CHAPTER III

Stone-cutters smoothing a block of granite.

Stone-cutter at work.

The blocks having been quarried, the stone-cutters cut them exactly to the required shape and polished them almost as smooth as glass with the chisel and incessant rubbing. The accompanying pictures fully illustrate and explain this. In the accurate chiseling and planing of the angles the Egyptians have never been surpassed. As for the material used in the manufacture of the tools that were to cut the hard Egyptian rock which bends even our iron and steel tools of to-day and makesthem useless, we must profess a deep ignorance. Either the Egyptians employed chemical compounds and emery, or else they possessed a wonderful knowledge of tempering bronze and iron tools which has been completely lost. It still remains for our advanced civilization to rediscover what the ancient Egyptians already knew.

Chiseling, planing, polishing, and inscribing statues.

Transportation of a colossus.

§2. We know almost less about the transportation than the quarrying of obelisks. We have only one picture on the monuments, at Bersheh, to guide us. In this the dragging of a colossus by workmen is represented in vivid outlines. The accompanying picture shows the man in charge of the work, the servant greasing the runners of the sledge, and the multitude of toiling people, but ittells us very little about the manner of transportation for a distance of more than one thousand miles between Syene and Lower Egypt. That the removal of such monoliths from the quarry to the place of erection was a matter of some importance is fully brought out by many inscriptions, where this task is intrusted by Pharaoh to a loyal subject, and where the latter expresses his gratification that his mission was completed to the satisfaction of his master, who rewarded him quite handsomely. From some inscriptions it would appear that the blocks, when ready for transportation, were rolled to the river's edge, or perhaps placed on rollers and then pushed or else dragged down on an inclined plane. The Nile, ever ready to extend his welcome help to the children of his soil, aided them again in their efforts. Large barges or rather floats were built where the water of the inundation would reach the blocks, and where they, when once on the floats, would be carried on that great Egyptian highway to any part of the vast empire. Many monuments, however, were transported overland, in which case the aid of the Nile must have been dispensed with. The Colossi at Thebes, the two statues of Amenophis III., and the statue of Ramses II. in the Memnonium at Thebes, which weighed as much as 1,800,000 pounds, are instances of this. Such masses of rock were moved along on sledges by human hands, as shown in the above picture. The inscription of Hammamât makes mention of the men who died while handling such sledges with their enormous loads. Possibly the Egyptians already used besides rollers and levers also pulleys to facilitate their work. At all events the transportation by human hands of obelisks and other monoliths of enormous size and weight without the most powerful appliances of modern times is such a wonderful feat, that we cannot at present fully comprehend it. All we knowfor certain is the fact that those men of old have succeeded, and therefore accomplished what we would regard as almost impossible.

§3. The method employed by the Egyptians in the erection of obelisks has to this day remained a profound mystery. Of course, just as with regard to the quarrying and transporting them, many conjectures have been advanced which, however plausible they may seem, give us no definite solution of this problem. That the Egyptians must have possessed some mechanical means, with which to lift these colossi into their exact place, cannot be disputed: otherwise the time consumed in setting them up would have been equal to that of quarrying them. They had undoubtedly some unknown facilities for doing work of this kind, and being great mathematicians, they may have constructed agents more powerful than those of the present day.

The form, name, dimensions, invention, material, and use of obelisks.

§1. Obelisks are monoliths, that is, they are made ofonepiece of rock only. Pieces set up in the form of an obelisk are never considered one. The lofty shaft at Washington, D. C., cannot, therefore, be styled an obelisk. In addition to being composed of one piece only, all obelisks are quadrangular, the sides sloping gradually and perceptibly but right-angled all the way to the top, where they are surmounted by a miniature pyramid or trapezium. They were, as far as we know, commonly erected in pairs at the entrance of the temples, evidently serving there in the capacity of guardians. The stone was polished to a high state of perfection, and the inscriptions added in intaglio-relievo by skilled stone-cutters under the direction of scribes. Whether the figures of these inscriptions were filled out with copper or gold, as some maintain, is extremely doubtful.

