Father and son! Thank you so much to Mariamawit Y Yeshak for taking Alemayehu, via her copy of 'The Prince and the Plunder', to the statue of his father's great cannon in Addis Ababa. Really moving. Please send in other sightings. #friendsofalemayehu #theprinceandtheplunder #Ethiopia

"We are going to do whatever it takes to take back Africa's belongings. And we're going to do it together!" Relooted, coming soon from South African game developer Nyamakop @nyamakop youtu.be/KgPxPfXb734

"About 85 per cent of people in immigration custody are held in places run for profit, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), an archive of government data and reports. "https://ig.ft.com/us-immigration-detention/

We don't need plunder. We have enough treasure of our own. The southern door at St. Nicholas Church, Barfrestone (pop. 60) near Dover - s645975992.websitehome.co.uk "One of the best late Norman churches in Kent," said John Betjeman.

You've heard of the Prince and the Plunder. Meet the Love Guru and the Loot. Lytchett Minster Parish Church, Sunday

Here starts the campaign for Britain to repatriate the plundered acronym "PAC", in fact the whole concept. It belongs in the US of A. "Great British Pac calls for an end to any negotiations to return the Parthenon sculptures or risk legal challenges." www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...

Thrilled to report that Barbara Blake Hannah - yes *that* Barbara Blake Hannah - has reviewed "The Prince and the Plunder". "So vivid and descriptive that at times I felt I was watching a documentary film, not just reading a book." Thank you! www.theprinceandtheplunder.com/2025/07/02/r...

Ethiopia's 1983-85 famine: the musical.

Latin scholars, please help. I am trying to translate this memorial for Ethiopia's Prince Alemayehu in Rugby School chapel. How close has Google Translate got me? Cunning - really? Players or playmates? And are those dates right? They don't match the record.

The South London Press, where I did my first work experience, just "abruptly" shut down. pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/r... The first newspapers to pay me - the @chardandilynews.bsky.social and the @expressandstar.com - are still there, but scaled down. Brave new future a little less shiny this am

Bow down to him on Saturday / Salute him now his birthday's come #happybirthday #bobdylan

Signed photograph of Elena of Montenegro, Queen of Italy and Albania, Empress of Ethiopia ... briefly Yours for up to 200 Swiss francs ($240) www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auctio...

A 1930s anti-fascism poster with 'Abisinia' as the victim. "Envy and Greed have married, and from this vile marriage is born, like a fruit of rot, the law of the strongest ... or the most envious." A historical artefact with nothing to teach us today. www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auctio...

Wild camping won! www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Very excitingly, the V&A has started taking bookings for its Order an Object scheme. You order things from the museum's vast storerooms - and they bring them out to you! Here are my 5 treasures from Britain's 1868 Abyssinian "expedition". Have a go www.vam.ac.uk/info/order-a...

"Do cremated ashes classify as human remains? Should there be international trade in religious relics? What, in the words of the fictive archaeologist Indiana Jones, 'belongs in a museum'?" And don't get me started on tabots. www.ft.com/content/489a... via Melanie Gerlis in @financialtimes.com

A big judgment coming next Wednesday. Will Dartmoor remain the last place where we can camp freely in England? Or will the landowners win? @supremecourt.uk @righttoroam.bsky.social #dartmoor #freecamping supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2...

"Leo XIV becomes proprietor in trust of the great art and architectural treasures of Vatican City, and will be looked to as a moral authority ... Under (his predecessor) Francis, the papacy made a number of symbolic gestures around ... cultural restitution." www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/05/08/r...

Treasure found while flat-hunting in Lewisham

Happy 5th Day of May to all who celebrate. 🎥: Bob Dylan performs “Isis” with the Rolling Thunder Revue in Montréal on December 4, 1975.

A ray of joy, as ever.

Scotland leads the way again. "Rather than a diminishment of the University's collections," Prof Gillingwater said, the returns "represent an opportunity for the University to work with communities in order to build new relationships and friendships." www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

"They destroyed our identity, and our history," Ikhlas Abdel Latif Ahmed, director of museums at Sudan's National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums, told the BBC's Newsday programme. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Happy Birthday to Ethiopia's Prince Alemayehu ... and England's William Shakespeare

If I had a spare £1,000... A watercolour up for sale of British troops loading elephants onto a ship in India in 1867/8 before it set off to invade Ethiopia. The elephants carried the artillery there and, unreliable sources say, some of the plunder back. www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auctio...

The Memphis Daily Appeal covered the death of Ethiopia's Prince Alemayehu on the front of its Dec 21, 1879 edition. chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045... Who did they think he was? "...the last in lineal descent from Solomon and the queen of Sheba. If there is anything in blood he had it."

Today is a good day to remember the 500-year-old Kwer’ata Re’esu icon, stolen from Ethiopia by the British Museum official accompanying Britain's invasion in 1868. And that was just one stage in its journey ... www.theprinceandtheplunder.com/2023/04/08/3...

