Cleopatra's needle

by Sir Erasmus Wilson

XI.—Psammeticus II., likewise a Pharaoh of the twenty-sixth dynasty (588-567 b.c.), has his name inscribed on a small obelisk which was set up by Bernini on the back of a marble elephant in the Piazza della Minerva at Rome, by the command of Pope Alexander VII., in the year 1667. It was probably brought from Sais in the first instance, and was found amongst the ruins of the Temple of Isis and Serapis at Rome. An inscription on this monument reminds the reader, in allusion to the elephant, that a strong mind is needed for the maintenance and exercise of wisdom.

XII.—Nectanebo I., a Pharaoh of the thirtieth dynasty (378 b.c.), is represented by two small obelisks of black basalt, preserved in the British Museum. Dr. Birch, in a recent communication to us with regard to them, observes, that they were dedicated to the god Thoth, the Mercury of the Greeks, “by a king now recognised as Nekht-her-hebi, the Nectabes or Nekterhebes of the lists; some call him Nectanebo I. They came from Cairo, and formed part of the antiquities surrendered by the French in Egypt after their capitulation, and were presented by George III. about the year 1801.” Both have been broken into several pieces, and have lost their summit as well as their pyramidion; their present dimensions being about 8 feet in height, by 1 foot 6 inches on two of the sides, and an inch less on the other two. Bonomi and Cooper, however, attribute them to Amyrtæus, a king of the twenty-eighth dynasty. Mr. Cooper states that they bear the cartouche of Amyrtæus, and mentions, as a curious part of their history, that one “was first noticed by Pocock as forming part of a window-sill in the castle of Cairo; and the other, broken in two pieces, was discovered by Niebuhr, one fragment serving as the door-sill of a mosque in the castle of Cairo, while a second was the door-step of a house near Kantara-siedid.... The French army of occupation carried off these obelisks from Cairo to Alexandria, and they consequently fell into the hands of the English at the capitulation of that city in 1801.... The hieroglyphic inscription has only been partly translated; but the portion so deciphered reads:—‘Amyrtæus, the living, like Ra, beloved of Thoth, the great lord of Eshmunayn.’”

Obelisks in the British Museum.

XIII.—Nectanebo II., the last of the Pharaohs, of the thirtieth dynasty, or 378 b.c., is the author of an obelisk without hieroglyphic sculpture, which was set up at Alexandria by Ptolemy Philadelphus, in front of the tomb of his wife Arsinoë. It was subsequently conveyed to Rome, at the command of Augustus, by Maximus, prefect of Egypt, in the tenth year before Christ; and its pyramidion was cut off with the intention of supplying its place with a gilded one: this intention, however, has never been accomplished. It was originally one of the pair, both uninscribed, and both without pyramidion, which were set up before the mausoleum of Augustus in the Campus Martius, and was subsequently placed by Sixtus V. behind the church of St. Maria Maggiore, in 1587. The fellow-obelisk is that now standing in the Piazza Quirinale, on the Monte Cavallo.

Mr. W. R. Cooper remarks, with regard to these two obelisks, that according to tradition, they “were set up at Memphis by King Pepi Merira (Apappus of Eratosthenes), of the sixth dynasty, a monarch who is recorded on the hieroglyphic texts to have reigned for one hundred years, less one hour.” They were removed from Egypt to Rome by Claudius Cæsar, a.d. 57, and placed in front of the mausoleum of Augustus. Then sharing the universal fate of all the obelisks at the fall of Rome, they became buried in the earth, and when disinterred had lost the pyramidion, and were otherwise broken. The smaller of the two was dug out by Pius VI. so recently as 1786; “but it occupies, perhaps, a finer position than any of its companions in the city of Rome, except the obelisk of the Vatican, since the architect Antinori erected it on the place of the Monte Cavallo, between the two splendid bronze horses called Castor and Pollux, which once adorned the centre of the Baths of Constantine, and are now the glory of Rome.”

In the British Museum, Dr. Birch mentions the existence of a fragment which would appear to be part of an obelisk of Liliputian dimensions. And he further observes that several such small obelisks are known. Mr. Bonomi likewise includes in his list a small obelisk which formerly stood at Constantinople, and quotes from the work of Petrus Gyllus, or Pierre Gilles,[47] as follows:—

“It is very probable that Constantinople had more obelisks than one. When first I arrived at Constantinople I saw two of them: one in the Circus Maximus, another in the Imperial Precinct, standing on the north side of the first hill. This last was of a square figure, and was erected near the houses of the Grand Seignor’s Glaziers. A little time after I saw it lying prostrate without the Precinct, and found it to be thirty-five feet in length. Each of its sides, if I mistake not, was six feet broad; and the whole was eight yards in compass. It was purchased by Antonius Priolus, a nobleman of Venice, who sent it thither, and placed it in St. Stephen’s Market. The other is standing in the Hippodrome to this day.” But, according to Long, writes Mr. Cooper, “this obelisk was never removed, but is identical with one of red granite, which still stands in the Sultan’s gardens, on the most northern eminence there. From its dimensions, this obelisk is probably of the period of the middle empire;[48] but as a copy of its inscriptions has not yet reached Europe, or been elsewhere published, all speculation as to its original place of erection, or the monarch who erected it, would be useless.”

Mr. Cooper also includes, in the series of Pharaonic obelisks, a small monolith of sandstone, eight feet in length, which was found by Rüppel lying prostrate on the ground near the wells of Nahasb, in the deserts of Arabia Petræa. The inscriptions on the three sides exposed to the atmosphere are obliterated; but on the under-surface, the hieroglyphs, as far as he could examine them, appeared to be beautifully preserved. The monument was probably of Saitic origin.

Moreover, we must not fail to notice two obelisks, of large size, which were removed from Thebes by the conquering army of Assurbanipal in 664 b.c., and conveyed to Nineveh; where, as they have not since been found, it is to be presumed that they still lie buried in the ruins. “It is not stated from what temple these monuments were taken, and of course it is unknown now, by whom they were erected; but this was the first instance in which an Egyptian obelisk suffered transportation.”[49]