By Géraud Bosman-DelzonsPosted on 02-10-2019Modified on 02-10-2019 at 17:23
This is the story of an 18th century jewel found in a suitcase by an ex-refugee from Ethiopia in the Netherlands two decades ago and Indiana Jones from the 21st century. Discharged by the correspondent of AFP in the Netherlands, it is not a fable, if not its morality.
There is something about Tintin and Ottokar's Scepter in this adventure that could be called "Mr. Asfaw and the Crown of King Sellase". The plot takes place between Ethiopia and the Netherlands and spans more than twenty years. His denouement, happy, has just taken place, in a small apartment in Rotterdam.
Sirak Asfaw arrives from Ethiopia to the Netherlands as an asylum seeker in the late 1970s. He had to flee his country, in the grip of Colonel Mengistu's Red Terror (1977-1978). Settled in the large port city of Rotterdam, he started a new life, working as a management consultant for the government. Hospitable, he regularly welcomes his compatriots who, like him, flee the communist dictatorship.
One day in April 1998, he discovers a suitcase left by one of his visitors. Stupor at its opening: a crown is revealed before his eyes, it is adorned with gilded copper, on which are represented Jesus Christ and his apostles. " I thought, " This was stolen, it should not be here, it belongs to Ethiopia, " says Sirak Asfaw to Jan Hennop, an AFP journalist.
Problem: In 1998, Ethiopia is in open conflict with neighboring Eritrea. " I could not give it back because of the unstable situation in Ethiopia, " says Sirak Asfaw, who promised the mysterious owner of the suitcase that the crown " would not leave his house except to return " to his home country. This is how the jewel of Mr. Asfaw, guardian of treasure in spite of himself, will remain hidden for twenty-one years. Two decades that may have seemed long and perilous: Sirak Asfaw was repeatedly threatened by Ethiopians who knew it in possession of the crown and wanted to force him to surrender it.
Indiana Jones
Sirak Asfaw stood firm. " I knew that if I gave it back, it would disappear again, " he says lucidly. And if he has proven that he knows how to keep a secret, he also knows when it is time for him to reveal it, without doing any damage. However, this day arrived, according to him, when Abiy Ahmed becomes Prime Minister of Ethiopia, at the beginning of April 2018.
Since taking office, Ahmed has increased the measures of democratic openness . Starting with a spectacular gesture: the signing of a peace agreement with Eritrea. For Sirak Asfaw, the situation is therefore fairly stable and secure - despite the June 22 coup attempt , the nationalist demands and the risks of territorial fragmentation - to restore to Ethiopia what belongs to Ethiopia. .
He decided to make contact with a famous specialist in art objects, Arthur Brand, nicknamed since a documentary CBS "Indiana Jones of the art world". This private detective passed to posterity in 2015 after finding in Germany two bronze horses made by Josef Thorak, one of Hitler's favorite sculptors.
Since then, his list of treasures found is growing every year: in 2016, he finds five works of Flemish painters of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, stolen by a group of criminals in Ukraine; the same year, it is the turn of two masterpieces, one of the Dalì Spaniard and the other of the Polish De Lempicka. In November 2018, after several years of hunting, he returned to Cyprus a 1600-year-old Byzantine mosaic, a fragment of one of the frescoes stolen from churches in the island in 1974 during the war against Turkey. In January 2019, he flushed to the bottom of the garden of an English aristocratic residence two engraved stones, stolen fifteen years ago in an old Spanish church. Finally, in March 2019, he tells how he drew a Picasso, Bust of a Woman (Dora Maar) , stolen from a yacht in Antibes, in the south of France.
But this discovery represents to him " one of the most exciting discoveries of [his] career. Together with Sirak, a great guy ... "
Breaking: one of the most exciting finds of my career. Together with Sirak, a great man ...
Hidden for 21 years, Ethiopian crown set to return homehttps: //t.co/soItBvsW2g
The jewel soon returned to Addis Ababa
Asfaw says he is " in possession of an Ethiopian object of great cultural significance ." " It turned out Sirak Asfaw had been the guardian of a rare 18th century Ethiopian crown for 21 years and wanted to make it, " said Arthur Brand. According to experts who have been able to examine it, the precious object is part of a series of some of Ethiopia's most important cultural property.
Among these specialists, Jacopo Gnisci, a researcher at Oxford University, has confirmed its authenticity and can trace part of its history. He estimates that there are less than thirty of these crowns in the world, called zewd . " These wreaths are of great cultural and symbolic importance in Ethiopia, as they are usually donated by senior officials to churches as part of a practice that dates back to the end of ancient times, " said Jacopo Gnisci.
This one would have belonged to one of the most powerful Ethiopian warlords of the 18th century, "ras" Welde Sellase. The latter would have probably donated to a church near the city of Mekelle, in the north of the country. The crown appeared in public for the last time in 1993, carried by a priest, before disappearing, complete the academic. An investigation had been opened at the time, but the culprits were never found.
Arthur Brand approached the Dutch government to inform him of the future restitution of the crown. " Its authenticity will now have to be established in close cooperation with the Ethiopian authorities, " said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
As for Sirak Asfaw, he seems relieved of a heavy burden: " It is an Ethiopian cultural heritage, it is the identity of Ethiopia and, in the end, it feels good to return it. "
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