museum often answers restitution claims by citing the British Museum Act 1963, and the Ethiopia visit tested that legal shield with a religious rather than purely nationalist ask.
Kept as culture and heritage archive, the tabots story dates one important Maqdala restitution push in 2019.
Sources: The Art Newspaper