The University of Cambridge returns 39 traditional artifacts to Uganda in a major act of restitution

BY RODNEY MUHUMUZA

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — The University of Cambridge has repatriated more than three dozen traditional artifacts to Uganda in a major act of restitution welcomed by the local officials who sought them.

Some of the objects were shown exclusively to AP journalists on Wednesday. The British university returned the 39 items, which range from tribal regalia to delicate pottery, to the East African country on Saturday.

The items remain the property of the collection of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge, which is loaning them to Uganda for an initial period of three years, said Mark Elliott, the museum’s senior curator in anthropology.

Elliott described it as “very much a museum-to-museum collaboration” that stems from years of talks about the possibility of returning objects deemed “exceptionally powerful and exceptionally sensitive to communities whose belongings they were.”

The objects, selected by Ugandan curators, represent a small