Francisco

I am 72 years old. I am from Sicily, living in Rome for 50 years. My friend here he is 90 years old. He could answer better, because he has always been living here, near this place. He says that once a lightning struck the obelisk and broke a little piece off. Franco, do you remember something about the lightning?


Franco

That’s true. There was a lightning that stroke the top and broke off pieces. I think it was in the 80ies... The damage was visible, on the head. It broke pieces off of the top.


Francisco

Over the years, several things happened. Every time somebody from the authorities came from that country, where Mussolini took that obelisk... — By the way, there are thousands [of obelisks, S.R.] there in that valley, in Axum. They are obelisks to remember the dead. And every time an ambassador or minister came, they started a quarrel, because they wanted it back.

Sometimes they [the Ethiopian government, S.R.] did it on purpose, because they wanted to have some money in return. They needed money. And then in the last years, I remember, Andreotti was a minister. He gave them again some money because of political pressure. After that, they finally decided to give the obelisk back. And during the government of Berlusconi, they decided to bring it back to Ethiopia.

They built a strong scaffold to cut the obelisk in pieces. They divided it. They took the top, the central part and the base, and then sent it back with the help of airplanes.

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