[JoeProBono]

Zahi Hawass, the director of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities

[Jim Noble]

Funny - I was sitting having lunch at the Met with my kids, looking out at this ugly thing a few weeks ago.

I wondered, "Why don't we send it back?"

[muawiyah]

Hawass makes a very good point. Besides they aren't making ancient Egyptian stonework anymore. They are rare.

If New York can't take care of it I'm sure we can get another American city to do so ~ I was thinking this would look great out front of the Fairfax county building. We have a huge lawn, and a protective glass enclosure could be provided easily.

[muawiyah]

Hawass makes a very good point. Besides they aren't making ancient Egyptian stonework anymore. They are rare.

If New York can't take care of it I'm sure we can get another American city to do so ~ I was thinking this would look great out front of the Fairfax county building. We have a huge lawn, and a protective glass enclosure could be provided easily.

[bunkerhill7]

I can tell them exactly where to put it.

[surroundedinCT]

It’s a beautiful obelisk. Gorgeous in the time of history. If NYC won’t take care of it, at least Hawass will.

[marsh2]

I imagine the city pollution is eating away at it.

[DakotaGator]

I have a duty to protect all Egyptian monuments whether they are inside or outside of Egypt.

No, Director Hawass, you don't. You only have the duty to protect monuments owned by Egypt. The obelisk in Central Park is not the property of Egypt. So you have absolutely no say in any matters concerning it.

This is all tied up in concepts of national sovereignty and property rights which were codified into something called laws. Of course, the rule of law seems to mean nothing to Director Hawass. One wonders why?

[Flag_This]

Sure, we’ll send it back - if you pay us back the $28,000,000,000.00 we’ve sent to egypt over 30 years.

[MinuteGal]

"Vicki Carp, Director of New York's Park Service said 'that's not true.'

Sounds like she and Mayor Bloomberg are in de-nial.

(....well, somebody had to say it)......

Leni

[eleni121]

Well the Italians had the good grace to return the Obelisk of Axum to Ethiopia a few years back...Bloomie should do the same but I doubt that he has any grace. HE won’t even push to rebuild Saint Nicholas Church destroyed on 9-11.

Send it back.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obelisk_of_Axum#The_controversial_return

[JerseyHighlander]

Hawass is a lunatic, however he did not send this letter without a lobbying effort by NYC metro area based archaeologists and historians and egyptoligists lobbying him to do so.

The obelisk is in pretty bad shape, and the pigeons are destroying it. The particulate pollution in NYC is intense... it eats all stonework...

[airborne]

Take the U.N. with you!

[americanophile]

I'm sure it would be much better protected at the bottom of Lake Nasser, like the scores of known ancient Nubian sites that were flooded by the construction of the Aswan Dam. God only knows what was lost. Or perhaps better off in the Cairo Museum, which is, without question, the most poorly kept museum I have ever been in...and I've been in many. Half the cases are cracked and taped together, without any kind of humidity control, etc., you have items that are 1000s of years old that are readily handled by people, and could be plucked off the walls with the greatest of ease. They even have broken windows, and pigeons flying through the building defecating where they like. The museum is utterly appauling, especially given the treasures inside - many of which can't be seen because of the ruefully inadequate light. You literally need a flashlight. Moreover, the miserable urban hole that is Cairo must be seen to be believed, with mounds of trash and dead animals - including horses - laying in the streets and dumped in canals. The endless expanse of half-finshed shanties now extends immediately next to the Sphinx and pyramids, making the classical scene of the pyramids from the lush Nile marshes only a memory. Of course they are so obscured by smog that they can hardly be appreciated anyway. Cairo is an unimaginable dump and in my opinion, every nation on the earth that has a piece of Egyptian art has absolute moral authority to keep and conserve it given with the Arab Egyptians have done to what remains. An absolute disgrace.