What: A soldier’s shield
Where: King’s Own Royal Regiment Museum, Market Square, Lancaster, LA1 1HT
The museum entry has a picture and reads: “Abyssinian soldier’s shield”
Accession Number: KO1477/001
What: A buffalo hide shield, returned to Ethiopia by a Scottish academic in May, 2004
Where: The Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa
Professor Fiona Wilson returned this shield that her family had owned in Scotland since the late 19th century.
“Throughout my childhood the shield was hanging in the dining room of my parents’ house,” Fiona Wilson said at the ceremony when she handed over the shield to the Institute of Ethiopian Studies of the Addis Ababa University.
Wilson said her grandfather bought the buffalo-skin decorated in silver in the 1890s from a dealer and everyone believed it was Scottish.
“I discovered that I had become without realising it, the keeper of a small part of Ethiopia’s historical heritage and national treasure and decided to return it”, she added.
Quotes from Reuters report 31 May 04
What: A shield and lion’s mane made for Emperor Tewodros, taken by the British Museum’s expert on the expedition, Richard Rivington Holmes
Where: The British Museum, Great Russell St, Bloomsbury, London WC1B 3DG
Provenance: Maqdala mentioned at length in acquisition notes. Shield described as possibly made for Tewodros.
There are images nd more details on the British Museum’s database entry – https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1868-1001-1
The entry reads:
“It is possible this shield was made for Tewedros II himself. It was described as ‘royal’ at the point of aquisition and as ‘the most richly ornamented of the royal shieds’ in R. Holmes to J. Winter Jones 20th July 1868 (British Museum Central Archive, Original Papers Volume 94, April to July 1868, no. 7629).“
Detail
Museum number: Af1868,1001.1
Date: 19thC (mid)
Made for: Tewodros II, Emperor of Ethiopia
Acquisition name: Field Collection by: Sir Richard Rivington Holmes
Acquisition date: 1868