The manuscript was produced in the artistic environment of the Gondar court, probably between 1730 and 1740, long before the reign of Tewodros II. It was written in Ge'ez on parchment and comprises 218 folios. The decoration includes 235 paintings distributed across entire pages and smaller compositions, in a visual program linked to the narrative of the Gospels and the Ethiopian Christian tradition.

The volume preserves the complete text of Luke and almost the entire Gospel of John. The last 16 verses of John are missing, but the interruption mid-word and the subsequent blank pages suggest that the work was left unfinished. The red leather binding on wooden boards retains gilded elements and fabric.

The designation "Gospel of Gondar" better describes the work than simply referring to it as a Bible of Tewodros. The manuscript was commissioned for a donor named Jonas and only later entered the imperial collection. Its historical value does not depend solely on the emperor, as it also documents writing, painting, and devotional practices from the so-called Gondarian period.

The book was part of a two-volume set. The other half, containing the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, is now in the Bavarian State Library in Munich. This physical separation helps to illustrate how the circulation of heritage can fragment a work conceived as a unit, leaving parts of the same material history in different countries and under different property regimes.

That is why the current conflict cannot be simply labeled as a "rare book." For Ethiopia, it involves religious, artistic, and documentary heritage linked to the Orthodox Tewahedo Church and imperial memory. For the antiquarian market, the same object may appear as a collectible piece with extensive provenance. The tension begins precisely with this shift in language and function.

In 1868, a British force sent to liberate hostages held by Tewodros II advanced on Maqdala in northern Ethiopia. The expedition, commanded by Robert Napier, culminated in the assault of April 13. Tewodros committed suicide to avoid capture. In the following days, British and Indian troops removed manuscripts, liturgical objects, insignia, and goods from the imperial residence and churches.

The looting was not a side episode of the campaign. Part of the goods taken were gathered by a military committee and sold in a so-called "prize sale" on the Dalanta plain on April 20 and 21. The proceeds were distributed among officers and soldiers. British institutions then acquired pieces that they still identify today as originating from Maqdala.

The Gospel of Gondar followed its own path within this movement. The provenance record published by Inlibris places the volume in Napier's possession after the battle. It later passed to William Robert Seymour Vesey Fitzgerald, former governor of Bombay, before entering the rare book trade at the end of the 19th century and then to other collections.

Tewodros also collected manuscripts and objects from Ethiopian churches and cities during his internal campaigns, especially in Gondar, to form the library and treasury of Maqdala. This earlier journey does not erase the British looting of 1868, but it prevents a simplistic narrative in which all objects had a single local origin.

The essential difference lies in how the manuscript left Ethiopia. Its departure did not result from a voluntary sale by the Ethiopian state or a negotiated transfer with a foreign institution. The book entered an international chain after a military operation and looting, a fact now acknowledged by British museums themselves when reviewing the provenance of the Maqdala collections.

After Napier and Fitzgerald, the Gospel passed through Bernard Quaritch until it reached the collection of Reverend Rodwell around 1887. Later it became part of the Pitt-Rivers Museum in Farnham, Sussex, and left its collection in November 1990. From then on, it returned to the private market, a journey documented by dealers and ownership marks preserved in the volume.

At the end of 1990, the book entered the collection of Norwegian businessman Martin Schøyen, where it received the number MS 697. It left that collection in 2002 and then passed through the library of British businessman Paul Ruddock between 2005 and 2017. Its provenance also includes the dealer Sam Fogg and, for now, it ends in an unidentified private European collection.

In September 2026, Inlibris included the manuscript in the catalog of the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, held between the 13th and 18th. The associated value is around 250 euros, but reports differ as to the currency, between euros and dollars. At the close of the fair, the commercial information sheet was available upon request, without a publicly available price.

The very nature of the offer became part of the dispute. The Inlibris representative said the manuscript was not being sold directly at the fair and described its presence at the event as merely for exhibition purposes. At the same time, the company stated it was open to considering an institutional offer at a preferential price. Ethiopia rejected the idea of ​​repurchasing an object it considers looted.

