This article follows a previous one, Whose Dinosaur? The Colonial Legacy Keeping Tanzania’s Fossils in Berlin, which examined the history of the Tendaguru excavations and the colonial conditions under which Tanzania’s most famous dinosaur fossils were removed.
Since its publication, one question has dominated public discussion: if the Tendaguru dinosaur originated in Tanzania, why has it never been returned to Tanzania?
The answer lies less in scientific disagreement than in legal frameworks, both in Germany, where the fossils are held, and in Tanzania, where laws governing heritage were drafted after the fossils had already left the country.
At the centre of the issue isGermany’s Cultural Property Protection Act of 2016. The law allows the German state to classify certain objects as “nationally valuable cultural property,” granting them the highest level of legal protection and restricting their permanent export.
Under this legislation, Giraffatitan brancai /Brachiosaurus brancai, commonly known as the Tendaguru dinosaur, is treated not as a foreign fossil awaiting return, but as a protected scientific and cultural asset within Germany’s national collections.
German museums and authorities acknowledge that the fossil originated in present-day Tanzania. However, legal ownership is determined by long-term custody, institutional continuity, and scientific significance rather than by place of origin alone.
Limiting repatriation
This legal status significantly limits the possibility of permanent repatriation. As a result, calls for return face a structural barrier, which is that the dinosaur is protected by domestic law that prioritises national heritage preservation over historical redress.
READ MORE: Whose Dinosaur? The Colonial Legacy Keeping Tanzania’s Fossils in Berlin
On the Tanzanian side, the challenge is different but equally significant. The Antiquities Act of 1964, enacted shortly after independence, was designed to protect archaeological sites, historical buildings, and human cultural objects such as tools, pottery, and art.
The law does not clearly address fossils, particularly those removed before independence in 1961. Nor does it explicitly cover colonial-era scientific materials currently held in foreign institutions.
This omission means there is no clear legal mechanism for Tanzania to demand the return of fossils excavated under colonial rule. Any request, therefore, relies on diplomacy and goodwill rather than enforceable legal claims.
Previous efforts
Public debate often assumes that Tanzania has never formally sought the dinosaur’s return. Historical records suggest otherwise. In 1987, Tanzania requested the return of the Tendaguru dinosaur for permanent exhibition in Dar es Salaam.
The request did not succeed, and no binding agreement followed. Since then, the issue has resurfaced intermittently, but without sustained bilateral negotiations or a formal restitution framework. What has persisted instead is a reliance on informal exchanges, research collaboration, and temporary access rather than ownership transfer.
Arguments about conservation and technical capacity have strongly shaped public opinion around the fossils. Many people have come to accept the idea that they must remain abroad because they are fragile, costly to maintain, and require specialised storage, climate control, and expertise that Tanzania is widely perceived to lack.
READ MORE:Tanzanian Families Appeal to the Govt to Expedite Repatriation of Ancestors’ Remains from Germany
In public discourse, this assumption is often presented as common sense rather than as a position open to question. Critics say this view is incomplete. Heritage scholars caution that judging ownership and access based on present-day capacity ignores how capacity itself is formed.
Infrastructure and expertise develop through investment, policy decisions, and international cooperation. From this perspective, the issue is less about Tanzania’s inability to care for its heritage and more about whether long-standing global inequalities continue to shape where that heritage is kept.
Conservation arguments rarely address why similar capacity-building has not been pursued as part of restitution discussions, especially when fossils continue to generate scientific prestige, knowledge and tourism revenue abroad. Unlike human remains or ceremonial objects, fossils occupy a grey area in restitution debates.
They are often framed as “scientific heritage of humanity” rather than cultural property tied to specific histories and places. This framing has allowed many institutions to avoid confronting the colonial conditions under which fossils were extracted.
Yet Tendaguru was not discovered in a vacuum. The excavations depended on African labour, colonial infrastructure, and imperial ambitions that shaped early 20th-century science.
Alternatives
Repatriation does not have to mean immediate or total transfer. Experts point to alternatives such as shared custody agreements, long-term renewable loans, rotating exhibitions, and joint research centres based in Tanzania.
Such models would allow Tanzanians greater physical and intellectual access to their fossil heritage while addressing legitimate conservation concerns. So far, these options have not been pursued in a sustained or transparent manner.
The growing public interest reflects a broader shift. Germany has entered high-profile restitution discussions over colonial-era artefacts and human remains. Tanzania, meanwhile, is re-examining how heritage can support education, tourism, and national identity.
Against this backdrop, the continued absence of the Tendaguru dinosaur from Tanzania appears increasingly difficult to justify. The legal frameworks explain why the fossil has not been repatriated. They do not settle whether it should remain that way.
As debates over colonial heritage evolve, Tendaguru remains a test case of whether law will continue to protect historical imbalance, or whether it can be reinterpreted in the service of shared responsibility and equitable access.
For now, the dinosaur stays in Berlin. But the question raised by readers remains unanswered in one crucial respect, not whether repatriation is complicated, but whether complexity has become a convenient reason for inaction.
Mariam Gichan is an archaeologist and journalist based in Dar es Salaam. She can be reached at mariamgichan@gmail.com or on +255 754 215 690. The opinions expressed here are the writer’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of The Chanzo. If you are interested in publishing in this space, please contact our editors at editor@thechanzo.com.
