An exquisite diptych which links Albrecht Dürer and Christian Ethiopia is being investigated at the British Museum, raising a fascinating story of cross-cultural links. One side of the diptych was enamelled in France and then probably sent to Portugal, from where Jesuit missionaries carried it more than 8,000km to the Horn of Africa by around 1600. The other half, crafted in Ethiopia, depicts an Orthodox hermit saint with four lions.

Centuries later, the diptych was likely worn by an Ethiopian chief as a talisman to protect him from danger (it has two small hooks at the top and was probably hung from the neck). However, it failed in this task and the man was killed by British troops at the battle of Maqdala in 1868. The diptych was then looted from his still-warm body, auctioned off as war booty and acquired three months later by the British Museum.

The diptych had received little attention, but it has recently been subjected to scientific scrutiny and is now being thoroughly researched. So many questions remain to be resolved.