The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is sending an evaluation team to Ethiopia to prepare for the return of one of the countrys most iconic monuments, the celebrated obelisk of Aksum, which Italian soldiers carted off to Rome during Mussolinis invasion nearly 70 years ago.
At the request of the Ethiopian and Italian Governments, UNESCO will draw up the re-installation project for the 1700-year-old, 24-metres-high, 160-ton funeral stele and the development of the site in Tigray in northern Ethiopia, which will be funded by Italy.
The obelisk has been cut into three sections to facilitate its transportation and is at Rome airport waiting to be flown to Ethiopia. The first section, weighing 60 tons, is expected to arrive in Aksum in early April.
Last November the two Governments signed an agreement for the return of the stele in keeping with the 1972 Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage.
– This highly symbolic gesture, born of a common agreement between Italy and Ethiopia, is to be welcomed by the entire international community, UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura said.
– The obelisk will once again be erected in the former kingdom, which the Persian philosopher Mani called the “worlds third kingdom” and whose relics were among the first to be inscribed on the World Heritage List, he added.
The obelisk, which the Italian army took to Italy in 1937, has become a symbol of the Ethiopian peoples identity.
Kilde: FNs nyhedstjeneste
