Asante Gold Regalia

The British Museum cares for important objects from the Kingdom of Asante, today located within the West African Republic of Ghana (formerly part of the Gold Coast Colony). This includes more than 200 items of Asante gold regalia comprising personal jewellery and royal insignia worn by the Asantehene (king of the Asante people), as well as the emblems and badges of authority worn or carried by his many attendants and court officials. These objects are variously made of solid, cast or sheet gold with some covered in delicate leaf gold. This is the largest collection of Asante regalia in the UK and one of the most significant assemblages outside the Republic of Ghana.

These objects are of cultural, historical and spiritual significance to the Asante people. They are also indelibly linked to British colonial history in West Africa, with many of them looted from the Asante capital, Kumasi, during the Anglo-Asante Wars of the 1800s. Some of these objects formed part of a British indemnity payment forcibly extracted from the Asantehene at the time, while many others were sold at auction and later dispersed among museums and private collectors worldwide, including the British Museum.

According to Asante tradition in the late 1600s a local ruler, Osei Tutu and the legendary priest Anokye, united a group of Akan chiefdoms around Kumasi (now a modern city in the centre of the Republic of Ghana) to form the Asante confederacy. This new kingdom was legitimised by a unique stool brought down from the sky: the 'Golden Stool Born on Friday'. This stool symbolised and embodied the soul of the entire nation and continues to play a pivotal role in Asante history, remaining an enduring focus for the Asante people.  

The Asante Kingdom's wealth was significantly based on gold-mining and trading in gold, as well as agriculture. While gold was a key element of Asante's trade with Europeans on the coast, from the beginning of the 1700s the Asante also supplied enslaved people to British and Dutch traders. In return they received luxury goods and firearms which they used to support their territorial expansions and the consolidation of their power. Enslaved people formed part of the Asante internal economy, providing labour in the fields and in the mines, though the precise nature and extent of this human exploitation and its relationship to the atrocities of the transatlantic slave trade remains debated. The kingdom continued to expand under Asantehene Osei Bonsu (reigned 1801/4–1824) and Asante territory covered most of what is now modern Ghana. As the territory expanded the rulers of the Asante Kingdom increasingly centralised power and control in Kumasi. Gold regalia, gold dust currency and gold as a trading commodity dominated the entire Asante economy, including the coastal trade with Europeans.

The Kingdom of Asante reached the peak of its power in the early 1800s. At this time Kumasi had a population of around 20,000, at the centre of which was the royal palace. However, by the later 1800s its fortunes were in decline with a continued reliance on warfare and conquest to maintain control of its territory and the crucial access routes to coastal trade. 

During the late 1800s, Britain became increasingly determined to expand its control over the region, particularly in the face of pressure from France and Germany. Its policy of conquest and political suppression led to five confrontations with the Asante Kingdom (the Anglo-Asante Wars) and a series of defeats and submissions weakened and reduced the Asante Kingdom's territory. In 1874 the British army invaded Kumasi and destroyed part of the city. The Asantehene, Kofi Karikari (reigned 1867–1874) was deposed and obliged to pay an indemnity to cover the costs of the British military expedition. In 1896 the British Army attacked again and when the Asantehene Prempeh I (reigned 1888–1931) refused to surrender his sovereignty, he was also deposed. He was forced to sign a treaty of protection and was sent into exile in the Seychelles with several Asante chiefs.

In 1900 the British governor caused a political scandal by demanding to sit on the Golden Stool during a visit to Kumasi. In a final act of rebellion, the Asante, led by the Queen Mother of Ejisu, Yaa Asantewaa, rose once more against the British. The uprising was defeated and Yaa Asantewaa was also sent into exile in the Seychelles. This marked the end of an independent Asante Kingdom and colonial rule was established when the Asante territories became part of Britain's Gold Coast Colony on 1 January 1902.

Prempeh I was eventually allowed to return from exile to Kumasi in 1924, initially designated as a private citizen and then as Kumasihene (chief of Kumasi). The Asante territories were partially restored by the British under his successor, who was installed as Asantehene Prempeh II in 1935. On 6 March 1957 the former British colony of the Gold Coast became the independent nation state, Ghana.

Today, Asante cultural traditions remain strong and active. The current Asantehene, Osei Tutu II, has provided stable leadership since his installation in 1999 and the Asante Kingdom is widely held in high regard.

Over a 164-year period, from 1818 to 1982, Asante gold regalia entered the British Museum through a range of different sources, including as military and personal loot, donations, purchases and bequests.

An important early collection of Asante objects made by Thomas Bowdich on a diplomatic visit to Kumasi in 1817 highlights the 200-year-old history of engagement and exchange between Britain and Ghana. Some of the five objects within the Museum collection were reportedly presented on behalf of the Asantehene Osei Tutu Kwame Asiba Bonsu after Bowdich told him about the Museum.

Items of regalia and other objects were looted by British troops during three of the Anglo-Asante Wars (1873–4, 1895–6 and 1900–1). The British authorities also extracted indemnity payments in gold from the Asante rulers. This material was sold to several cultural institutions and collectors around the world.

