Washington:
A U.S. museum has returned a batch of royal regalia to Ghana that was looted by British colonial troopers 150 years in the past, marking the primary main return of stolen artefacts to the West African nation.
The Fowler Museum on the College of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) stated the gadgets, all royal objects from the Asante kingdom, had been bought by an American collector and donated to the museum after his dying.
Representatives of the museum handed them over to the Asante king, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, within the metropolis of Kumasi on Thursday.
The transfer comes amid rising demand for the repatriation of priceless objects appropriated in colonial instances. Nigeria and Ethiopia are amongst a variety of nations searching for repatriation.
Nevertheless, some museums say they’re banned by regulation from completely returning contested gadgets of their collections.
London’s British Museum and Victoria & Albert Museum stated final month that they might mortgage 32 objects taken throughout the Anglo-Asante wars to the Manhyia Palace Museum in Kumasi.
The gadgets returned by the Fowler Museum embrace an elephant tail whisk, two royal stool ornaments, a royal necklace, two strands of beads and a decorative chair.
4 of them had been taking throughout the 1874 sacking of Kumasi, and three had been a part of an indemnity fee later made by the Asante kingdom to the British, the museum stated.
“These are objects that connect the present to the past… the very essence of a civilization,” Ivor Agyemang Duah, director of the Asante royal museum, informed Reuters.
‘EQUITABLE RIGHTS’
The Fowler Museum stated the return was everlasting and voluntary, because it shifts towards the concept of museums as custodians “with ethical responsibility towards the communities of origin.”
A historian on the College of Ghana, Kwaku Darko Ankrah, stated the return was essential for Ghana however expressed hope that it could additionally set off a dialog about how the Asantes got here by the gadgets.
“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 stated.
Ankrah desires returned gadgets to be recognized and the unique homeowners discovered.
“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 artefacts should become national treasures of Ghana,” he stated.
(Apart from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is printed from a syndicated feed.)