when the Italians first took it they cut it into 3 sections to transport it to Rome (which is a fucking travesty, the obelisk's claim to fame was that it was the tallest standing monolith cut from a single stone in the ancient world), and re-assembled it in Rome using steel rods through the center that connected the 3 sections together. They said that it was now too fragile to disassemble and transport back to Ethiopia.

Also during the civil war in Ethiopia from the 70's to the early 90's they said it was too dangerous to travel to Axum because northern Ethiopia was a center of rebel activity. I will give them that one as a valid excuse, but beyond that they've just been dragging their feet.

>is their govt trying to generate a little good PR? Legal
>appeals finally exhausted? Were they just not returning the
>Ethiopian embassy's calls for the past 57 years?

I think they just finally ran out of excuses. Just last week they had said that they were going to postpone returning it indefinitely because the airstrip in Axum was too small to handle the jumbo cargo plane that would be carrying the obelisk, so I just thought it was the same-old same-old and that they were gonna keep putting it off forever.

So I was pretty shocked when I heard that they actually went ahead and brought back the first section, I really thought they might keep putting it off for years on end. So I'm still irked that they took so damn long, but right now I'm just glad that it's finally coming home where it belongs.

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Nurse Roberts: She googled your ass.

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