III.—HATASOU, daughter of Thothmes I., erected two obelisks within the temple of Osiris at Karnak, to the honour of her father. Like the preceding, one has fallen to the ground, and one only remains. The standing obelisk is ninety-two feet high,[43] and is a beautiful work. It is upon the base of this pair of obelisks that we find the legend of their having been hewn from the rock, erected and finished in seven months. The pedestals of two other obelisks are mentioned by Mariette as standing in front of her temple at Deir-el-Bahari, on the western shore of the Nile, at Thebes; but the obelisks themselves are destroyed. [Illustration: Cartouches of the Pharaoh, Thothmes III.; his prenomen or first or divine name, and his surname or family name; the former being represented by the three syllables; the suns disk, _Ra_; a turreted parallelogram, _men_; and the scarab, _kheper_; _i.e._, Ra-men-kheper. And the latter by the sacred Ibis, representing _Thoth_, the god of letters; and the emblem of birth, which stands for _mes_; making together Thothmes. ] IV.—THOTHMES III. follows next in succession with four obelisks, the four Needles; all erected at Heliopolis; the two beautiful obelisks termed Pharaoh’s Needles, and the pair at Alexandria called Cleopatra’s Needles. Pharaoh’s Needles were removed by the Emperor Constantine; one he conveyed to Constantinople, where it now stands;[44] and the other was sent to Rome by his son Constantius. The former records the conquest of Mesopotamia by Thothmes III.; while the latter is the celebrated obelisk of St. John Lateran: besides the cartouche of Thothmes III., it also bears in the lateral columns that of his grandson, Thothmes IV.; and of the pair it is said that, unlike the obelisks of Hatasou, they were thirty-six years in the artificers’ hands before they were completed. According to Mr. W. R. Cooper, the obelisk at Constantinople “was originally one of the splendours of Karnak.” It was broken on its journey to Byzantium; and judging from its present appearance, the upper part alone has been erected. An inscription formerly engraved on its pedestal in Greek and Latin, stated that thirty days were occupied in setting it up, and unpleasantly reminds us of “fire and sword:”— “I was unwilling to obey imperial masters, but I was ordered to bear the palm after the destruction of tyrants. All things yield to Theodosius and his enduring offspring. Thus, I was conquered and subdued in thirty days, and elevated towards the sky in the prætorship of Proclus.” [43] Mr. W. E. Cooper states the height of Hatasou’s obelisk as upwards of 97 feet; Lenormant giving it 30 metres (97 feet 6 inches) in altitude, and 368 tons in weight. The height of the obelisk of Thothmes I. is, according to the same authority, 90 feet 6 inches.