The base of an ancient, symbolic stone sculpture taken from Zimbabwe a century ago and sent to Europe was finally returned home on Wednesday. At a ceremony in Harare, German Ambassador Peter Schmidt returned the soapstone plinth of the Zimbabwe bird, a symbol of power from an ancient tribal dynasty that is used on Zimbabwe’s flag and currency.
The head of the bird had remained in Zimbabwe and was officially rejoined with the base at Wednesday’s ceremony. The base was taken by colonial settlers from the Great Zimbabwe ruins of the ancient Munhumatapa civilization in southern Zimbabwe in 1906, Schmidt said. It was handed over to a German collector and ended up in the German Ethnological Museum in Berlin, where it remained until the Russian occupation of Berlin at the end of World War II.
The plinth was taken to Leningrad by Russian troops. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was returned to Germany, where officials offered to send it back to Zimbabwe. Four other Zimbabwe birds in soapstone, a soft steatite rock of talcum, were returned from museums in neighbouring South Africa in recent years. One Zimbabwe bird remains in South Africa. Zimbabwe officials say negotiations for its return are in progress.
The birds, a stylised fish eagle, adorned the fortified walls of Great Zimbabwe, the walled stone city of the Munhumatapa civilisation, between the 12th and 14th centuries.
Zimbabwe, the former British colony of Rhodesia, which gained independence in 1980, derives its name from the walled stone city known in the local Shona language as Zimbabwe, or ”house of stone”. – Sapa-AP