British Museum Urged To Return Plundered Ethiopian Altar Tablets

They are hidden religious treasures that have been in the British Museum’s stores for more than 150 years, never on display – with members of the public strictly forbidden from seeing them.

- Mark Brown

Now hopes have been raised that Ethiopian tabots, looted by the British after the Battle of Maqdala in 1868, could finally be returned home following a new legal opinion and an appeal backed by Stephen Fry, Lemn Sissay and the former archbishop of Canterbury George Carey.

The wood and stone tabots are altar tablets, considered by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church as the dwelling place of God on Earth and the representation of the Ark of the Covenant. They have huge spiritual and religious value for the people of Ethiopia.