Ethiopia starts re-erecting ancient obelisk

Ethiopia has started re-erecting its famed Axum obelisk 30 months after it returned to the country from Italy where it stayed for 70 years, a United Nations expert said on Wednesday.
The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), which is overseeing the operation, said preliminary work to restore the 1 700-year-old obelisk on its original site has been completed.

"At the moment, the obelisk exists in three main pieces but we have prepared the foundations, brought on the necessary equipment and mobilised our labour resources at the site," Unesco expert Sumeko Ohinata said.

"It's a very complex project; we don't want any impacts on other obelisks, so we are working to achieve stability," she added.

The three pieces of the 150-tonne stela are being re-erected at a cost of $4-million, Ohinata said.

"We are aiming to complete the re-erection by the end of September next year, but the entire process will be finalised a few months later," she added.

Italian soldiers carted away the 24m, third-century BC granite funeral stela on the orders of then-dictator Benito Mussolini 70 years ago during his attempt to colonise Ethiopia.

Since then, the obelisk had remained in Italy standing outside the Rome headquarters of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation until the last of its three pieces arrived in Axum in April 2005.

Axum, founded around 100 BC, was the capital of the Axumite kingdom that flourished as a major trading centre from the fifth century BC to the 10th century AD.

At its height, the kingdom extended across areas in what are today Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen. -- Sapa-AFP

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