With the pyramidion it was different. While its usual dedicatory inscriptions remained undoubtedly as they were chiseled, the point or apex seems to have been surmounted by gold or gilded bronze. The sun would naturally in the early morning first touch with its rays this point and bathe it in splendor. It would appear from extant obelisks that, in order to have the gold added, thestone apex was not brought out to a fine point, but left rugged and incomplete. Yet this unevenness may also have been the result of time and the abrasion caused by the sand of the desert. We know of the Obelisk of Karnak, erected by queen Hatasu, that the apex of its pyramidion was covered with "pure gold", as the inscription on the obelisk itself states. Others, again, were covered with copper; for instance, the two obelisks of Heliopolis, of which but one remains now, which were seen in this condition by St. Ephraim Syrus (308 A. D.), Denys of Telmahre (840 A. D.), and a number of Arabic writers.

It is a very interesting fact, that in the inscriptions of the vth and vith dynasties in Memphis the obelisk has a curious shape, being represented by a short and singularly unproportional shaft on a high and wide pedestal, and crowned at the point of the pyramidion by a large disk of the sun. This figure, in the first place, closely resembles a pyramid or a combination of the pyramid and the obelisk, almost forcing on us the assumption that the obelisk grew out of the pyramid, and, in the second place, the disk of the sun plainly refers to the mystic sun-worship for which the obelisk primarily served as an index finger.

The sides of the obelisk were always intended to be inscribed, for they were to record the deeds and praise of a Pharaoh. That some obelisks have come down to our days without inscriptions is due to the fact, that the monarch who ordered them died, and his successor either would not spend the money on the monument of a predecessor to have it inscribed, or deemed it sacrilegious to put his own name on what did not belong to him. We find filial piety displayed only by Thothmes IV., who would not allow the monument of his great predecessor, Thothmes III., to lie half-finished in thequarry, but erected it, not, however, without succumbing to the sore temptation of adding his own name and using two thirds of the space of the whole obelisk. This is at present the Lateran Obelisk in Rome. Whether the obelisks were inscribed before being erected, or vice versa, cannot now be determined. From some uninscribed specimens we should infer that they were inscribed when in their proper position, while from the Lateran Obelisk we could draw the conclusion that they were first completed in all details before they were erected.

A pair of obelisks, on pedestals, in front of the pylon, or entrance-gateway, of a temple.

The obelisks, as soon as they had been finished to the satisfaction of Pharaoh, were placed in pairs on pedestals in front of the pylons or lofty entrances of the temples. The pedestals were either, as in the case of the New York Obelisk, composed of one solid block of stone, or else of a foundation of closely fitting blocks or a layer of stones.

One effect of the removal of the obelisks by the Romans was to break off the edges at the bottom, so thatthere was reason to fear that re-erection would not make them safe. To obviate this danger, they placed bronze crabs at each corner to fill out the gaps. Why they should have hit upon the form of the crab or scorpion is not very evident. Perhaps they chose the crab from a religious point of view, in order to conform to the curious religious doctrines and superstitious notions entertained by the Egyptians under the Ptolemies, and elucidated by the inscriptions and papyri of that time.

§2. The word "obelisk" comes from the Greek signifying a "pointed instrument", and is, in turn, derived from another Greek wordobelos"a spit". Afterwards this name was applied to a "pointed pillar", on account of the latter's resemblance to a spit. By the Egyptians the obelisk was calledtekhen. This word occurs quite frequently in inscriptions, especially on the obelisks themselves, where the "determinative"alone is given without the literal complement, that is, the spelling.

