Return of the Tabot

Q. The what

A. A Tabot is a carved wooden tablet representing the Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopian churches. It is the most holy part of the church, seen only by the priests. The Tabot in question - a 400-year-old, 6-foot square, carved, consecrated wooden tablet - has been returned to Ethiopia more than 130 years after it was removed and brought to this country.

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Q. Where has it been all this time

A. St John's Episcopal Church, Edinburgh. It was discovered by the Reverend John McLuckie in a battered leather box, which he came across while he was looking for a communion set in a cupboard at St John's in October 2001. He recognised it for what it was as he had worked in Ethiopia understood its religious importance.

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He said: 'It was very exciting because I knew it was an object of great significance and holiness...I was also slightly surprised that we had one and slightly shocked that we should be keeping it in a cupboard when it is something of such significance to Ethiopian Christians.'

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Q. How did it get to Scotland in the first place

A. The Tabot was part of the plunder taken from Ethiopia by British soldiers after the fall of Maqdala in 1868. The British had invaded the country - with whom they had previously been on good terms - after the Emperor Tewodros II took some missionaries hostage in order to try to get the British to help him defend his country against the Egyptians. He held out at his fortress at Maqdala, but his army was no match for the British. Afterwards some 200 mules and 15 elephants were loaded with booty, including 400 manuscripts and books, solid-gold crowns, chalices, crosses, icons and Tabots.

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One of the Tabots was taken by a Captain Arbuthnot of the 14th Hussars, who, on returning to Britain, realised the value of the artefact and presented it to St John's.

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Q. So it's not the same kind of thing as the Elgin Marbles and all those other items in British museums

Not really. It has never been part of a museum collection nor has it ever been on show, though other items from Maqdala were bought up by British institutions.

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Unusually for the time, there was a move to have all the artefacts returned soon after Maqdala, a position supported by the Prime Minister, William Gladstone. Lord Napier, who had commanded the expedition, showed some remorse for the scale of the raid, and said that Britain's argument had been with Tewodros not the Ethiopian people. Since then there have been regular attempts to have the loot returned.

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The return of 'plundered' goods held in Western museums, whether taken during a period of colonial rule - such as the Benin Bronzes from the former British colony of Nigeria - or for 'safe-keeping', like the Elgin Marbles, is destined remain a vexed question for some considerable time, unless countries or institutions take unilateral decisions to return items. This is particularly so as a number of bodies, notably the British Museum, are keen to hold on to the - literally - world-class collections they own.

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Q. Presumably this has all gone down very well in Ethiopia

A. Of course. A spokesman for the delegation who went to Edinburgh to collect the Tabot said: 'No one can underestimate just how significant and joyful this hand-over is...The people of my country are simply delighted.'

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Q. And what is the Ethiopian Church

A. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church - or Tewahdo - is an independent Christian patriarchate based in Addis Ababa, though recognising the honorary primacy of the Coptic patriarch of Alexandria. The Ethiopian church follows the Monophysite doctrine that Christ has only one nature, the divine, as opposed to the teaching of the western churches, which, following the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, have always accepted the dual nature of Jesus, the human and the divine.

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Ethiopia was Christianised in the 4th century, much earlier than most of Europe. However, with the spread of Islam in the 7th and 8th centuries, the Ethiopian church became cut off from much of the Christian world and developed its own unique form of the faith. While it is no longer the state religion - it was disestablished in 1975 after the overthrow of Haile Selaisse - it remains the most powerful religious force in the country.

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See also the answerbank articles on the Elgin Marbles, the British Museum and the Gnostic Gospels

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For more on Arts & Literature click here

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By Simon Smith