The Museum purchased four collections that appear to be associated with the 1874 conflict including 12 items that were bought in 1874 in two separate transactions directly from the London goldsmiths R & S Garrard & Co, who were appointed to sell the indemnity items. In 1876 the Museum purchased a further 84 gold objects from the Crown Agents for the Colonies and two objects were purchased from the goldsmiths Phillips Brothers in 1891. It is unclear which of these collections relate to the indemnity extracted from Kofi Karikari (reigned 1867–74), which may comprise the regalia of an Asante chief, rather than royal regalia.

In 1896 the Gold Coast government donated to the Museum a diverse collection of Asante objects, including seven bracelets, amulets and beads with gold elements and fragments of gold. At least some of these items are associated with looting that took place following the Anglo-Asante conflict of 1896 or immediately prior to it.

A further group of 52 pieces of Asante regalia and associated items from a larger collection were purchased in 1900 from the Gold Coast government through the Crown Agents for the Colonies. Part of this collection is recorded as regalia associated with the Asantehene Prempeh I, with much of the remainder documented as forming part of the indemnity payment (a total of 50,000 ounces of gold) demanded by the British government from his predecessor, Kofi Karikari. These objects included several gold leaf-hilted state swords (afena), a ceremonial cap with gold ornaments and amulets (denkyemkye) and a Mpomponsuo sword on which the Asantehene Prempeh I swore an oath to serve his people during his enstoolment ceremony. They were all looted from the palace in Kumasi in 1896.

The Museum has also acquired individual and small groups of items from the Kingdom of Asante both before and after Ghanaian independence by purchase or donation from private owners – including soldiers serving on the expeditions or by descent from their families, colonial officials and mining engineers. A small number of objects have been purchased at auction or through dealers.

The British Museum has received a single formal request dated 2 January 1974 from the Asantehene Opoku Ware II via the Ghana Government to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. This asked for the 'return of regalia and other items removed by British forces in 1874, 1896 and 1900'.

In August 1974 the Foreign & Commonwealth Office replied through the UK's High Commissioner in Ghana and reported that the Museum's Trustees had said 'that it would be legally impossible for them to return any objects'. The request initiated a series of visits to Ghana and positive discussions with the Asantehene Opoku Ware II to agree future collaborative activity. This resulted in two initiatives: the development of the Asante Kingdom of Gold exhibition at the Museum of Mankind (London); and the establishment of the Manhyia Palace Museum in Kumasi with training for its staff. 

In November 2010, during a visit to Kumasi by the then Deputy Director of the British Museum, the current Asantehene Osei Tutu II, in a meeting with senior Asante chiefs, raised the issue of the return of gold regalia again. A further agreement was reached whereby the Museum would provide support (formalised through a series of Memoranda of Understanding) to the development of a new museum at Manhyia Palace, with the training of staff and the possibility of a loan of Asante regalia once the new museum was completed. The knowledge exchange and training aspect of this request was delivered through the activity of The Africa Programme.

In 2018 the Museum's then Director, Hartwig Fischer, made a visit to Ghana to meet with senior museum colleagues in Accra to discuss areas of mutual interest for sharing and displaying objects from Ghana.

In October 2023 the Museum renewed its Memorandum of Understanding with the Golden Stool of Asante with a commitment to collaboration on mutually beneficial activities related to the fields of culture, heritage and museums. 

The Museum continues to work in partnership with colleagues in the wider cultural sector, contemporary artists and communities associated with the Kingdom of Asante in Ghana and in the Diaspora, to consolidate knowledge, undertake collaborative research and explore new perspectives on this period of Ghanaian history and its enduring heritage.

The British Museum's position

In January 2024, a new partnership between the British Museum and Manhyia Palace Museum was announced. This will deliver a major long-term loan to Kumasi as part of exhibitions to celebrate the Asantehene's Silver Jubilee in the same year, as well as commemorations to mark the 150th anniversary of the 1874 Anglo-Asante War and the 100th anniversary of the return of Asantehene Prempeh I to Kumasi following his exile to the Seychelles by the British in 1896.

Objects from Ghana, including Asante, are on display at the Museum in Africa (Room 25), The Sainsbury Galleries; Enlightenment (Room 1); the Albukhary Foundation Gallery of the Islamic world (Rooms 42–3), Europe 1800–1900 (Room 47) and Money (Room 68), where they are seen free of charge by visitors from across the globe who come to the Museum each year. The collection can be viewed by appointment and is accessible through the Museum's public database: Collection online, and are published: Asante Gold Regalia in the British Museum collection.

There are also smaller collections or individual objects at the Victoria and Albert Museum; the Wallace Collection; the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich; the Science Museum and the National Army Museum in London, as well as at the Royal Collection Trust, Windsor; the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology; Cambridge; the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford; National Museums Scotland; the York Army Museum; and the Royal Signals Museum in Blandford Forum, Dorset, as well as in various other regimental museums across the UK.  

In the USA small but important collections are held in the Cleveland Museum of Art; the Dallas Museum of Art; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the National Museum of African Art, Washington; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Whydah Pirate Museum, Cape Cod.

In Ghana there are collections of historic and contemporary Asante gold regalia and associated court objects at the Manhyia Palace Museum and at the Prempeh II Jubilee Museum in Kumasi as well as at the National Museum in Accra.