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The New York Obelisk: Cleopatra's Needle: With a Preliminary Sketch of the History, Erection, Uses, and Signification of Obelisks — John Shaqi

The New York Obelisk: Cleopatra's Needle: With a Preliminary Sketch of the History, Erection, Uses, and Signification of ObelisksMoldenke, Charles E.

History

The New York Obelisk: Cleopatra's Needle: With a Preliminary Sketch of the History, Erection, Uses, and Signification of Obelisks

Name: The New York Obelisk: Cleopatra's Needle: With a Preliminary Sketch of the History, Erection, Uses, and Signification of Obelisks
Author: Moldenke, Charles E.

Moldenke, Charles E.

Cleopatra's Needle (New York, N.Y.); Inscriptions, Egyptian

§3. It fell to the lot of the greater number of Egyptian obelisks to be
transported from their native land and to serve as objects of curiosity to
the multitudes, which had and still have no conception of what they
represent. This was due to foreigners; for there is no case on record where
the obelisk of one Pharaoh has been transported to a different place by
another. Not until the Romans invaded Egypt and carried off its grain and
gold, did it occur to {8}man's mind to despoil it of some of its wonders.
The first to adorn Rome and Alexandria with them was the emperor Augustus,
who carried off two to Rome and left two in Alexandria,--the London and New
York Obelisks. Caligula (40 A. D.) and Claudius (41-54 A. D.) followed his
example, and about 90 A. D. Domitian removed two to Rome and two to
Benevento in Italy. Constantine the Great (306--337 A. D.), after
establishing himself in Byzantium [Constantinople], transported a large
obelisk to this city, but left a second one, which he had begun to remove
in 330, in Alexandria, until Constantius brought it over to Constantinople
in 357. During the Middle Ages and up to the present century the other
obelisks still remaining in Egypt were left undisturbed. In 1832-1833 the
French removed the Luxor Obelisk to Paris, the English the prostrate
Alexandrian Obelisk in 1877-1878 to London, and the Americans the erect
Obelisk of Alexandria, commonly called "_Cleopatra's Needle_" in 1880-1881
to New York.

[Illustration: Head of the mummy of Ramses II. discovered in 1881.]

§4. It would be quite impossible to give an absolutely {9}correct list of
all obelisks existing at the present time, since with regard to some of
them we must take the word of travelers, who were not acquainted with
Egyptian studies and would therefore easily have been imposed upon, or else
the books of reference describing them are in some cases very much at
variance. The following list is as near correct as it can at present be
made.


I. ERECT OBELISKS.

                       Where erected:       By whom erected:    Height:
  _In Egypt_:

   1. Karnak              Thebes             Thothmes I.       71 ft. 7 in.
   2. Karnak              Thebes             Hatasu            97 "   6 "
   3. Luxor               Thebes             Ramses II.        82 "   - "
   4. Heliopolis          Heliopolis         Usertesen I.      67 "   - "
   5. Philæ [frag.]       Philæ              Ptolemies         33 "   - "
   6. 7. Karnak           Thebes             Thothmes III.     19 "   - "
   8. Sarbut-el-Khedem[?] Sinaitic Peninsula    ?                 ?
   9. Drah-abul-Neggah    Thebes             Antef [XI. dyn.]  11 "   - "

  _In Constantinople_:

  10. Atmeidan            Heliopol. ?        Thothmes III.     55 "   4 "
  11. Prioli                 ?               Nectanebo I. ?    35 "   - "

  _In Rome_:

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The New York Obelisk: Cleopatra's Needle: With a Preliminary Sketch of the History, Erection, Uses, and Signification of Obelisks

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