The pyramidion of the obelisk, on the other hand, was calledbenbenby the Egyptians. The prominent part played by it in the mysteries of sun-worship is attested by the inscription of king Piankhi (about 700 B. C.), for in it is mentioned the(ha-t benben-t), "the temple of the pyramidion" in Heliopolis. The inscription tells us in this connection the following story: "His majesty entered the temple of Rā and his divine sanctuary with profound veneration. The first high-priest offered up a prayer to god in the star-chamber to ward off misfortune from the king, placed on his brow the fillet, and purified him with frankincense and holy water. Flowers of the temple of the pyramidion were brought to him and blossoms were given to him. He ascended the stairs to the grand niche to see the god Rā in the temple of the pyramidion. Such was done by the king himself. Hischieftains stood apart, while he drew back the bolt, opened the door, and saw his father Rā in the temple of the pyramidion resting in the Māād-boat of Rā and the Sektet-boat of Tum. He then closed the doors and put on them clay and sealed them with the king's own ring." The frequent mention of the pyramidion and the evident importance attached by the king to his visit to this sanctuary plainly show that there was a deep signification lying hidden beneath the strange upper part of the obelisk. In it the Rising Sun, Râ, and the Setting Sun, Tum, find their mutual points of contact.

§3. The dimensions of the obelisks which have come down to us vary very much. By consulting the list on pages9-11it will be seen that at present the height ranges between 2 to 105 feet. As has already been mentioned, the largest obelisks date back to the time when Egypt entered upon, or was already in, its golden age, that having been the time when the Pharaohs could erect monuments worthy of their reign. Before that time, when they served as grave-stones, the obelisks were of a comparatively small size. Still we find some very large specimens under later dynasties, as for instance that of Psametik II. on the Monte Citorio in Rome, which is 71 feet high, while that of the Ptolemies in Philæ, which is only a fragment, measures 33 feet. The Romans also erected large monoliths, Domitian's obelisk on the Piazza Navona in Rome being 54 feet, and that of Hadrian on the Monte Pincio 30 feet high. Constantine the Great erected the large obelisk at Arles in France, measuring 56 feet, which may have possibly been taken out of a French quarry.

There must have been some fixed rule for determining the thickness of an obelisk when the length was given. According to a measurement of all the obelisks we may state, that the base was generally1⁄9to1⁄11ofthe entire length. Thus the New York Obelisk is 7 ft. 9¼ in. by 7 ft. 8¼ in. at the base, which is about1⁄9of the entire length (69½ ft.). The obelisk of Hatasu is of a somewhat different proportion, the thickness at the base being only1⁄13of the total length. The obelisk with the thickest base is that which is still in the quarry at Assuan, the base measuring 11 ft. 1½ in. by 11 ft. 1½ in.

That monuments of such height and thickness weigh a great deal is self-evident. Our New York Obelisk would tip an adequate scale at the figure: 448,000 pounds. Eight of the extant obelisks, however, weigh still more, the heaviest being that of Assuan which, if it had ever been erected, would weigh 1,540,000 pounds, having for a second the Lateran Obelisk in Rome with 1,020,000 pounds.

§4. The material of which the obelisks are made is the granite of Syene. It was preferred by the Egyptians on account of its wonderful hardness, durability, lack of flaws (the so-calledmaladie de granite), and its reddish color. It is really the amphibole-granite, but is commonly called Syenite from the name of the place where it is found. Although flaws in it are of rare occurrence, they nevertheless sometimes appear in the obelisks. Whenever they were discovered after the block was detached from the native rock, they did not render the stone by any means worthless, as the Luxor Obelisk in Paris has proved. This had a crack in it at the base from the day of its erection in Thebes, which, when pinned by the Egyptians with a wooden plug at that early time, has not since then interfered in the least with the strength or stability of the obelisk.

The supply of this hard granite was and is still inexhaustible, being massed up in immense mountains in various parts of Egypt. It is found in the eastern desert near Thebes. Egyptian monuments also record the quarrying of stone at Hammamât, on the road to Kossêr.It is, however, found best in the vicinity of the First Cataract and, as the name "Syenite" indicates, especially at Syene (Assuan). This city, of some importance under the Pharaohs, was called Syêné by the Romans, andSun-tby the Egyptians. It is situated opposite the island of Elephantine, called by the EgyptiansÂbu-t("the ivory-city"), the most northerly island in the First Cataract, forming the southern boundary of ancient and modern Egypt. Where the chisel and the tools of the stone-cutters were kept in constant use, where men formerly battled with the stubborn rock, and most of Egypt's monuments were cut and embellished—no sound now greets the traveler. The place is deserted, itself a monument of an ancient people's diligence and perseverance.