Turquoise-inlaid white metal ornaments "acquired" by William Pyt Bennett who served during the Younghusband Expedition to Tibet in 1903/4. I added the quote marks given what happened on that "expedition" www.jstor.org/stable/3876552 Yours for £700 at Bonhams www.bonhams.com/auction/3064...

Ukraine Accuses Russia of Selling Stolen Cultural Property on Black Market www.artnews.com/art-news/new... "Tochytskyi said he spoke to EU culture ministers and reps of Norway, Iceland and the UK about artifacts..." Why? Because the loot ended up in those countries?

Museums need a new approach to restitution, writes Lara Brown www.spectator.co.uk/article/muse... "Decisions about restitution are increasingly driven by emotion, not scholarship. Well-intentioned curators are responding to pressure from activists to return artefacts..."

It seeems equally shocking that the one on the right exists, and that it only costs £200. L - Gelada (Theropithecus gelada gelada) male, nr Debre Libanos, Ethiopia R - A 1960s Ethiopian Gelada fur coat, with open front, padded shoulders and wide sleeves www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auctio...

Remains of dozens of Indigenous ancestors returned to Australia "The latest repatriation brings the number of First Nations ancestors returned from around the world to 1,775. This includes more than 200 sets of remains from the Natural History Museum..." www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

One more for the tottering pile. Poet A. E. Stallings has marshaled letters, paintings, a dubiously translated firman, newspaper clippings, parliamentary proceedings and other lore in this detailed and gossipy history of the Parthenon (AKA, Elgin) Marbles. www.pauldrybooks.com/products/fri...

No indication it's plunder. But real treasure. A calligraphic gold-inlaid sword hilt with invocations to God, Muhammad and 'Ali, India, C18th. On sale in London for c £3,500. Tipu Sultan's bedchamber sword - sold for £14 mln in 2023 - had a similar hilt. www.roseberys.co.uk/a0705-lot-59...

Your tariff rate is your star sign divided by the number of boys you've kissed, multiplied by one

I am talking about British barmaid turned wonderwoman Lady Meux at a conference in Oxford on April 25-26 on "Encoutering Mary in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tradition". There will also be art, poetry, food and Ethio-jazz. Come along www.eventbrite.com/e/kiddist-ma...

A Glasgow museum has returned a shell necklace to representatives of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre. Previous requests were refused, one on the grounds that “there was no evidence that the acquisition was unethical.” But attitudes have changed... www.returningheritage.com/rare-aborigi...

Top three on the billing of a dream loot and plunder film festival: 1 - The Spoils 2 - Dahomey 3 - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Read more below All we need now are a few million euros in funding (no dollars thanks), a few other films, a venue and a few other details.

"Kastner said the original intent was to let the anti-restitution side hold sway for a good portion of the film. “But very quickly it seemed obvious to us which was the more compelling argument. And so we just thought, ‘well, f— it’." nationalpost.com/entertainmen...

For those that missed it, or are outside of @npr.org's broadcast range, the feature of Ghosts of the British Museum can be heard here: theworld.org/segments/202...

The musical mash-up we've been waiting for. The Ethiopian-French band Ukandanz - "Ethiopian music pumped up on rock, noise and experimental hormones" Track 2 on their latest release, Evil Plan / የክፋት እቅድ, is a cover of Black Sabbath's War Pigs ukandanz.bandcamp.com

"Representing Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, director Dr Alexander Sturgis, said 'stolen objects should not be in our collections.' However, attempts at repatriation have not always progressed so smoothly. Do source countries always want their objects back?" www.returningheritage.com/placing-owne...

First they tried to sell the medal of Ras Desta, the Ethiopian patriot executed by Fascist forces. After an outcry, the sale failed. Then someone tried to sell his "uniform". Another outcry and the listing has gone. Plunder watchers are getting more vigilant. www.linkedin.com/posts/alula-...

BREAKING NEWS: My book about loot has been looted! By some guy who works for Meta/Facebook called MZ. Here's the story of how, in an effort to train its AI model, Facebook scraped LibGen, "one of the largest of the pirated libraries that circulate online" www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

The EU law that’s threatening to up-end the antiquities market www.ft.com/content/9a35... "Artefacts with documentation will go up in value, say dealers, while those without will fall, and are likely to end up in less legitimate hands." ie Let us deal in stolen stuff, or the thieves will get it.

Plunder for sale A Chinese Mandarin rank badge in silk with Phoenix flying towards the sun. "Part of the loot from the sack of Peking during the Boxer Rising." On sale in Norwich, March 26/27. Yours for up to £300. www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auctio...

If you are looking to break out of the Amazon eco-system and get a good book at the same time .... The Prince and the Plunder seems very affordable in the Kobo store at the moment www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/... ... Just saying.

Will this be enough to clear the loot logjam... Cambridge under pressure to return Benin Bronzes as Nigeria promises museum display Officials say the artefacts will not go into private collection, as previously feared www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/02...

A great night at London's Magdala Tavern. Best known as the site where Ruth Ellis shot her boyfriend in 1955, leading to her becoming the last woman to be hanged in Britain. Less well known for its link to another event - the British storming and looting of the Ethiopian fortress of Magdala in 1868.