The coffin was made of black wenge, a hardwood known for its resilience. Its journey began 10 days before on a grey street in Brussels. It was carried through the Belgian capital to a ceremony at a 16th-century palace, then driven to the Congolese embassy, to a public square for a viewing and, finally, to the airport. It was lifted on to a plane and flown across the Mediterranean to Tunis and on to the Democratic Republic of Congo, a distance of some 4,000 miles.
What made the casket unusual was not the length of its journey but what was inside: a single, gold-capped molar. It belonged to Patrice Lumumba, the anti-colonial hero, pan-African nationalist and the DRC’s first democratically elected prime minister, who was tortured and assassinated in 1961.