§5. The question as to the invention of that wonderful, simple, yet strange figure we call obelisk, can be answered without hesitation. The invention belongs wholly to the Egyptians. As has been pointed out before, the people of the IVth and Vth dynasties already made use of this form of monument. Perhaps its first appearance dates back even further, although no such old obelisks exist to warrant this assumption.

The next question to be answered is: to what use were the obelisks put? The ancient dynasties did not use them for ornament's sake, as the tomb would hardly be a suitable place for works of art that were to be admired. They originally served as memorial tablets and tomb-stones. Afterwards their surpassing beauty as monuments of art was perceived, and they were placed in pairs in front of the gates and pylons of the temples for ornament. They broke the monotony of the straight and peculiar Egyptian style of building, and by their apparently thin and column-like appearance set off toadvantage the massive and ponderous structures round about. A position in front of the temples was certainly the very best which could be assigned to them, and it can therefore be no matter of surprise, that the Pharaoh sought to commemorate his victories and virtues on such splendid tablets. We find the king in most cases use all the available space on the obelisk, and whenever he did not use all of it, another would be sure to add his own glorious name and deeds to those of some predecessor. We consequently find some obelisks that bear the inscriptions of as many as three different rulers; for instance, the Lateran, London, and New York Obelisks. These inscriptions would effectually serve the purpose of history, if they recorded events of vast political importance, but, unfortunately, of obelisk-inscriptions still extant, none are dated after the manner of other historical monuments.

The Romans immediately recognized the artistic merits of the obelisks, though they were perhaps more struck by their grandeur and elegance than anything else, and carried off many of them as trophies to sunny Italy. They adorned Rome with them, where, with all their rents and fractures, and after all the injury by the hand of man and havoc of the elements, the obelisks still baffle the ravages of time in the "City of the Seven Hills". As a "smart" people, however, the Romans tried to utilize them in some way: so they hit upon the idea to make them serve as sun-dials. Augustus experimented to this end with the obelisk now on the Monte Citorio in Rome, but, as he was not successful, this project was entirely abandoned.

The signification of the obelisk and the worship of the sun.

The most interesting point to be touched upon in our further investigation concerning obelisks is undoubtedly that with regard to their meaning and signification, or, in other words, what the mind of the Egyptian priest saw expressed under the figure of an obelisk. This leads us into the religion and mythology of a nation that had some very lofty conceptions of life, death, and eternity. The objects which called forth such thoughts were pre-eminently the obelisk and the pyramid, the former representing life in the sunshine of glory, the latter death in the darkness of passing night.

In the cosmogony of the Egyptians the Sun plays the most important part. Its birth is thus aptly described from the monuments by Prof. Dr. H. Brugsch: "In the beginning there was no heaven or earth. A boundless water, shrouded in dense darkness, made up the universe. This held in its bosom the male and female germs or beginnings of the future world. The divine primeval spirit, inseparable from the matter of the primitive water, felt a longing after creative power, and his word called into being the world, whose figure and variegated form had already manifested themselves to him. Its corporeal outlines and colors corresponded, in consequence of their derivation, to Truth, that is, to the exact intention of the divine spirit with reference to his future work. Thefirst act of creation consisted in the formation out of the primitive water of an egg, from which the light of day (Rā 'the sun') proceeded, which animated everything in the world. In this rising sun is embodied the almighty divinity in its grandest manifestation".

This new-born deity was destined to become greater than its parent, and to receive adoration in all its many phases. The path of the sun was frequently compared to the life of a man from infancy to old age. Hence the sun was called aboyin the morning, ayouthin the midday, and anold manin the evening (khrud"boy",ḥunnu"youth",ȧau"old man"). The most common names of the sun, however, which constantly recur on the innumerable Egyptian monuments areRāandTum, the former representing the sun in all its glory in the morning and at noon, the latter the sun when it has completed [tum] its course and leaves the earth in darkness. Thus the inscriptions frequently speak of(Rā em ubenef) "Râ when he rises" [whence perhaps the royal title in the stelé of Abusimbel:(uben) "the glorious rising sun"], and of(Tum em ḥōtepef) "Tum when he sets".

