{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O143073"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O143073/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2012FU2472/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2012FU2472/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2012FU2472","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2012FU2471","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2019LP1288","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2019LX6375","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2019LX6376","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2019LX6377","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2019LX6378","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O143073/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O143073","accessionNumber":"401-1869","objectType":"Shamma","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"This Ethiopian <i>shamma</i> (shawl) belonged to Tiruwork Wube, also known as Queen Terunesh, second wife of the Ethiopian emperor Tewodros II and mother of Prince Alemayehu. It was amongst a selection of Terunesh's clothing and jewellery that were brought to Britain after her death in May 1868, a month after the destruction of Maqdala by the British Army in April 1868. The deceased queen's possessions were sent to the Secretary of State for India at the India Office in London, and given to the South Kensington Museum (which would later become the V&amp;A) the following year. Items looted from Maqdala by the British army were also acquired by the South Kensington Museum from 1868 onwards.\r\n\r\nThe <i>shamma</i> is made from white cotton, probably handwoven, with a coloured border. It is an example of a <i>natala</i>, which is a light shawl often worn by women with a <i>kamis</i> (dress). ","physicalDescription":"White cotton <i>shamma</i> (shawl) woven with a coloured border of yellow, orange and red.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Unknown","id":"A1848"},"association":{"text":"","id":""},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"cotton","id":"AAT14067"}],"techniques":[{"text":"weaving","id":"AAT53642"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Cotton. It appears to be handwoven.","categories":[{"text":"Textiles","id":"THES48885"},{"text":"Accessories","id":"THES48998"},{"text":"Africa","id":"THES49019"},{"text":"Black History","id":"THES48989"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"T&F","id":"THES48601"},"images":["2012FU2472","2012FU2471","2019LP1288","2019LX6375","2019LX6376","2019LX6377","2019LX6378"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"006","id":"THES385863"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Shamma","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Ethiopia","id":"x35090"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"ca. 1860","earliest":"1855-01-01","latest":"1864-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":"before 1869"}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"","dimensions":[],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"<u>Provenance</u>: Queen Terunesh (d. 1868); Stafford Northcote, Secretary of State for India, 1868; given to the South Kensington Museum, 28 April 1869.\n\nThis Ethiopian <i>shamma</i> (shawl) belonged to Queen Terunesh, or Empress Tiruwork Wube, the second wife of Emperor Tewodros II and the mother of Prince Alemayehu.\n\nIn 1863, Tewodros took hostage around thirty European diplomats and missionaries stationed in Ethiopia. He took this action after letters he had written to Queen Victoria in 1857 and 1862, requesting military assistance from Britain, had gone unanswered. Following failed diplomatic attempts to secure the release of the hostages, a large-scale British military expedition was launched from Bombay in October 1867. The expedition was led by General Sir Charles Robert Napier, and comprised around 12,000 British and Indian troops.\r\n\r\nThe expedition reached Maqdala in April 1868, where the British army quickly overwhelmed the Ethiopian troops with enormous firepower. On 13 April, Napier’s forces launched the final attack on Maqdala that saw Tewodros’ armies entirely defeated. The Emperor took his own life.\r\n\r\nContemporary reports record that the widowed Queen expressed a wish to ‘be escorted as far as her native province of Semyen, in the north-west part of Tigreh [but] … when the head-quarters’ camp reached Aikhullet, on May 15 [1868], this poor lady died’, apparently of lung disease. ‘Her funeral took place next morning in the great church at Chelicut … The women of her household, showing her robe, her ornaments, her slippers and her drinking cup, beat their breasts, tore their hair, and scratched their cheeks, shedding tears of real grief as they bewailed her death’ (<i>Illustrated London News</i>, 27 June 1868).\n\nAn inventory of the Queen's possessions compiled in February 1869 includes mention of '1 cotton sheet (silk border)'. Her possessions were sent to the Secretary of State for India at the India Office in London, and were given to the South Kensington Museum (which would later become the V&amp;A) in April 1869. Items looted from Maqdala by the British army were also acquired by the South Kensington Museum from 1868 onwards.\n\nHistoric accession register entry: 'Shawl. Cotton, white, with border of coloured stripes; belonging formerly to the Queen of Abyssinia. Abyssinian. L. 6ft 9in. W. 9ft. / April 28th 1869 / Given by the Secretary of State for India.'","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"<i>Shamma </i>(shawl), cotton, Ethiopia, about 1860","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"Crill R, Wearden JM, Wilson V, Victoria and Albert Museum. Dress in Detail from around the World. London: V&A Publications, 2002.","id":"AUTH333338"},"details":"p.36","free":""},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Featured in V&A web theme 'Treasures from Ethiopia' (archived 23 April 2011)\nhttp://web.archive.org/web/20110423133331/https://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/periods_styles/hiddenhistories/ethiopia_treasures/index.html"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Nicola Stylianou, <i>Producing and Collecting for Empire: African Textiles at the V&A, 1852- 2000</i>, PhD Thesis, London, University of the Arts, 2013"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Nicola Stylianou, <i>The Empress's Old Clothes: Biographies of African Dress at the Victoria and Albert Museum</i>, in: <i>Dress History: New Directions in Theory and Practice </i>(eds. Charlotte Nicklas and Annebella Pollen), London, Bloomsbury  Academic, 2015, pp. 81-96"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Alexandra Jones, 'Ethiopian Objects at the Victoria and Albert Museum,' <i>African Research & Documentation,</i> no. 135 (2019): 8-24."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Heavens, Andrew. <i>The Prince and the Plunder: How Britain Took One Small Boy and Hundreds of Treasures from Ethiopia</i>. Cheltenham: The History Press, 2022."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Patrizio Gunning, Lucia, and Debbie Challis. \"Planned Plunder, the British Museum, and the 1868 Maqdala Expedition.\" <i>The Historical Journal</i> 66, no. 3 (2023): 550-72."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Watson Jones, Alexandra. \"Maqdala and the South Kensington Museum: 150 Years Later.\" In <i>Intersectional Encounters in the Nineteenth-Century Archive</i>, edited by Rachel Bryant Davies and Erin Johnson-Williams, 71-87. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"'Set of Articles of Deceased Queen of Abyssinia' and related correspondence, British Library, IOR R/20/AIA/503."}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[{"text":"Looting of Maqdala (1868)","id":"V92"},{"text":"1867-8 British Expedition to Ethiopia (1/10/1867 - 13/5/1868)","id":"AUTH407033"}],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["401-1869"],"accessionNumberNum":"401","accessionNumberPrefix":"","accessionYear":1869,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2026-02-05","recordCreationDate":"2008-01-09","availableToBook":true}}