Dr Fazal Ali

Fif­teen ele­phants and two hun­dred mules were need­ed to tote the trea­sure of Maq­dala. In 1868, a British ex­pe­di­tionary force laid siege to the moun­tain fortress of Em­per­or Tewodros II in what was then Abyssinia. Hun­dreds of mag­is­te­r­i­al man­u­scripts and count­less roy­al and re­li­gious relics were plun­dered from church­es and the de­feat­ed ruler's palace. Among the items loot­ed was a gold­en Ethiopi­an Or­tho­dox Crown al­loyed with sil­ver and cop­per with fine fil­i­gree work and gor­geous glass beads. Con­struct­ed of an in­ner raised domed cylin­der, with green fab­ric be­tween the em­bossed tiers, the crown is com­plet­ed with im­ages of the Apos­tles. Once be­lieved to be the roy­al crown of the Ethiopi­an Em­per­or Tewodros II him­self, re­cent schol­ar­ship now sug­gests that it was prob­a­bly com­mis­sioned in the 1740s by the Em­press Mente­wab and her son King Iyya­su II and was giv­en as a gift to a church in Gondar, along with a gold­en chal­ice.

The ex­pe­di­tion start­ed from the camp at Senafe. The ad­vanc­ing British forces trav­elled west of Lake Ashan­gi through the Wa­ji­rat Moun­tains and across the Wad­la plateau aid­ed by their diplo­mat­ic agree­ments with the na­tive pop­u­la­tion, lo­cal po­ten­tates, and provin­cial princes. The British ar­rived with 12,000 troops. The field force in­clud­ed the 3rd Prince of Wales's Dra­goon Guards; the 4th King's Own Reg­i­ment of Foot; 44 trained ele­phants car­ry­ing their guns that joined the ex­pe­di­tion on the plain at Ta­lan­ta 12 miles from Mag­dala; the 10th Regt of Ben­gal Cav­al­ry, Lancers and the 2nd Bom­bay Na­tive In­fantry, Grenadier. Af­ter the dec­i­ma­tion and the ma­raud­ing of the fortress, the city was set on fire. It burnt like Cas­tries. Em­per­or Tewodros II com­mit­ted sui­cide with a mus­ket that was gift­ed to him by Queen Vic­to­ria. His body was burnt on a fu­ner­al pyre by priests and the ash­es buried in­side the church.

A grand mil­i­tary re­view was held but no writ­ten list was ever made of the count­less items sacked in the fren­zy. The stolen ob­jects, cul­tur­al arte­facts and sa­cred relics found their way in­to state and pri­vate col­lec­tions, fam­i­ly pos­ses­sions, and in the hands of or­di­nary sol­diers. The books and man­u­scripts went to the British Mu­se­um, the Bodleian Li­brary in Ox­ford, while a few went to the Roy­al Li­brary in Wind­sor Cas­tle and oth­ers to small­er British col­lec­tions. Oth­er stolen crowns and cross­es end­ed up in the Vic­to­ria and Al­bert Mu­se­um and the Na­tion­al Army Mu­se­um.

Among the trea­sures stolen were a num­ber of tabots or 'Ta­bles of the Law' six inch­es square and made from mar­ble or sa­cred aca­cia wood. Tabots are kept in or­nate case­ments to hide them from pub­lic view. A tabot is a repli­ca of the Ten Com­mand­ments. They are un­veiled in an elab­o­rate cer­e­mo­ny that mir­rors King David lead­ing a pro­ces­sion of wor­ship­pers with cas­tanets danc­ing be­fore the Ark as record­ed in Chap­ter 6 of 2 Samuel. When­ev­er a tabot is brought out—it is swathed in coloured cloths and car­ried on the head of a priest. As it ap­pears in the door­way, the con­gre­ga­tion raise a pro­longed and pierc­ing cry of joy. When the tabot is ex­posed—sup­pli­cants fall to the floor and pray. At this mo­ment the tabot re­mains mo­tion­less be­neath coloured canopies as a group of can­tors per­form a litur­gi­cal Abyssin­ian rit­u­al. The shrine is then cir­cled slow­ly three times in a pro­ces­sion head­ed by the tabot in a counter-clock­wise di­rec­tion and then the tabot is re­turned to the in­ner sanc­tum. Af­ter the de­feat of Tewodros II, his son Prince Ale­mayehu was tak­en to Eng­land. He was pre­sent­ed to Queen Vic­to­ria. The young prince be­came in­creas­ing­ly lone­ly and de­pressed dur­ing this time. He died at the age of 19 and was buried near the Roy­al Chapel in Wind­sor with a fu­ner­al plaque placed to his mem­o­ry by Queen Vic­to­ria. In 1924, the Em­press Za­wdi­tu was giv­en one of the two stolen crowns of Tewodros II but the most im­pres­sive one was re­tained by the Vic­to­ria and Al­bert Mu­se­um. The Benin Bronzes that adorned the roy­al palace of the Oba; The Roset­ta Stone with the same in­scrip­tion carved in three columns in three lan­guages: Greek, hi­ero­glyphs and de­mot­ic Egypt­ian dur­ing the reign of Pharaoh Ptole­my V in 196 BC; The Bang­wa Queen sculp­ture from Cameroon that was auc­tioned at Sothe­by's for $3.4m and the Maq­dala trea­sures are all wait­ing to be re­turned.

In the 1960s, Queen Eliz­a­beth II re­turned Tewodros' roy­al cap and seal to Em­per­or Haile Se­lassie dur­ing a state vis­it to Ethiopia. There have been coura­geous at­tempts by or­di­nary peo­ple to re­turn the stolen trea­sures of Maq­dala. Ras Sey­mour Mclean—the Lon­don Chap­lain of the Ethiopi­an World Fed­er­a­tion was a Ja­maican born Lon­don­er. He was jailed in the 1980s for steal­ing over 2,000 Ethiopi­an man­u­scripts from British col­lec­tions which he in­tend­ed to re­turn to Ethiopia. He is im­mor­tal­ized in the film—'The Book Lib­er­a­tor'.

Dur­ing the in­va­sion of Iraq, 15,000 arte­facts were stolen from Bagh­dad and sold on eBay. In Syr­ia to­day the sanc­ti­mo­nious and pi­ous ISIL Mus­lims made US$200 mil­lion a year from the sale of stolen an­tiq­ui­ties. Dur­ing the So­vi­et in­va­sion of Afghanistan, Vik­tor Sar­i­an­i­di found a hoard of crowns, dag­gers, medal­lions, and coins. The 22,000 pieces of gold he found in a first-cen­tu­ry bur­ial ground van­ished un­til 2006 when a mys­te­ri­ous group called the 'key hold­ers' re­vealed its where­abouts.