The sun-godRa.

The obelisk was erected in honor of the sun inallits phases, both when rising and when about to set. The pyramids, on the other hand, symbolizing the sun after it had set, were always built in the region of darkness and death on the western bank of the Nile, and had only to do with Tum, the setting sun. Here, in the domainof Tum, the bodies of the departed were to rest securely until the light of an eternal morning should wake them again and endow them with the splendor of the rising sun, which also set in the west, entered the lower regions and bowels of the earth or Hades (the EgyptianȦ-menti), and again victoriously left its dark dungeon to break forth in its usual glory.

The sun-godTum.

Kheper, the night-sun: winter solstice.

Ra-Hor-Khuti, the morning-sun: vernal equinox.

Tum, the evening-sun: autumnal equinox.

Horus, the noon-sun: summer solstice.

The various phases of the sun in its passage over the heavens are even represented by pictures on the monuments. The sun of morning is pictured as a hawk-faced deity (Horus) crowned with the snake-encircled disk of the sun, calledRā-Hor-Khuti;the sun of noon as the same deity wearing the double crown of Egypt, calledHororHor-Khuti; the sun of evening as a human-faced deity with the double crown of Egypt, calledTumorAtum; and the invisible sun of night as a human-faced deity with the sacred scarab above it, calledKheperorPtah-Sokar-Osiris. These four deities also represented the beginning of the four seasons of the year: the vernal equinox, the summer solstice, the autumnal equinox, and the winter solstice. Some other names and forms under which the sun was worshiped are, besides the above,Amen-Rā(in Thebes),Sebek-Rā(in Ombos), andKhnum-Rā(in Elephantine).

Sebek-Ra.

Khnum-Ra.

All this proves the vast and supreme importance attached to the sun by the ancient Egyptians. But why should they have selected the sun as their principal deity? All the pictures, in which the sun or the sun-god is represented, give us the answer. On them it will be noticed that each deity holds in one of its hands the sign(ānkh) meaning "life", and in a tomb at Tel-el-Amarna we find the sun represented with rays terminating in human hands and touching the lips of Amenophis IV. and his wife with the sign. As all nature receives its life from the light of the sun, so all human beings obtain their life and their subsistence from the same source. Therefore Pharaoh and his people wouldturn to the heavenly orb each day with prayer and adoration, asking of it the blessing and gift of life here on earth, and the life to come in Amenti or Hades. The sun is to them the giver of life, strength, health, existence, and all happiness. It is for this reason, that the finest productions of the Egyptian scribes are the grand hymns addressed to the sun, the tutelary god of Egypt.

Ra bestowing "life" on Amenophis IV. and his wife.

Having called attention to the belief of the ancient Egyptians in the sun as their guiding and illuminating deity, it will now be necessary to consider the place the obelisk occupies with regard to it. The first thing that greets our eyes on most obelisks is the figure of a bird on the top of each column of hieroglyphs. This represents the god Horus in the form of a sparrow-hawk (), and gives him the usual insignia, namely the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt; thus,. Horus was a form or hypostasis of Râ, the sun, in his midday power, and is often found in the mysterious combination as Hor-Râand Râ-Hor-Khutior Hor-em-khuti.

Why did the Egyptians choose the hawk as theembodiment of their highest god? Perhaps on account of the lofty flight of the bird, or else because of its keen vision. In the "victory-stelé" of Thothmes III. the deity says to the king:[Pronounced: du·ȧ ma sen hen·k em neb dema·t thet em degag·t·f er merer·f] "I let them behold your majesty like the lord of flight(hawk),grasping with his glance whatever he desires", thus combining in one verse the two explanations given above. The grandest sanctuary in which Horus was worshiped was in Edfu, where he was calledHor-Hud·t. Horus and Râ were generally united into one deity and then represented as a hawk-faced man with the disk of the sun on his head (). In order to proclaim this deity a ruler over the earth as well as the heavens, the picture of the hawk frequently has the double crown of Egypt (being the white crown—hez—of Upper Egypt and the red crown—desher—of Lower Egypt) added to it (), to signify that Horus is the lord of the universe.

