The 'obelisk'—properly termed a stele[a] or, in the local languages, Tigrinya: hawelti; and church Ge'ez: hawelti—is found along with many other stelae in the city of Axum in modern-day Ethiopia.

King Ezana (c. 321 – c. 360), influenced by his childhood tutor Frumentius, introduced Christianity to Axum, precluding the pagan practice of erecting burial stelae (it seems that at the feet of each obelisk, together with the grave, there was also a sacrificial altar.

[6] Over the course of time, many of these stelae fell over[7] due to several reasons: structural collapse (as, probably, in the case of the Great Stele, measuring 33 m), possibly immediately after their erection; earthquakes (Axum is in a seismic zone); or the military incursions of the Imam Ahmad Gragn during the Ethiopian-Adal War from 1529 to 1543.

In the 19th century, of the three major "royal" stelae, only King Ezana's Stele remained erect, shown in the print "The Obelisk at Axum" of Henry Salt (1780–1827)[8] and in the photograph taken by Mabel Bent in 1893.

The monolith was cut into three pieces and transported by truck along the tortuous route between Axum and the port of Massawa, taking five trips over a period of two months.

One source[12] also suggests that emperor Haile Sellassie, after hearing of these technical difficulties (and of the enormous costs necessary to overcome them), decided to grant the stele to the city of Rome, as a gift for the "renewed friendship" between Italy and Ethiopia.

In any case, after the fall of the Mengistu regime, the new Ethiopian government asked for the return of the stele, finding a positive answer from the then president of the Italian republic Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, in April 1997.

[14] The dismantled stele remained sitting in a warehouse near Rome's Leonardo Da Vinci International Airport, until 19 April 2005 when the middle piece was repatriated by use of an Antonov An-124, amidst much local celebration.

Reassembly began in June 2008, with a team chosen by UNESCO and led by Giorgio Croci, and the monument was re-erected in its original home and unveiled on 4 September 2008.