The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation has finalized the return of a ceremonial ivory trumpet from the Kingdom of Luango to the National Museum of Arts and Traditions in Libreville, Gabon. The object, a masterpiece of 18th-century West African carving, was acquired by German explorers during a colonial-era expedition in the 1870s and had been part of Berlin's ethnological collections for over 150 years.
Gabonese officials described the repatriation as a historic moment for the nation’s cultural sovereignty. The trumpet was used in royal ceremonies to signal the arrival of the king and is considered a sacred object by the Luango people. This move is part of Germany’s broader 2026 initiative to standardize the restitution of colonial-era objects that were acquired through asymmetrical power dynamics or outright theft.