II.—Thothmes I., of the eighteenth dynasty, which embraces the period between 1703 and 1462 b.c., stands next in age to Usertesen, although about 1,500 years must have elapsed between the dates of their respective works. The obelisk now standing in front of the propylon of the Osiris temple at Karnak, is the work of Thothmes I.; the companion obelisk lies broken by its side. The hieroglyphic exordium of Thothmes I. occupies the pyramidion and two of the faces of the obelisk; while the remaining faces have been appropriated by Rameses II. Two hundred and fifty years therefore must have intervened between the dates of the two writings.
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.
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.”
Of Cleopatra’s Needles, one stands at Alexandria; whilst the other, which had fallen several centuries ago, and been buried in the earth, will, we hope, soon fill a site on the banks of the Thames, by virtue of its privilege of being the British obelisk.
Mr. Bonomi admits into his list of obelisks two small granite monoliths dedicated to Thothmes III., which stand before the Usertesen sanctuary at Karnak. “I put them down,” he says, in a communication with which he favoured us recently, “as obelisks—because they stand in front of a temple, but doubt their claim to be reckoned such, for they never had the pointed apex. On the north face of the square block are three figures of the Papyrus of Lower Egypt, and, on the south face, three of the Papyrus of Upper Egypt. On the east and west sides are figures of Thothmes embraced by one of the goddesses of Egypt, repeated two or three times. The figures are in the sculpture peculiar to Egypt,[45] and a little more than three feet high.” We entirely agree with Mr. Bonomi, that the monoliths in question, however interesting in other respects, do not come up to the standard of the typical obelisk; and, although occupying so distinguished a place of honour as the front of a sanctuary temple, we must refuse them admission into our present list.
V.—Amenophis II., another Pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty, is the author of a small, but interesting obelisk, which was brought to England by the Duke of Northumberland (then Lord Prudhoe), in 1838, and now stands in the front hall of Syon House, at Isleworth. It is a monolith of syenite granite, 7 feet 6¾ inches in height, supported on a pedestal of 2 feet 8½ inches; making the total altitude of the monument 10 feet 3¼ inches. Its breadth at the base, on two of its faces, is 10⅞ inches, and that of the pyramidion 8½ inches; and, on the adjoining faces, 9⅞ inches, the base of the pyramidion being 8⅞ inches. It therefore happens that the base on two of the sides is only one inch broader than that of the pyramidion; whilst on the other sides the base exceeds that of the pyramidion nearly 2½ inches. The column is broken at the apex, and was found in one of the villages of the Thebaid. This obelisk was made the subject of an interesting paper, published in the “Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature” for 1843, by Mr. Joseph Bonomi, who observes, with regard to it, that it presents the peculiar feature of being inscribed only on one face. Its inscription reads as follows:—
On the apex, the god Chnoumis, ram-headed, is seated on a throne; Amenophis II. kneels before him, offering a pyramidal loaf of bread, and says:—“Khnoum, resident in the heart (or centre) of Phi (Elephantine) Ammenhetf (Amenophis II.), giver of life like the sun.”