Korea has recently had the Oegyujanggak documents returned by France & Japan is also planning on returning other documents to them soon. There is still a lot of the country’s heritage located in foreign museums however and the ownership of many of these items continues to be disputed.

From:
Joong Ang Daily (Korea)

Bringing our cultural treasures home
April 26, 2011

The massive needle-shaped stone monuments known as the Egyptian obelisks are still a mystery, but it is widely believed that they are symbols of fertility. In most civilizations, the sky is often represented as male while the earth is female. In Greek mythology, Uranus was the god of the sky and Gaia was the goddess of the earth. But in ancient Egypt, Geb was the god of the Earth, and his wife Nut was the goddess of the sky. The obelisks are said to be phalluses constructed to point up at the sky for Nut.

Although the obelisks were built in Egypt, most obelisks are found not in Egypt but in Italy. There are 29 obelisks remaining around the world, and nine of them are in Egypt. Italy has 11. Roman emperors had admired the majestic beauty of the obelisks when they conquered Egypt and took them to Italy. That was over 2,000 years ago. Italians’ infatuation with obelisks returned in the 20th century. When Italy won the second Italo-Abyssinian War, Benito Mussolini looted the Obelisk of Axum.
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