As far as can be ascertained from the obelisks of the present day, most of them point as the original place of their erection to that city preëminently called the "City of Obelisks" in Lower Egypt, the Heliopolis of the ancients, at present [Arabic: MTRYH] _Matariyeh_, near Cairo. They were here placed around and in front of the temple of the sun, {2}which was the principal sanctuary of the city. From this fact Heliopolis received the name "house of the sun", or [Hebrew: BEIT SHEMESH] [bêth shêmesh], as mentioned in the Bible. These obelisks formed the leading attraction at that remote time and undoubtedly remained such until the city's utter destruction. Their fame spread far and wide, for in Jeremiah xliii:13 we find the prophet mentioning the "upright stones" [[Hebrew: MATSVWOT] mazzebhôth] of Heliopolis, which were doomed to perish. Heliopolis, in the days of its power, must have presented a glorious picture to the observer, no less when Joseph wedded a daughter of the high-priest, as when, some centuries later, the law-giver Moses was a student at Egypt's foremost university in this city. Another city, however, claims our attention as on an almost equal footing with Heliopolis as regards obelisks. Thebes in Upper Egypt, the famous city of one hundred gates, as Homer calls it, the largest city of the ancient world, had besides its many grand temples and palaces a number of the largest obelisks extant. Four of them still tower above the piles of ruins scattered on all sides, while a still larger number must lie buried deep in the ground. It was quite appropriate that here in the metropolis of Upper Egypt, where Pharaoh passed much of his time and where he was crowned with all the pomp and magnificence of a victor, a number of obelisks should proclaim his praise. They were made for the living to gaze upon, and were therefore erected on the eastern bank of the Nile where the city proper stood, while the western bank was wholly surrendered to the dead. The modern villages of Karnak ([Arabic: QRNAQ]) and Luxor ([Arabic: AQSR]) now mark the spot where Thebes was situated. However, if we are to believe a traveler, Villiers Stuart, who found two prostrate obelisks of an old dynasty in the necropolis or cemetery on the western bank of the Nile, and take into account that Lepsius found his obelisk at Gizeh, the necropolis of Memphis, also on the western bank of the Nile, we must infer that the oldest obelisks were not always set up with a view to being admired by the living, but simply served as head-stones for the dead. {3}[Illustration: Ruins of THEBES, at present KARNAK, in Upper Egypt.] {4}[Illustration: Obelisk of Ramses II. in Luxor (Thebes).]