Cleopatra's needle

by Sir Erasmus Wilson

On the shaft:—“The Harmachis, the living sun, the powerful bull, the very valiant king of the south and north, Aa-aa-cheferu (prenomen of Amenophis II.), son of the sun, Amenhetf, divine ruler of the Thebaid, has made his offering gift to his father Khnoum (Chnoumis); he has seen given to him two obelisks of the table of the sun (the altar of the sun), that he may make him (the king) a giver of life for ever.”

VI.—Amenophis III., also a Pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty, and the Memnon of the Greeks, erected two obelisks in front of his temple at Karnak. The temple is now a mass of ruins, and the obelisks have utterly disappeared.

VII.—Seti I., or Osirei, a Pharaoh of the nineteenth dynasty, which ranges in date between 1462 and 1288 b.c., was the author of two, at least, of the obelisks ascribed to his son Rameses the Great. He is said to have been of Semitic origin, and descended from the Hyksos or shepherd kings, and was struck blind at an early period of his career; but having recovered his sight, he devoted himself, for the rest of his life, to the construction of temples and obelisks. Rameses, who delighted in “the bubble reputation,” even to his father’s loss, inserted his own heraldic bearings on some of Seti’s monuments—for example, the Flaminian obelisk, as shown by Tomlinson—and therefore a certain amount of confusion is imported into the differentiation of the works of the two Pharaohs, father and son; although the confusion is at once cleared up when the hieroglyphic writing is investigated. To Seti belong the beautiful Flaminian obelisk at the Porta del Popolo, which is regarded as the first ever removed from Egypt, and that of the Trinita de Monti at Rome.[46] On these his legend occupies the middle column of the shaft; whilst the titles and praises of Rameses are displayed in the side columns. The Flaminian obelisk was conveyed from Heliopolis to Rome by the Emperor Augustus, as a trophy of war, in the tenth year before the Christian era, and was set up in its present place by Pope Sixtus V., in the year 1590. We arrive thus at the number seven for the city of Heliopolis, or more probably eight; for, as we now know, obelisks were set up in pairs; and we have reason to regard a city adorned with so many of these emblems of the sun, as very truly the city of the sun. Heliopolis, however, did not possess the greatest number of obelisks, inasmuch as, through the munificence of Rameses II., there were ten or more in the ruined city of San.

Ovals or Cartouches of Rameses the Great, prenomen and name; the former signifying Ra-ouser-ma-sotep-en-Ra; and the latter, Ra-mer-amen, child of the sun.

VIII.—Rameses II. is the most prolific in the production of obelisks of all the kings of Egypt. The Luxor obelisks owe their origin to him: one is still standing in front of the colossal statues of himself and the magnificent propylon of the great hall of the temple; while the other occupies an admirable site in the Place de la Concorde, at Paris.

Two obelisks, bearing his name, ornament the public places at Rome; one in front of the Pantheon, in the middle of a fountain; the other in the garden of the Villa Mattei, on the Cœlian Hill. The former was originally placed in the Circus Maximus, whence it was removed, by Pope Paul V., to the Piazza di S. Martino, and subsequently erected on its present site by Clement XI., in the year 1711; while that of the Villa Mattei, or Cœli Montana, was set up by Pope Sixtus V. in the year 1590. An unlucky incident happened in connection with the latter event; for as the obelisk was being lowered into its place, the architect inadvertently got his hand entangled between its base and the pedestal; and as there was no means of lifting the obelisk, it became necessary to cut off the imprisoned hand at the wrist.

In addition to these four, we must likewise give to Rameses II. the credit of the ten ruined obelisks at Tanis, the field of Zoan; making a total of fourteen. But although, in the gross amount, Rameses II. exceeds all other Pharaohs, he only equals Thothmes III. in the number of the standing ones. Four only of the Rameses obelisks are erect—namely, Luxor, Paris, Pantheon, and Villa Mattei; whilst Thothmes III. equally lays claim to four—Constantinople, St. John Lateran, and the two Cleopatra’s Needles.

IX.—Menephtah I., a son and successor of Rameses II., also of the nineteenth dynasty, is represented as the author of an obelisk which is placed before the front of St. Peter’s at Rome. It was brought from Heliopolis to Alexandria by Augustus Cæsar, and afterwards transported to Rome by the Emperor Caligula in the fortieth year of the first century of the Christian era, and marks the period when Peter was released from prison and made his entry into Rome (January 18th, 43 a.d.) The obelisk was erected by Pope Sixtus V., in the garden of the Vatican, in 1586; and is without inscription. It is of this obelisk that the anecdote is told of the almost failure of the operation of erection from the stretching of the ropes. Silence among the workmen had been enjoined under extreme penalties; but a sailor perceiving the difficulty and its cause, suddenly shouted, “Water the ropes.” Fontana, the architect, catching the practical force of the suggestion, acted upon it at once, and the danger which had been imminent was averted. Need we say that the sailor was not punished for his infraction of orders, but was handsomely rewarded.

X.—Psammeticus I., a Pharaoh of the twenty-sixth dynasty, corresponding with the year 665 b.c., is the author of an obelisk which was originally erected at Heliopolis, and was brought to Rome by Augustus Cæsar, thirty years before the birth of Christ. It was made to serve the purpose of a gnomon, or pointer, to a great sun-dial in front of the church of St. Lorenzo in Lucina; and was afterwards moved to the Monte Citorio by Pope Pius VI., in 1792. It was found broken into four pieces, and bears marks of extensive repairs.