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South Africa has returned ancestral human remains and a centuries-old stone carving of the Zimbabwe bird to Zimbabwe, which were taken during the colonial era over a century ago.
The return of these artefacts was part of a global demand for the repatriation of artefacts looted from African countries during the colonial era.
Eight coffins draped in the Zimbabwean flag stood at an event marking the handover at a Cape Town museum, attended by officials from Zimbabwe and South Africa.
There is, however, little information about the human remains, but officials said they had been unethically exhumed for research.
According to Zimbabwean government representative Reverend Paul Damasane, the human remains would be further studied and returned to “where they belong”.
Officials revealed that the soapstone carving of a Zimbabwe bird was the first of several looted from the stone ruins of the ancient complex of Great Zimbabwe, built in the 11th to 13th centuries.
The original birds are around 33 centimetres (13 inches) in height, and most were perched on stone columns more than a metre high.
They are the national emblem of Zimbabwe, depicted on banknotes, coins and the national flag. They are also sacred because of a belief that they carry a protective spirit.
The soapstone was ripped off its pedestal in the late 19th century by a British explorer and sold to British mining magnate Cecil John Rhodes, who was the prime minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896.
Nearly “140 years since the first one was taken and sold to Cecil John Rhodes, that very same statue … is finally making its journey home,” South Africa’s culture ministry said.
Officials added that other looted artefacts that had been in South Africa were returned the year following the former British colony’s independence in 1980.
