{"id":282148,"date":"2019-07-21T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-21T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.google.com\/articles\/CAIiEHJpuojKwwopcB4MKU8ddj8qFggEKg4IACoGCAowl6p7MN-zCTCOvRU?oc=5"},"modified":"2026-10-13T11:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T15:46:09","slug":"british-museum-maqdala-tabots-ethiopia-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/282148","title":{"rendered":"British Museum has kept 11 sacred Ethiopian tabots from Maqdala in storage, never displayed, for 146 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

The British Museum has kept 11 Ethiopian Orthodox tabots, taken after the battle of Maqdala, in a storeroom for 146 years without ever displaying them, Richard Brooks wrote in The Observer.<\/p>\n

\"Priests<\/figure>\n

Priests carry tabots, wrapped in cloth, during Timkat at Jan Meda in Addis Ababa, January 2015 (Jean Rebiff\u00e9, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0) [file photo]<\/em><\/p>\n

A tabot is a consecrated replica of the tablets on which the Ten Commandments were written, and it is the holiest object in an Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo church. Only Ethiopian Orthodox priests may view one. That is why the museum has never put the 11 on show, and Brooks noted that few such clergy live in or near London to see them.<\/p>\n

The tabots were among the treasures British troops carried away in 1868 after storming Emperor Tewodros II\u2019s mountain fortress at Maqdala, also spelled Magdala. Ethiopia has long asked for the return of the Maqdala objects held in British collections.<\/p>\n

The issue came back in July 2019 when British Museum trustee Ahdaf Soueif, the Egyptian-born novelist, resigned. She cited two reasons: the museum\u2019s BP sponsorship and its position on returning objects to their countries of origin.<\/p>\n

Museum director Hartwig Fischer told Brooks he would travel to Ethiopia later in 2019 and discuss the tabots there. The museum\u2019s chairman, Richard Lambert, said the trustees would decide on them within six months, most likely in the form of a long-term loan.<\/p>\n

Brooks argued that the museum should simply take the tabots out of storage at once and fly them to Addis Ababa so they could be placed permanently in the relevant churches. Objects of great spiritual or emotional value to their countries of origin, he wrote, make the strongest case for return.<\/p>\n

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London, which holds other Maqdala treasures, offered in 2018 to lend some of them to Ethiopia on a long-term basis; Ethiopian officials have pressed for permanent return instead.<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/strong> The Observer (The Guardian)<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The British Museum has kept 11 Ethiopian Orthodox tabots, taken after the battle of Maqdala, in a storeroom for 146 years without ever displaying them, Richard Brooks wrote in The Observer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":837721,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-282148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/priests-carry-tabots-timkat-jan-meda-2015.jpg?fit=1280%2C960&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-1boM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282148"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":837732,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282148\/revisions\/837732"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}