And we called THEM savages…
March 22, 2009
The Dutch government will officially return the head of the former King of Ghana (then Ashanti), Badu Bonsu II.
The Ashanti tribe’s ruler was lynched by the crew of a Dutch trading galleon in 1838 as part of a mafia-style “offer the country could not refuse”. The King’s head was taken to the Netherlands, where it has rested in a jar of formaldehyde for the past 170 years in the Anatomical Museum of Lieden University.
The Dutch government issued a statement on Friday, saying that the head would be returned to Ghana very shortly, where it will receive a state funeral…
The Leiden University Medical Centre, which houses the anatomy museum, said in a statement that it had “made contact with the Ghanaian embassy to prepare for a careful restitution”.
Museum officials refused to provide further details and said that no images of the severed head would be released “out of respect for bodily remains”, in a similar fashion to the rest of its collection.
