In 1874 four Mudan warriors were killed, and have been in the University collection since 1907.
Known as the “Mudan Incident” the deaths of the four warriors were considered the beginning of the Japanese Empire’s expansion, who would formally annexe Taiwan in 1895.
The repatriation is the first of its kind for Taiwan, as no other institution has ever returned artefacts to the island nation, according to the University of Edinburgh.
The University of Edinburgh has acknowledged that “like many UK universities with anatomical collections, the skulls came from the British Empire’s colonies or through their global networks”.
