At last an issue of cultural looting from colonial times, outstanding for half a century, has received coverage in a British newspaper (Pressure grows for Italians to return Ethiopia's pride, July 16).
You rightly draw attention to Italy's legal obligations (under Article 37 of its 1947 Peace Treaty with the United Nations) to restore the 2,000 year-old Axumite obelisk now in Rome. There is, however, an urgent aspect to this matter. The obelisk has now been found to have been suffering from pollution caused by the busy traffic swirling around it over the 60 years since it was installed in the Piazza di Porta Capena to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Mussolini's march on Rome.
Nor are the problems of transporting the 24-metre-high obelisk back to Ethiopia as formidable or as costly as has been supposed. In a scientific paper published earlier this year, the Italian scientist Dr Vincenzo Francaviglia has concluded that it could easily be redivided into the five separate pieces into which it had broken cenruries before.
Stephen Bell.
2 The Row. Spalford.
Newark.
Notts NG237HB