A US museum has returned a batch of royal regalia to Ghana that was looted by British colonial soldiers 150 years ago, marking the first major return of stolen artifacts to the West African nation.
The Fowler Museum at the University of California, Los Angeles said that the items, all royal objects from the Asante Kingdom, were purchased by a US collector and donated to the museum after his death.
Representatives of the museum handed them over to Asante king, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, in the city of Kumasi on Thursday.
Photo: AP
The move comes amid growing demand for the repatriation of priceless objects appropriated in colonial times. Nigeria and Ethiopia are among a number of countries seeking repatriation.
The items returned by the Fowler Museum include an elephant tail whisk, two royal stool ornaments, a royal necklace, two strands of beads and an ornamental chair.
Four of them were taking during the 1874 sacking of Kumasi, and three were part of an indemnity payment later made by the Asante Kingdom to the British, the museum said.
Photo: AP
“These are objects that connect the present to the past ... the very essence of a civilization,” said Ivor Agyemang Duah, director of the Asante royal museum.
University of Ghana historian Kwaku Darko Ankrah said the return was important for Ghana, but expressed hope that it would also trigger a conversation about how the Asantes came by the items.
“Looting was also one major trait of the Asantes at the height of their supremacy and there is historical evidence of things they looted from other tribes they fought” across Ghana, he said.
Ankrah wants returned items to be identified and the original owners found.
“They [the original owners] also have equitable rights to those items. If they are not identifiable but the Asantes agree they are looted treasures, then the artifacts should become national treasures of Ghana,” he said.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
RSS