How are the mighty fallen

So finally this morning I awoke feeling well and ready to visit the stelae of Axum.

Axum is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in Africa. Its ruler was converted to Christianity around 356AD. It is reputed to be the resting place of the Ark of the Covenant. It is one of my favourite places in Ethiopia.

The huge Axum stelae are probably grave markers, erected around 1700 years ago. The one in this photo, the Great Stele, would have been 33m high and weighed 520 tonnes, all made from a single piece of rock. This one is believed to have fallen and broken during construction.

The second highest stele, The Obelisk of Axum, is 24.6m high. In 1937 it was looted by Mussolini's soldiers and shipped to Rome, where it was erected near the Circus Maximus. In 1947, Italy signed a pledge to the UN to return all the property plundered from Ethiopia, but the difficulties in transporting such a huge monument meant that the stele only came back to Axum in 50 years later.

The repatriation (in 3 stages) required the use of a huge Antonov cargo plane. the middle piece alone was the largest and heaviest piece of air freight ever carried, and the runway of Axum airport had to be specially strengthened. The three pieces were reassembled using Kevlar bars (to withstand earthquakes and lightning strikes).

The obelisk was finally unveiled in Axum in 2008 (the millennium year 2000 in the country's Coptic calendar), in front of the president, prime minister and tens of thousands of cheering Ethiopians.