The commercial reappearance exacerbates the problem because it could lead to the book once again ending up in a private collection. Each sale adds an owner without resolving the origin of the ownership and could remove the manuscript from public access and research. For Addis Ababa, this risk makes the dispute immediate, not just historical.

The controversy surrounding the Gospel requires addressing two questions. The first is who holds a title of ownership recognized by the rules applicable to the current collection and the market where the manuscript circulates. The second is whether the origin of this ownership, initiated after the looting in 1868, creates a historical, ethical, or political obligation to return the object to Ethiopia.

Inlibris maintains that there are no legal grounds obligating the current owner to hand over the manuscript. The company bases its argument on the succession of owners and the time elapsed between Maqdala's campaign and international standards on cultural heritage.

This position presents contemporary possession as legally regular without denying that the volume left Maqdala after the British offensive. The Ethiopian Heritage Authority follows a different line. The body requested that the sale be suspended and that unconditional repatriation begin, invoking moral and ethical reasons.

The argument focuses on the original acquisition: property removed during a military action would not lose its connection to the territory simply because it has undergone successive private transactions over more than a century. Contemporary international law does not offer an automatic answer for all past removals.

The 1970 UNESCO Convention created mechanisms against the illicit import, export, and transfer of cultural property, but it does not have retroactive application. Many previous cases depend on national legislation, bilateral agreements, voluntary decisions by owners or museums, and negotiations guided by ethical principles of restitution.

The absence of a simple legal obligation does not render the historical debate irrelevant. It compels us to discuss two legitimacies: that of the presented title of possession and that of a political and religious community's claim to an object taken in a war context. It is in this interval between current law and provenance that restitution becomes a negotiation about cultural sovereignty.

Ethiopia has claimed artifacts from Maqdala for generations. In 1872, Emperor Yohannes IV requested the return of pieces taken by the British expedition. Since then, some have returned through decisions by governments, institutions, collectors, and buyers. Without a single legal avenue, restitution has occurred through negotiation, donation, or acquisition intended for return.

In 2021, objects from Maqdala returned to Ethiopia after a private foundation acquired them for that purpose. Similarly, items destined for auction in the United Kingdom were withdrawn following Ethiopian intervention, and an agreement allowed for their return. These precedents show that the market can be the place where heritage reappears and where restitution becomes possible.

British museums have begun to review in detail the provenance of Ethiopian collections. The Victoria and Albert Museum acknowledges that a large part of its Ethiopian objects are related to the 1867-1868 expedition and describes the looting of Maqdala. The British Museum also identifies pieces purchased in the military sale of loot and manuscripts transferred to the British Library.

This revision of language has consequences. When an institution stops presenting an object merely as "acquired" and begins to record that it was looted, the debate changes even if ownership does not change. Provenance ceases to be a technical note and becomes part of the interpretation of heritage, revealing who exercised power at the moment the piece changed hands.

The Gospel of Gondar arrives at this stage with symbolism because it brings together faith, art, archive, and market in the same object. The Ethiopian question is not only where the manuscript will be kept. It is who will decide its fate, who will tell the story of its circulation, and whether a chain of sales initiated by military violence can continue to define sovereignty over the work.

The fate of the Gospel of Gondar remains uncertain at the close of the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair. Ethiopia is demanding its removal from the market and repatriation, while Inlibris maintains that the current owner is not legally obligated to hand it over and admits to a commercial negotiation. The distance between these positions encapsulates a problem greater than the asking price.

The manuscript came onto the market after passing through war, private collections, a museum, dealers, and private libraries. The subsequent chain can be precisely documented, but it does not alter the decisive point of 1868: the volume left Maqdala after the British takeover and has since entered a foreign ownership circuit.

The contemporary debate questions whether this fact should remain merely a line of provenance or whether it should produce a material change of custody.