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Cleopatra's Needles
A trio of obelisks in London, Paris (Place de la Concorde) and New York City. Each is made of red granite, stands about 21 metres (68 feet) high, weighs about 180 tons and is inscribed with hieroglyphs. Although the needles are genuine Ancient Egyptian obelisks, they are somewhat misnamed as neither has any connection with queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt. They were originally erected in the Egyptian city of Heliopolis on the orders of Thutmose III, around 1450 BC. The material of which they were cut is granite, brought from Aswan, near the first cataract of the Nile. The inscriptions were added about 200 years later by Ramses II to commemorate his military victories. The obelisks were moved to Alexandria and set up in the Caesarium -- a temple built by Cleopatra in honor of Mark Antony -- by the Romans in 12 BC, during the reign of Augustus Caesar, but were toppled some time later. This had the fortuitous effect of burying their faces and so preserving most of the hieroglyphs from the effects of weathering.The New York needle was presented to the City of New York by Ismail Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt, and its transportation was funded by the railroad tycoon William Henry Vanderbilt. In contrast with the tortuous journey of the London needle, it arrived safely and was erected in Central Park on 22 February 1881. |
View at locations |
- Central Park
- Central Park
- Central Park
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