More than 130 treasures, including gold and bronze objects held in the United Kingdom and Switzerland, have been returned to Ghana, the king of the Ashanti people in this West African country announced.
King Osei Tutu II officially received the artifacts — royal regalia, drums, and ceremonial gold weights — on Sunday at the Manhyia Palace Museum in Kumasi, the traditional Ashanti capital, according to a statement.
This latest restitution included 110 artifacts from the Barbier-Mueller Museum collection in Geneva, Switzerland, assembled by collector Josef Mueller in 1904.
Twenty-five additional objects were donated by British art historian Hermione Waterfield, who founded the “art premier” department at Christie’s in 1971.
According to Manhyia Palace Museum director Ivor Agyeman-Duah, Waterfield’s donations include a wooden drum believed to have been seized during the 1900 British colonial siege of Kumasi.
In 2024, the Manhyia Palace Museum received 67 items returned or loaned by institutions such as the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, as well as the Fowler Museum in Los Angeles.
The king also thanked AngloGold Ashanti, a South African mining company, for returning several works in 2024 that had been purchased on the open market.