Priceless religious manuscripts which found their way to Ireland after being looted by the British army in Ethiopia in the 19th century should be returned to Africa, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia has suggested.
Mr Meles Zenawi was in Dublin yesterday to visit the Chester Beatty library, where he was presented with the library's collection of Ethiopian illuminated manuscripts on microfilm.
Asked if he would prefer to be taking home the actual manuscripts, Mr Zenawi said that in many cases duplicates of his country's art treasures could be found in Ethiopia.
However, where no duplicate existed at home, the microfilm was the "second-best option" to physically having the object at home.
At least one of the Chester Beatty's 51 manuscripts, Miracles of the Blessed Virgin Mary, from the early 19th century, was looted by the British army at Magdala, the mountain capital of the Ethiopian emperor, in 1868. Over 32,000 soldiers, many of them Irish, were sent in to rescue captive missionaries, but returned laden with booty, including more than 400 manuscripts. So many artefacts were taken that 15 elephants and 200 mules were used to take them away.
As a result of this and later plundering by Italian colonists, Ethiopia's art treasures are scattered around the world. The most famous is the 200-ton obelisk from Aksum, stolen by Mussolini's Fascists, which remains in Rome despite numerous promises to return it.
The Episcopal church in Scotland last month returned an Ethiopian sacred object which had been plundered at Magdala.