AFRICA HISTORY

Among the most spectacular items looted by the British from the fortress of Magdala in Ethiopia in 1868 is a crown and of solid gold. Now in the Victoria and Albert Museum

The Looting of Magdala

The Abyssinian Expedition was intended to free some British subjects and other Europeans held in captivity by King Theodore following a series of misunderstandings. Its undertaking was delegated to the Bombay government and the command was entrusted to Field Marshal Sir Robert Napier, later commander-in-chief of the British army in India.(0) Theodore, entrenched in the fortress of Magdala, freed the prisoners, but refused to surrender himself. The storming of the fortress and consequent suicide of Theodore (Fig. 3) triggered the looting of his treasures. Knowing that ‘the soldiery would quickly appropriate or destroy many objects of interest’, a representative of the British Museum, Richard Holmes, joined Napier in order to penetrate the fortress on the heels of the troops, as he reported in an account of the event.(0) Less than half an hour after Holmes had entered the fortress – barely enough time for him to sketch the dead king – he acquired from a soldier, for £4, two objects which appeared to be of value but which he could not identify distinctly in the dim light: ‘I obtained from a soldier what I believe to be one of the most valuable relics in the Amba [natural fortress]. This is a chalice of gold – weighing at least 6 lbs – with an inscription stating that it was presented by King Adam Segued to the Church of Gondar – He lived AD 1557-73 – I also obtained the curious gilded or gold triple crown of the Abuna – of its date I can as yet hardly form a decided opinion.’ As Napier was amassing the spoils for an auction to raise money for the troops – and also to enable wealthy officers to satisfy their Theodoremania by acquiring some of the King’s relics – he authorised Holmes to keep these two treasures on the condition that he agree to pay to the army £2,000 claimed by the prize committee as the price of the metal.(0) The two objects were eventually placed on deposit in the South Kensington Museum, later the Victoria and Albert Museum, but not without discussion in the House of Commons on 30 April 1871 about their possible restitution.(0) In the museum, they joined various secular and religious objects from Magdala, amongst which was another crown, of gilded silver, deposited by the Admiralty. A spectacular collection of more than 350 manuscripts went to the British Museum.(0) The crown and the chalice that Holmes had obtained attracted more attention than all of the other booty from Magdala for a simple reason: they are of solid gold. At a time when there was no knowledge of Ethiopian art, this was the criterion of preciousness, sufficient for establishing their prestige. Ideas about the identity of the crown have varied since it entered the museum. Following on-the-spot enquiries made of various people at Magdala, Holmes concluded that the crown was connected with the function of Abouna, but was doubtful about its date. Reporters agreed that the crown’s appearance justified this attribution.(0) Thus the Illustrated London News states that it was ‘originally surmounted by a cross’, had ‘embossed heads of the Apostles’, and was ‘made after the model of the tiara of the Roman pontiff’.(0) The conjunction of these features with precious metal certainly supported the idea. By 1924 the crown had come to be associated with King Theodore. In that year the British Government decided to offer to Queen Zawditu of Ethiopia ‘the crown of Theodore’ on the occasion of the visit to England of Ras Tafari, Crown Prince and Regent. It had by then been forgotten that there were in fact two crowns from Magdala in the V&A. A Foreign Office report states of Holmes’s crown: ‘It is listed in the Museum as the crown of the Abouna, but it appears open to doubt whether it is not really King Theodore’s crown’.(0) Finally it was decided to offer Zawditu the other crown, which had in fact been inventoried by the museum as that of Theodore (Fig. 4). The crown remaining in the V&A was published in the Illustrated London News of 26 July 1924 as having been ‘worn by the Emperor as Abuna, or head of the Christian Church in Abyssinia: the sacerdotal crown’. This is an obvious Anglicanism – the King of Ethiopia does not have the function of Abouna (or Abuna). Selama, the Abouna, had died in 1867, leaving no authority in Ethiopia to ordain the clergy. The decision about which crown to give to Queen Zawditu was based not on knowledge of Ethiopian history, but on common sense: the second crown, made of gilded silver, is a lot less valuable. Yet, in its modern state, this crown, which also bears images of the evangelists, is too big to be worn on the head, whereas the crown of gold is the right size.