On Saturday, France began the return of approximately 3,500 archaeological artefacts to Ethiopia, which had been held in Paris since the 1980s for research purposes.
During a visit to the National Museum in Addis Ababa, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot presented Ethiopia’s Tourism Minister Selamawit Kassa with two prehistoric stone axes, known as bifaces, and a stone cutter. Barrot explained that these tools are part of a larger collection of nearly 3,500 artefacts excavated from the Melka Kunture site, a cluster of prehistoric locations south of the capital, which had been explored under the guidance of a late French researcher.
France and Ethiopia have maintained a longstanding bilateral agreement focused on archaeological and palaeontological cooperation.
Currently stored at the French embassy in Addis Ababa, the artefacts will be handed over in full to the Ethiopian Heritage Directorate on Tuesday.
“This is a handover, not a restitution, as these objects were never part of French public collections,” noted Laurent Serrano, the culture advisor at the French embassy. He added that the artefacts, dating back 1 to 2 million years, were unearthed during decades of excavations near Ethiopia’s capital.
