British Museum director Nicholas Cullinan has visited the new Manhyia Palace Museum in Kumasi, which is due to open on 8 January 2027.
Cullinan toured the museum on Wednesday, 4 November, before meeting Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, the Asantehene, at his palace. He was accompanied by Horatio Lovering, head of the director’s office.
The opening date was selected by the Asantehene, according to museum director Ivor Agyeman-Duah, as reported by Opemsuo Radio. Manhyia Palace said on Facebook that Cullinan visited both the existing museum and the “yet-to-be-commissioned” building.
Agyeman-Duah told the Asantehene that the objects for the first exhibition had already been selected.
Workers are completing the new museum’s interior and installing its displays. Cullinan was also shown storage rooms and conservation laboratories that are still under construction.
The building will replace the current museum, housed in the palace built for Asantehene Prempeh I in 1925 after his exile. The V&A says the Asante paid for the palace in gold rather than accept it as a gift from the British.
At the existing museum, Agyeman-Duah and curator Justice Brobbey outlined Asante culture, customs and chieftaincy to Cullinan.
“We are very proud of this partnership. Thank you for your leadership,” Cullinan told the Asantehene, according to the station.
Otumfuo then held a private meeting with the delegation, joined by Chief of Staff Kofi Badu, Deputy Chief of Staff Lawrence Akwasi Prempeh, Head of Protocol Ernest Sarhene and Agyeman-Duah.
Cullinan said the visit was intended to strengthen the palace’s five-year memorandum of understanding with the British Museum. The London institution says it renewed its memorandum concerning the Golden Stool of Asante in October 2023.
Kumasi was the delegation’s first stop after arriving in Ghana on Tuesday, 3 November. It is also scheduled to meet British High Commission officials and others.
The visit comes as the British Museum’s three-year loan of Asante regalia to Manhyia moves towards its next phase, although neither side has publicly said what that phase will involve.
The British Museum and the V&A announced the loans on 25 January 2024. The British Museum lent 15 objects and the V&A 17, many looted during British attacks on Kumasi in the Anglo-Asante wars of the 1800s.
The agreement was described as a “long term (three year) agreement” for the British Museum loan, while the V&A loan was renewable. At the Homecoming exhibition’s opening on 1 May 2024, Otumfuo said: “The agreement is to keep it for three years and renew it for another three years.”
The British Museum loan includes a small gold lute-harp, or sankuo, presented by Asantehene Osei Bonsu to British diplomat Thomas Bowdich in 1817. The 300-year-old Mpomponsuo sword, used by every Asantehene when taking the oath of office, was also displayed.
Seven additional objects from the Fowler Museum in California returned permanently. British law prevents the British Museum and V&A from permanently giving up their items, so those objects were loaned instead.
The regalia went on public display at Manhyia during Otumfuo’s silver jubilee, 150 years after British troops seized them.
The partnership dates back to 1974, when the UK Foreign Office said the British Museum’s trustees considered returning the regalia “legally impossible”. Subsequent visits and discussions helped establish the Manhyia Palace Museum and train its staff.
Otumfuo raised the issue again in November 2010, prompting the British Museum to support a new museum at Manhyia and consider a loan when it was completed.
Cullinan hosted the Asantehene for a lecture at the British Museum in July 2024. He later wrote that the institutions had “a strong partnership with the Manhyia Palace, built over many years, which will continue with further projects”.
Manhyia Palace Museum is also working with the Wallace Collection on an exhibition of Asante gold regalia, scheduled for 12 April to 22 August 2027.
