The Aksum Obelisk which was recently re-erected in its original spot has experienced a decade long and torturous path to finally return from its Roman exile. Prof. Pankhurst enlightens us with some fascinating details on this epic achievement in national heritage restitution…
What we now know as the Aksum – or “Rome” – Obelisk was looted on the personal orders of the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. His ambition, as he declared, was to create a new Roman Empire. He had maps made depicting the former Roman Empire which he wished to resurrect. The Emperors of ancient Rome had seized antiquities from ancient Egypt – and his proud (and mad) wish was to copy their example. In the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, in Addis Ababa, you can see, as I have seen, microfilm copies of his original telegrams from Rome, ordering the Fascist administration in Ethiopia to send him one of the great obelisks of \Aksum – and other Ethiopian loot.
The Obelisk was duly taken to Rome – where it was erected, and unveiled on 28 October 1937, as part of the dictator’s celebrations for the fifteenth anniversary of his so-called March on Rome – in fact his seizure of power – and destruction of democratic rights – in Italy. He had hoped to erect the Obelisk earlier in the year, in May: the anniversary of his proclamation of the Fascist Empire in East Africa – but Fascist technology failed to bring the aged Ethiopian stone to Italy in time: the Obelisk was however erected in front of what was then the premises of the Ministry of Italian Africa – where it was to remain for many, many years.
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The movement for the return of the Obelisk – and of other loot seized from Ethiopia – was launched by the then Ethiopian Government when World War II was still in progress. The major Allied Powers, when drafting a proposed Peace Treaty with Italy, asked the Ethiopians for their views – and Emperor Haile Sellassie’s government responded by submitting a draft of what as to become Asticle 37 of the final Peace Treaty with Italy. You can again trace this, dear Reader, in the microfilms deposited in the Institute of Ethiopian Studies – part of the so-called Rubenson Collection.
The above Article was duly accepted by all the Allied signatories, as well as by Italy herself. The Treaty, signed in 1947, thus specified that all loot taken from Ethiopia to Italy after 3 October 1935 – the date of the Fascist invasion of Ethiopia – should be returned within 18 months.
But restitution was delayed year after year. When a bilateral treaty between Ethiopia and Italy was eventually signed the Italian side declared that they were prepared only to transport the Obelisk from Rome to Naples – not to Ethiopia, as the original Peace Treaty intended. Read, dear Reader, Ato Emmanuel Abraham’s classic memoir, “Reminiscences of My Life” , He was the Ethiopian Ambassador in Rome, and tells how an official of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs – bless his soul! – proposed that the Aksum Obelisk should be retained in Italy, with a little notice to say that it was “a Gift from Ethiopia” – which of course it wasn’t.
The then Ethiopian Parliament was furious at the non-return of the Obelisk – and one Senator in particular – Fitawrari Amede Lemma (whom we later elected as Chairman of our Obelisk Return Committee) – spoke forcefully for Repatriation. A strongly worded resolution was passed demanding the Obelisk’s immediate return to Ethiopia.
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The movement for restitution passed through various phases. Our own phase began after the Ethiopian Parliament’s resolution – but gained strength when people in Italy, and elsewhere were commemorating the Half Century’s anniversary of the collapse of Fascist rule in East Africa. Our movement, which nay be said to have actually begun in Italy – but rapidly moved to Ethiopia – and the world – was motivated by several quite distinct beliefs and ideas.
Foremost our thinking was the belief that Ethiopia, a founding member of the United Nations, was entitled to be treated as an equal in Post War international relations. We felt that when the Italian Peace Treaty specified return within eighteen months it was unjust and dishonourable, to ignore this obligation year after year. We did not believe that a European Power would have its rights ignored in this way – and we remembered how Ethiopia’s rights had been betrayed by the League of Nations at the time of the Fascist invasion a decade earlier.
We saw too that the Obelisk was one of Ethiopia’s earliest antiquities – and we felt that we were not taking Ethiopia’s historic culture seriously if we ignored a Peace Treaty specifying the return of so important an artifact. Clearly, we felt, restitution should form part of the country’s cultural agenda. Not a few of us felt that though we concentrated on the Obelisk we could not forget that it was not the only cultural object which had been looted from Ethiopia, and that Ethiopia, like other countries, were entitled to the preservation – and possession – of her cultural heritage. And we were inspired, when inspecting it in Rome, to see that an Ethiopian in the city had scrawled on it, in Amharic, the most significant question “Whose Culture is it?”
We saw the Obelisk’s presence in Rome too as a symbol of Fascism – as Mussolini had seen it – and made it – and we felt that the statue should be returned to its natural home, Aksum. Mussolini had ordered, but we would reject those orders: and we felt that we owed this not only to Ethiopia, but also to Italy. So that Italians of the present generation – and the next – would question Mussolini’s claim to have “taken Civilization to Africa”..
Many people asked (some with not a little doubt), “Can it [the Obelisk] really be returned?”
Well it has been – and the very profile of Aksum has for ever been transformed. ***
And now what?
Where do we go from here?
Where do we go now?
We have to complete the implementation of the Italian Peace Treaty by Italy returning that part of Ethiopia’s pre-war “Ministry of the Pen” archive which she still retains, as well as Haile Sellassie’s pre-war little aeroplane Tsehai, called after his beloved daughter, which has been envisaged – by the building’s planner Jaques Dubois as part of Addis Ababa airport decoration.
We have to remember at the same time that Italy was not the only country to loot from Ethiopia – by returning the Obelisk she has however set a good example for Britain to return the loot taken from Emperor Tewodros’s capital at Maqdala in 1868. We should give our support to AFROMET: the Association for the Return of Maqdala Treasures in its demand for restitution.
You will recall, dear Reader, that this – as I showed in a recent article in “Capital” – was the idea of none other then the great 19th century British Liberal, Prime Minister, William Ewart Gladstone.
Last, but not least, we vow that the re-erection of the Obelisk be followed by the re-erection of the remaining fallen obelisks – as well as by increasing determination in the preservation of the country’s unique cultural heritage.
It is hope that the Return – and Re-erection – of the Obelisk will be an inspiration for Ethiopia’s new Millennium.
(Originally published in Capital newspaper)
Richard Pankhurst 
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