Return To Glory

Imagine waiting over a year for someone to return something precious not only to you but millions, and millions of others. Well imagine if you were a large nation, and that item you were waiting for to be returned was a “precious crown”? Oh yeah, that one year you were waiting was truly over a century!

Well, this recently happened when the Dutch government went to Ethiopia to return a stolen precious crown from the 18th-century. The ceremonial crown was first noticeably missing from a church in Ethiopia about 21 years ago, and from there the hunt was on. Due to its religious importance, the mystery of where the crown could be in Ethiopia…let alone where it could be in the world, took on great mystery.

Enter a bearer of the crown since 1998, Mr. Sirak Asfaw. Sirak who is of Ethiopian origin but now a Dutch national came upon the crown when a guest visiting his apartment left it in a suitcase. For the next 21 years, awaiting the change of the Ethiopian regime, Sirak would keep the crowned position in his own possession.

Given the current change in the political environment over the years, Sirak reached out to the Dutch Government to alert them he was in possession of the special jewelry. From their expeditiously, Sirak would go on and work with others on way to have it returned back to Ethiopian officials.

This would lead to conversations that ultimately led to a now-famous handover ceremony with Ethiopian Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed.

During the ceremony, in which the crown jewel was handed over to its home place, various Dutch leaders were able to also attend as well as Sirak himself. This ceremony and return of the previous jewelry have now led to more and more nations to request the return of their countries history and Crown Jewels.

While this was an amazing end to a story of taken African jewels, it is to be noted that according to various sources there are some 90,000 pieces of art and jewelry from Africa currently in various collections houses throughout Europe. While France leads in efforts to return various pieces of African history and prized possessions, there is still a lot of work to be done to get these stolen artifacts back to there home countries…..The journey continues