Afterlives of Looted Heritage

Phillips’s work stands out for its ability to connect nineteenth-century events to contemporary debates about restitution and historical justice. He has had a long and impactful career as an international journalist and a respected nonfiction author.

As a reporter, he spent more than 25 years with the BBC and Al Jazeera English, covering major global events across Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe. His postings included Mozambique, Angola, Nigeria, South Africa, and Greece, and he reported on crises such as the wars in Liberia and Iraq, the Darfur humanitarian emergency, the Southern African food crisis, the South Asian tsunami, the Greek debt crisis, and Brexit.

The African Kingdom of Gold book cover.

His other major books, each rooted in deep historical research and his long engagement with specific aspects of African history, are Another Man’s War (2014), the story of Isaac Fadoyebo, a Nigerian soldier in the Second World War, illuminating the overlooked role of African troops in the Burma campaign, and Loot: Britain and the Benin Bronzes (2021), a widely acclaimed account of the 1897 British looting of the Benin Kingdom, the global dispersal of its bronzes, and the modern restitution debate. The latter was shortlisted for the Historical Writers’ Association Crown Award.

The Denkyemkye helmet, one of the many Asante treasures looted by the British Army during the 1896 invasion and returned to Kumasi in 2024.

Asante royal regalia, including the leopard-skin sheathed Mpomponsuo State Sword and other gold ceremonial objects looted during Britain’s invasions of Asante territory and returned to Kumasi in 2024.

Gold as the embodiment of authority and sacred legitimacy

At the centre of The African Kingdom of Gold is the Asante Empire, a kingdom whose political sophistication, military organisation, and artistic achievement rivalled any European state of its time.

Phillips reconstructs the Asante cosmology with precision, emphasising the centrality of gold not merely as a material resource but as a cultural and spiritual foundation.

The regalia of the Asantehene—the swords, masks, ornaments, and ceremonial objects crafted in gold—were embodiments of authority, continuity, and sacred legitimacy. Among the striking images reproduced in the book are the leopard-skin-sheathed Mpomponsuo (the greatest of the State Swords), the Denkyemkye helmet, and Samori Touré’s ring, a gift from Asante King Prempeh. These were among several objects seized by the British and eventually returned to Kumasi in 2024.

British imperial invasions and theft

Phillips tells the story of escalating tensions between the Asante and the British, culminating in a series of military campaigns that reshaped the political landscape of West Africa.

Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II.

Although he states that he sets out neither to be an African historian nor an ethnographer, he succeeds in presenting the Asante political system as a coherent and sophisticated structure deserving of understanding on its own terms.

The invasions of 1874, led by Sir Garnet Wolseley, and 1896 are described with a journalist’s eye for detail. British forces burned the Asante capital of Kumasi, looted the royal palace, and seized vast quantities of gold regalia. This was a deliberate act of cultural and political domination intended to break the symbolic power of the Asante state and assert British supremacy.

Within this broader imperial machinery, Phillips highlights the roles of individual officers whose actions left lasting marks on Asante cultural heritage. Among them was Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scout Movement.

Sent to the Gold Coast to support the British advance, Baden-Powell helped lead the forward units that cleared jungle routes and entered Kumasi ahead of the main force. Contemporary accounts describe how he personally participated in the seizure of sacred gold regalia from the royal burial grounds at Bantama—the “Stool House”, where ancestral remains and ritual objects were kept.

‘Come and take your pick’

One of the book’s most impressive achievements is Phillips’s ability to follow the trajectories of individual objects across time and space.

Some entered the collections of major museums; others were kept in officers’ messes, private homes, or regimental displays. A particularly revealing photograph reproduced in the book shows Asante treasures on public display in London in 1874, allowing Queen Victoria, aristocrats, and museums to “come and take their pick”. One newspaper of the day even described a “craze for these Ashantee relics”.

Phillips demonstrates how the Asante regalia were stripped of their original meanings and reframed within British narratives of conquest, heroism, and civilisational hierarchy.

His investigative background is evident in the depth of his research. Drawing on military records, museum catalogues, private correspondence, and archival documents, he reconstructs the journeys of the looted objects with remarkable clarity. His method is rigorous yet accessible, allowing readers to understand not only what happened but how historians and journalists piece together fragmented evidence.

This transparency is part of the book’s intellectual appeal and reflects the labour involved in recovering histories obscured by the very institutions that benefited from imperial plunder.

The contemporary politics of restitution

The book inevitably turns to the contemporary politics of restitution.

Phillips examines how Asante objects came to be held by British museums and how these institutions have responded to growing calls for their return. He analyses the legal, ethical, and bureaucratic frameworks that shape museum policy, showing how the language of “universal heritage” and “public trust” has often been used to justify the retention of objects acquired through violence.

More significantly, he explores the return of Asante regalia to the Manhyia Palace Museum in Kumasi. These returns, framed as long-term loans rather than permanent restitutions, reveal both progress and the persistence of asymmetrical power relations.

Phillips threads the saga of Asante gold through the restrictive legal architecture underpinning Britain’s national museums, demonstrating how debates over restitution are constrained less by curatorial preference than by legislation.

As he follows the contemporary contest over the fate of these objects, his narrative intersects with the British Museum Act 1963 and the National Heritage Act 1983, laws that sharply limit the ability of institutions such as the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum to remove items from their collections.

By bringing these legal constraints to the fore, Phillips underscores that recent long-term loans to Ghana are less acts of restitution than pragmatic workarounds shaped by a legislative framework that continues to govern Britain’s stewardship of its imperial acquisitions.

All of that said, Phillips leaves readers of his book in little doubt about the moral imperative at the heart of the matter: the Asante regalia were taken through imperial military force. Their removal has inflicted cultural harm. Their presence in British institutions is not a neutral fact but a legacy of empire that demands critical engagement.

Ultimately, The African Kingdom of Gold stands as an important contribution to the scholarship on empire, cultural heritage, and historical justice. Phillips not only informs but restores vital context to objects forcibly taken from their origins, making a compelling case for confronting the past with clarity, honesty, and rigorous research.

Barnaby Phillips, photo credit Mark Rusher