エジプト、「ピラミッドは宇宙人が建てた」とツイートのマスク氏に訪問呼び掛け

【カイロＡＦＰ＝時事】エジプトのピラミッドは宇宙人が建てたもの、と米宇宙開発企業スペースXの創業者イーロン・マスク氏がツイッターに投稿し、波紋を広げている。これを受け、エジプト政府はマスク氏を自国に招待すると表明。ピラミッドを訪れるよう呼び掛けている。（写真はイーロン・マスク氏）
　マスク氏は「ピラミッドは明らかに宇宙人が建てたもの」とツイート。陰謀論者に人気のテーマだが、マスク氏のツイートには予想通り、のんきなものから憤慨したものまでさまざまな反応が寄せられた。
　しかし、ソーシャルメディアを駆使することで知られるエジプトのラニア・マシャート国際協力相はこれを、新型コロナウイルスの影響で打撃を受けたエジプト観光産業の再興に役立てる機会と捉えた。
　前観光相でもあるマシャート氏は、「ピラミッドの建造方法について書かれた書物や、ピラミッド建設作業員たちの墓を確認することができるよう、あなたとスペースＸを招待する」「マスク氏、あなたをお待ちしている」とツイート。世界の七不思議の一つに挙げられるピラミッドを自分の目で確かめるよう促した。
　マスク氏はその後、ピラミッドの歴史に関する英ＢＢＣの記事のリンクを投稿し、建造の過程を「実用的に要約したもの」とコメントした。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2020/08/06-14:44）

Egypt has invited Elon Musk to visit its famed pyramids after the SpaceX and Tesla founder posted a satirical tweet stating that clearly extra-terrestrials had built the giant monuments.
Aliens built the pyramids obv, Musk had tweeted, picking up on a theme popular with conspiracy theorists and kicking off a predictable flood of replies ranging from light-hearted to furious.
Among the avalanche of one-liners, memes and potshots were some angry messages from nationalistic Egyptians who demanded the eccentric engineer and high-tech billionaire better check his facts.
Egyptian International Cooperation Minister Rania al-Mashat, a savvy social media user, however, saw a marketing opportunity to help revive the country's pandemic-battered tourism sector.
I follow your work with a lot of admiration, wrote Mashat, a former tourism minister. I invite you & Space X to explore the writings about how the pyramids were built and also to check out the tombs of the pyramid builders.
Mr. Musk, we are waiting for you, she added, inviting the entrepreneur to come and see for himself one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, Egypt's enormous tombs built for pharaohs and their consorts.
Musk followed up by posting a link to a BBC article about the history of the giant structures, calling it a sensible summary of how they were constructed.
The most famous and largest of Egypt's ancient monuments, the Giza Pyramids outside Cairo, reopened to the public last month after a three-month closure forced by the coronavirus pandemic.
Egypt's tourism sector suffered a decade of turmoil after the 2011 Arab Spring protests and overthrow of longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak, with militant attacks and political instability keeping many tourists away.
The tourism sector, which accounts for a fifth of the country's GDP and employs some three million people, had recovered to draw record visitors, around 13.6 million last year, when the COVID-19 crisis struck.