The Prince and the Plunder: How Britain took one small boy and hundreds of treasures from Ethiopia

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I have been unable to discover any capitals to suit the stone columns, nor is there any trace of how the roof of this building was supported. Ironically, this image of Christ, which had become the most sacred icon of the Ethiopian people after its mysterious arrival in the 16th century, is the work of a European Renaissance Master, probably Flemish. In 1744, it had been captured by Sudanese Muslims, and its return to Ethiopia 20 or so years later was greeted with unbridled joy. Holmes’s widow sold it via Christie’s in 1911, and it has since entered the collection of the Portuguese art historian Luiz Reis Santos. This work, of Flemish origin, of Portuguese ownership, and sacred to Ethiopians, has not been seen since 1998. Its fate currently rests in the hands of the Portuguese Ministry of Culture.

Prof Richard Pankhurst, AFROMET vice chair, described the six illuminated books as “six of the finest Ethiopian religious manuscripts in existence”. He added: “These were specially selected for Queen Victoria, and are therefore, from the artistic point of view, virtually without equal anywhere in the world.” Part revisionist history, part treasure hunt, this is the forgotten story of Ethiopia's 'Elgin Marbles' and a young prince taken out of Africa to live in Victorian Britain The seven year old Alamayu had lost his father and his mother, and he was about to lose his country too - bundled onto a waiting ship, he would never return to Ethiopia. What’s in the book? Here are some of the photos and pictures of Alamayu wearing it – two in Ethiopia soon after the Battle of Maqdala, one on Malta and the rest soon after his arrival in Britain in 1868.

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For the first time, Andrew Heavens tells the whole story of Alamayu, from his early days in his father’s fortress on the roof of Africa to his new home across the seas, where he charmed Queen Victoria, chatted with Lord Tennyson and travelled with his towering red-headed guardian Captain Speedy. The orphan prince was celebrated but stereotyped and never allowed to go home.

The book is written in an uneasily breezy style. Readers are told to “hold tight”, that “it’s a fair cop”, and there is a lot of “perhaps” and “maybe”. And in telling rather than showing, Heavens does Alamayu a disservice. His tragic tale needs neither elaboration nor anachronistic moralising. What: A fragment of a 6th century white marble column, taken during Britain’s Abyssinian Expedition during a hit-and-run archaeological dig at Adulis in modern day Eritrea For the first six years of his life, Alamayu lived in Maqdala. As Andrew Heavens tells us in The Prince and the Plunder: How Britain took one small boy and hundreds of treasures from Ethiopia, Maqdala was an Ethiopian mountain-top fortress-prison and stronghold of the King: Tewodros II. His mother, Tirunesh, was the King’s reluctant wife and daughter of his great rival - who lived in Maqdala as well. Alamayu’s grandfather was housed in the prison, along with two of Alamayu’s uncles on his mother’s side. Also held captive were a handful of British citizens whom Tewodros had detained up to 4 years ago. Complicated family politics aside, it must have been a secure, comfortable and sheltered existence.What: An Arabic manuscript found by a Mr. J.F.E. Prince “in the camp of the emperor Theodorus II in Magdala” During the progress of the excavation fragments of carved marble, flat pieces of alabaster, having one side well-polished, were dug up, and some fragments of marble shafts; also one carved capital in marble, which may be referable to Byzantine architecture. Rough drawings of all these fragments are herewith submitted, and may prove interesting to those possessing more archaeological knowledge than I can lay claim to. I have the honour to report that in accordance with the wishes of his Excellency the Commander-in-Chief, as communicated to me at Antalo on the 14th ultimo, I lost no time on coming to Zula, arriving here on the 24th ultimo.

Too bad: the palace wants Alemayehu kept where he was put, on Queen Victoria’s instructions. Since it can hardly say the request is over-ambitious – Philip’s mother’s body was flown from Windsor to Jerusalem 19 years after her death – its refusal, reported by the BBC, cites both practical and propriety-related objections. “It is very unlikely,” the palace says, “that it would be possible to exhume the remains without disturbing the resting place of a substantial number of others in the vicinity.” It said the chapel authorities had “the responsibility to preserve the dignity of the departed”. A story of adventure, trauma and tragedy, The Prince and the Plunderis also a tale for our times, as we re-examine Britain’s past, pull down statues of imperial grandees and look for other figures to commemorate and celebrate in their place. The basicsGiven the keen interest shown by British royals in the symbolism and placement of their relations’ bodies, sympathy for the Ethiopian request is natural.

Fundamentally though it is a human story, about a small child cast adrift - about his fall from the mountain-top, to become “one of us”, to know good and evil. In the first part of the book, the prince’s short life and his times are covered. It traces the prince’s journey from the Red Sea port of Massawa (in present day Eritrea), through Suez, Alexandria and Malta, to his first landing on the shores of Britain at the Port of Plymouth. Three days after his arrival, he would meet Queen Victoria and the royal family at their summer home of Osborne House. Soon after, he would travel again. His guardian, who goes by the name of ‘’Speedy’’, would take him to The Crown Jewel of the British Empire, India. His revision of his mother’s decision would add a progressive flourish to an act requiring nothing more of the palace than is, when not actively mandated by the Geneva conventions, common decency. There could even be room for some tasteful restitution ritual, possibly involving uniforms, where Charles’s default expression of bemused gloom would be utterly appropriate. William and Kate, too, could do their mournful faces and fancy dress, welcoming this opportunity to show that animals and dancing are not the only thing royals love about Africa. Andrew’s absence might be approvingly noted. As shown on the plan, the building was erected east and west; at the last end there are the remains of may once have been an altar, and the masonry exposed leads to the supposition that the last end was shaped in the form of an apex.One of six ecclesiastical manuscripts from Maqdala, currently part of the Queen of England’s personal collection in the Royal Library in Windsor Castle.