“Each case has to be considered on its merits, especially the circumstances of removal from its country of origin; cultural material should not be removed from good security to bad; despite these earlier considerations, in many cases it would be morally right for the holding country to return cultural material to the country of origin. Where objects were obtained by right of conquest at a time when the country of origin was weak (e.g. Benin bronzes, Ashanti gold, Burmese treasures, much from India in the Army Museum),the ex-imperial country in retaining these items is denying part of the independence ‘granted’ to such countries; and this is a neo-colonialist policy. (p.109).”

After examining the arguments for and against restitution that have been made in Britain, Dr. Greenfield examines the following concrete British cases: Ashanti Gold (Ghana), The Benin Bronzes (Nigeria), The Koh-I-Noor Diamond (Pakistan/India), Ranjit Singh’s Throne (India), Bronze Statues, Ivories and Manuscripts (Sri Lanka), the Treasures of Magdala (Ethiopia), The Stone of Cone (Scotland), the Aurel Stein Collection from Tunghuan (China), the Taranaki Panels and Ortiz Case (New Zealand), The London (Pathur) Sivapuram Nataraja Case (India). Alone, the number of cases here examined and the number of countries involved shows the extent to which Britain and other imperialist powers had plundered their colonies and countries of Africa and Asia.

Many people know about the nefarious British attack on Benin in 1897 and the plundering and burning of the city. Thousands of cultural objects - plaques, large metal heads, carved tusks, portrait heads, statues and carved figures were stolen. A British consul insisted on visiting the Oba of Benin although he had been warned that the time he had chosen was inappropriate because of some customary rites. The consul, Captain Phillips, defiantly proceeded with the journey. He and some of his team were killed. The British promptly sent a punitive army which captured the city, stole thousands of art objects, burnt the City, terrorised for six months the inhabitants of the areas around Benin City in search of the Oba whom they later sent into exile where he died. The British kept some of the Benin bronzes and auctioned the rest to the Germans, the Austrians and other european and euro-American public and private institutions. The result is that Nigeria has fewer of the objects than Germany, Britain and the United States.

Nigeria has requested Britain to return these stolen objects but with no success. Instead Nigeria has had to buy some of these Benin bronzes from the British Museum. When Nigeria requested the loan of one ivory mask which was the mascot for the pan-African cultural festival in 1977 FESTAC (Festival of African Arts and Culture) in Lagos, Britain refused using all kinds of excuses. First a high insurance bond of £2 million was requested and later it was alleged the pendant was too fragile to travel.


When a national museum was opened in Benin, an appeal made through the International Council of Museums (ICOM) for all those museums holding Benin objects to return one or two pieces to Benin or give long-term loans so that Benin’s ancestral art could be displayed. The appeal fell on deaf ears and not a single piece was returned or loaned. The Ethnology Museum of Berlin, for example has 482 Benin bronzes. In the end, the Benin Museum was opened with photos of those objects. In discussions on the return of the Benin bronzes, some of the British press had their field day to show their lack of respect for Africans and their contempt for the victims of imperialism: The Nigerians were not to be trusted with the Benin bronzes which they might sell again - Sunday Telegraph, I October 2000; The Art Newspapaper, no.107, October 2000 recommended not to return the artefacts to Nigeria and the Daily Telegraph, 16 September, 2002 reported on how the President of Nigeria, General Gowan “liberated” a bronze for the Queen from the National Museum in Lagos. This was in reference of the illegal act of Yakubu Gowan by arbitrary taking a bronze mask as a gift for the British Queen on occasion of his visit to London. Even after the Queen had been advised of the illegality of the gift she still kept it!

There is a deep seated unwillingness on the part of many europeans to accept that Benin was a highly civilized society as proved by the fine and intricate bronze works that were stolen. Benin society was one that did not need the assistance of British colonialism and imperialism, a process that brutally put an end to a civilization dating back to the 13th Century.

Britain in conjunction with their German and American allies hold to ransom Benin art objects which allow them to produce experts on Benin art but not producers of Benin art. The genius and spirit which produced the civilization of Benin is undoubtedly African in origin and execution.

Less well-known than the British Punitive Expedition to Benin in 1897, was the British Punitive Expedition of 1874 to Kumasi, Ghana, to punish the King of Asante who resisted British attempts to reduce his control over the coastal trade in the former Gold Coast. The Asante were known for their gold and the Golden Stool which the British Governor had disrespectfully requested so that he could sit on. The Golden Stool was said to embody the spirit of the Asante nation and not even the Asante king, the Asantehene, was allowed to sit on it.

With deliberate provocations and other acts of challenge by the British to the political authority of the Asantehene, wars inevitably ensued and gave the British the pretext they had been seeking to attack. In 1874 a British Punitive Expedition Army, under Sir Garnet Wolseley entered Kumasi. According to Greenfield: “The king escaped from Kumasi, but the capital and his palace were taken by Wolseley and ransacked of every valuable object: the king’s sword, pure hammered gold masks in the shape of a ram’s head or that of a man, massive breastplates, coral ornaments, silver plate, swords, ammunition belts, caps mounted in solid gold, knives set in gold and silver, bags of gold dust and nuggets, carved stools mounted in silver, calabashes worked in silver and gold, embroided and woven silk sand numerous other treasures, including in particular a 20-centimetre-high golden head, the largest known gold work from anywhere in Africa, outside Egypt (now in the Wallace Collection in London). The town of Kumasi and the palace were destroyed by fire. Many of the ornaments found their way to the Museum of Mankind, where they still remain; it has been suggested that many of the items came as gifts or by purchase.”(p.119)

Gold mask, 20cm in height removed by the British from Kumasi, Ghana, in 1874 and now in the Wallace Collection, London.

The greed, cruelty, ruthlessness and the hypocrisy of the colonialist powers are amply demonstrated in this description by Greenfield. The name of the Asante king mentioned on p.122 is not “Opoku Wace” but “Opoku Ware”. The Asantehene, Otumfuo Nana Opoku Ware II, reigned from 1970 till his death in 1999.

The Ethiopians have been demanding for years from Britain the return of the various precious imperial and religious treasures stolen by British troops in 1868. These objects include a golden crown owned by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church which is now at the Royal and Albert Museum and hundreds of precious bibles and illustrated manuscripts at the British Library, and at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Manchester, and Edinburgh. Sacred documents and items of religious importance to the Ethiopian Church, some of them 400 years old, are being held by British institutions.

The acquisition tactics here were similar to those employed in Asante and Benin. The British sent an army expedition to release two British envoys held by the Ethiopian Emperor Tewedros in Magdala, the then capital of the Empire. The Emperor was killed, the treasures looted and the city was destroyed.

A few items have been returned to Ethiopia but the bulk of the looted items remain in Britain and there is no sign that they are about to be returned. The arguments of the British for not returning the items are the untenable familiar ones, including the insult about the Ethiopians not being in a position to guarantee the safety and security of the items. The thief requests from the owner of the stolen items a guarantee of their safety and security as a precondition for their return!

The University of Edinburgh issued the following response to a request for the return of Ethiopian manuscripts:

“It is the considered view of the University that conservation of the documents is of primary concern. Since acquiring these documents, the University Library has exercised good curatorial management over the manuscripts in accordance with current best practice. It has a responsibility to ensure that they are properly conserved in the future.

Regardless of the outcome of any further consideration of this matter, the Court has agreed that the University should work in partnership with AFROMET and University of Addis Ababa, to ensure that the manuscripts are accessible to the Ethiopian people and to scholars through appropriate copies, such as microfilms and digital scans, and that these should be made available to the Institute of Ethiopian Studies at the University of Addis Ababa.