Obelisks—where found, and when, and by whom erected.

§1. Obelisks have been found in various localities of the ancient Egyptian empire. Possibly almost every city of some prominence will have boasted of some, no matter how small, especially such cities as became for a time the residence of the Pharaoh. They would also be placed in cities in which grand temples had been erected for the worship of some prominent deity, and if we can rely upon the reports of travelers, they are even found in the adjacent Sinaitic Peninsula to serve as monuments to the praise of some king's achievements. Unfortunately, however, for any deductions, most of the obelisks which were certainly erected in various places are completely gone either through the violence of foes, the ravages of a Cambyses, or else the internal dissensions of the people and the subsequent ruin, and the ruthless sand of the desert. Of the obelisks, which formerly must have been counted by hundreds, we can scarcely find fifty, and of these only a few are perfect or of purely Egyptian origin.

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 ????? Matariyeh, near Cairo. They were here placed around and in front of the temple of the sun, which was the principal sanctuary of the city. From this fact Heliopolis received the name "house of the sun", or ???? ??????? [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" [???????? 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 (?????) and Luxor (????) 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.

The majority of all extant obelisks was erected at Heliopolis and Thebes. Others, however, have been discovered in different places: some as far north as SaÏs and Tanis, and as far south as the boundary of Egypt on the island of PhilÆ, called ElephantinÊ by the ancients. The limit in the opposite directions seems to have been the Fayoom on the west, and the Sinaitic Peninsula on the east. Outside of Egypt and Africa other Egyptian and some pseudo-Egyptian obelisks are to be found. They are the work of Roman emperors. These, jealous of the great achievements of the Pharaohs and desirous of adding to the many Pharaonic obelisks in Rome some of their own making and inscribed with their own name, had the stone quarried in Syene and transported to Rome. Domitian and Hadrian erected such to their honor in the "Eternal City".

§2. The obelisk is certainly a very early invention of the Egyptians. As a matter of fact, it was at first of small size and could hardly have been used as an ornament of temples, which purpose it served in later times. We find very little of the commonplace laudatory titles on the earliest specimens of obelisks, and, as mentioned above, some of them were even found in the necropolis or cemetery, apparently to serve as mementos or head-stones. A passage on the monuments, mentioning that a certain Merab (glyph "love-heart") was priest of Khufu's obelisk, points to the fact, that as early as the fourth dynasty (about 3100 B. C.) the form of the obelisk was known. In the inscriptions of the fifth dynasty we meet with the hieroglyphic sign of the obelisk glyph. The XIth dynasty has bequeathed to us three obelisks. It was not, however, until the XIIth dynasty that the true beauty of the obelisk was fully appreciated. Usertesen I. (2371 B. C., according to Lepsius) may be considered to have been the first to erect obelisks of large dimensions, as is well illustrated by the obelisk at present standing in MatarÎyeh near Cairo, though another of his obelisks at Bejij, or the ancient Crocodilopolis, in the Fayoom has more of the appearance of a stelÉ with a rounded top.

From this time until the beginning of the XVIIIth dynasty we possess no obelisks. A new era then began for Egypt. It ushered in its golden age. Thothmes I. was the first to claim for himself equal honor with Usertesen. He erected two magnificent obelisks in Karnak, where they are still conspicuous. Here his daughter, queen Hatasu, co-regent with her brothers Thothmes II. and III., also erected two obelisks. It is true her name does not appear on them, but it is a well established fact, that her great brother Thothmes III., mighty as he was, showed an ignoble jealousy of his valiant sister and, on coming to power, erased her name from the monuments and substituted his own instead. As he had, however, left the feminine pronouns and endings in the inscriptions, his knavery was readily discovered. Notwithstanding this serious defect in his character, he celebrated his many victories by the erection of obelisks of his own. To him belongs the palm in this line of monumental structures. Besides him, one other Pharaoh of this dynasty, Amenophis II., seems to have erected one small obelisk.

After the death of Thothmes III. there was a comparative quiet in the erection of obelisks, although one of his obelisks was finished, inscribed, and then erected by Thothmes IV. The great Pharaoh was praised for his imposing monuments, but none dared emulate him until with a new dynasty a new line of rulers came to Egypt. Of Seti I. two excellent obelisks have come down to us, both being at present in Rome. The name, however, most frequently mentioned on the obelisks is that of Ramses II. (1200 B. C.). Although he erected comparatively few obelisks, he inscribed his name and deeds on those of his predecessors, thereby engaging in no legitimate business. He considered himself the equal of Thothmes III., and therefore chose the obelisks of the latter, which had but one—the central—column inscribed, and put two more columns on each side with vainglorious praise of himself. With him the erection of large obelisks seems to have ceased for a time.

§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 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.

§4. It would be quite impossible to give an absolutely 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.

Besides the above, we are told that there were in Rome in 1676 four fragments of obelisks, which have since disappeared. Another obelisk is said to have been near the Porta del Popolo in Rome, in the burial place of Nero, which was only a Roman imitation, called the Esmeade Obelisk. ZoËga states that a fragment of an obelisk was brought to Wanstead, England. It was 2½ ft. high, and comprised only a part of the pyramidion. Another fragment of an obelisk is mentioned as having been at Cairo, Egypt. Bonomi calls attention to one at Soughton Hall, England. None of these, however, can now be traced.