This will be at the commencement durbar marking the commemoration of the 150 years of the War at Dwaberem, Manhyia Palace.

A delegation of three led by the Director of the Fowler Museum of the University of California, Los Angeles (where the objects have been for nearly 60 years) Dr Silvia Forni includes the Director of Registration and Collections, Dr Rachel Raynor, the Curator of Africa Department, Dr Erica Jones and an external affiliate to the Museum and Chair of the Music Department at the Tufts University, Professor Kwesi Ampene.

The returning objects were acquired in 1965 by the Museum from one of the major foundations of the world, the Wellcome Trust which runs the Wellcome Collection of a museum and library in Britain and is set in memory of one of the British-American leading global art collectors and millionaires of his time, Sir Henry Wellcome.

Discussions between the Museum and the Manhyia Palace had been on for a couple of years with their senior Africa curator, Dr. Erica Jones visiting and meeting with the Asantehene last year.

Permission for the objects to leave California under their CITIES PERMIT was approved in December paving the way for their return.

Historian Ivor Agyeman-Duah confirmed this development and explained that they are permanently being returned partly because the legislation that prevented “that has changed at the University which means all looted items could be sent back to their original owners.”

There is a new form of cultural cooperation under design.

Mr Agyeman-Duah explained that it will revolve around the Fowler Museum and the University of California (UCLA), the Manhyia Palace Museum and the College of Art and Built Environment, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology as envisaged by the Asantehene who is also the Chancellor of the University.

The seven returning objects go back to the period before Asantehene Kofi Karkari in the 1840s and include an ornamental chair of wood, brass, leather and iron; ten large beads worn as bracelet or anklet; strand of seed or bug-shaped beads; gold of an elephant hair, glass and silver; a royal stool ornament; a royal necklace and a royal stool ornament.

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The Roman gems, to be featured in an exhibition Rediscovering Gems, include a cameo with a bust of Cupid from the 1st or 2nd Century AD.

In August, the museum announced up to 2,000 objects from its storerooms were missing, stolen or damaged.

It has recovered about 350 items to date.

The exhibition will explore the significance of classical gems through history.

George Osborne, who chairs the museum’s Board of Trustees, said the new display was an example of openness and “culture change” at the British Museum.

“We promised we’d show the world the gems that were stolen and recovered – rather than hide them away,” he added.

The museum has released pictures of two of those gems that have been chosen for display.

Both were returned by Dr Ittai Gradel, the dealer and collector who alerted the British museum to the thefts, and was originally brushed off.

Dr Gradel told the BBC he had been “delighted” to work with the museum on the recovery process.

“I am greatly pleased also to see that the whole culture of the institution appears to be changing to one of much greater openness and willingness to confront problems, than what I encountered in 2021,” he said.

Dr Gradel has played a major role in the recovery process, tracking down and returning hundreds of gems he had bought in good faith.

Gems he has returned and will now go on display include an intaglio made from black glass with a bust of Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom.

The new exhibition will also show more than 500 objects that were not caught up in the thefts. All the previously stolen items will be in their own display case and clearly labelled.

I’ve seen many of the recovered gems during our investigation of the story for BBC News.

They are made of stone or glass, variously coloured and tiny – often barely the size of a thumbnail.

They are a fascinating window into the ancient Mediterranean world, where they were worn as jewellery, used as seals and collected as objects of beauty in their own right.

They are engraved or cast, perhaps with the face of an Emperor, a Roman or Greek God or another depiction from a classical story.

Tom Harrison, keeper of the department of Greece and Rome, says the exhibition is “an interesting opportunity to cast some light on an underappreciated and very beautiful art form”.

These types of gems were hugely popular in the 18th Century. But they fell out of favour.

That may be one explanation for why they were left, unregistered, in the British Museum storeroom for more than a century.

Dr Gradel said gems had been “overlooked” but provided “beautiful and fascinating insights into the tastes and mindsets of the ancient Greeks and Romans”.

“They are indeed deserving of far more study than they have received,” he told the BBC. “I look greatly forward to visiting the exhibition”.

After an investigation discovered items had been stolen, a senior curator in the Greece and Rome department, Peter Higgs, was dismissed. He has previously denied any wrongdoing.

The police investigation is ongoing.

Following the controversy, German art historian and British Museum director Hartwig Fischer resigned and former Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum director Sir Mark Jones was appointed in the interim.

Rediscovering gems will be on display for free in room three at the British Museum from 15 February – 15 June 2024.

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