Horus of Edfu.

In common with the belief of all the ancient nations, the king was considered by the Egyptians not only as a mortal but also, by reason of his exalted rank, as a god on earth. He was the essence of the divinity and styled himself "the offspring of the gods" (mes nuter·u) or more in particular "Râ's son" or "son of the sun" (sa Rā). Being or pretending to be the sun's son, he demanded and received the homage of his subjects as agod. His person was inviolable, his command was absolute, his power was unlimited. His first act each day was to offer up sacrifice and prayer to his father, the sun, and impress this worship on his subjects.

The king offering up libation to himself in the form of a sphinx.

The obelisk which was erected in honor of the sun could therefore also be used by the sun's offspring, the king, to promulgate his own worship. Inscriptions commemorating both the deity in heaven and his deputy on earth continually blend the two, the god and the king, together into one person, that we can easily find in the obelisk traces of a decided king-worship. If the enlightened age of an Alexander the Great or a Divus ("divine") Cæsar Augustus could tolerate such a thing, why should we feign surprise when we find the same thing to have happened some thousand years before their time in Egypt? It is just this one fact, the barefaced king-worship represented by the obelisk, that gives its translation such a repulsive sound to modern ears. No wonder that otherwise well-read and intelligent men turn about in amazement and ask: Can this really be the correct translation of the obelisk, why, this would turn those ancient kings of glorious renown into mere "vainglorious fools"? This conclusion is perfectly true, and consequently it is to be regretted that just such monuments as obelisks, which are a great source of attraction for the multitude, should display the poorest inscriptions that we meet with in the entire Egyptian literature. Under no circumstances must we base our estimate of the Egyptian literature on the inscriptions of the obelisks; for, on looking over the writings of this wonderful people, we would not only find ourselves most agreeably surprised, but would be constrained to admit that there is no ancient people which can boast of an equally grand and sublime literature as the Egyptian.

A portion of the "Book of the Dead" (Chap. I.). Two obelisks represented on a mummy-cloth. From the author's collection.

Summing up, we find the obelisks erected in honor of the sun-god by his son, the king, and used by him to further his own ambitious designs, glorify his own name, and turn the worship of his subjects both to himself and his sire above.

Note.Besides the frequent mention of the obelisk in the countless Egyptian inscriptions on stone, wood, leather, and papyrus, dating back to the earliest dynasties, we find the picture of two obelisks in many copies of the sacred writings of the Egyptians, the so-called "Book of the Dead" or the Egyptian Ritual. It forms part of the vignette of the first division of this book (1-15 chap.), which has mostly to do with hymns, prayers, and incantations addressed to the sun-god. No mention is made of the obelisk in the text of the Ritual. On the preceding page will be found the picture of the two obelisks on a piece of mummy-cloth in the possession of the author. The Hieratic words below the vignette form a portion of the first chapter of the Ritual.

The history of the new york obelisk, and its removal from alexandria.

King Thothmes III.

§1. The obelisk in Central Park antedates our Christian era by more than fifteen centuries. The central columns of the four sides, being the first that were inscribed, record as the author of this monument, Thothmes III., called the Great, the greatest sovereign of that period (about 1600 B. C.). A warrior of wonderful prowess and a ruler of the highest intelligence, he put aside at an early date the leading-strings of his famous sister and co-regent, Hatasu, surnamed Makarâ, and constituted himself sole regent and law-giver. He heads the list of the kings of thexviiith dynasty. From the beginning to the end of his reign the inscriptions record his victories over foreign nations. He claims it as his order from the god Amen to extend the boundaries of Egypt. He subdues the prince of Kadesh in UpperPalestine at Megiddo, and overpowers the Kharu [Syrian] and Kheta [Hittite] tribes. The Rotennu [Syrians of Mesopotamia] are conquered, Damascus falls, and Carkhemish is taken. He reaches Nineveh, the Tigris, and the Orontes, and is everywhere victorious. He claims as his own and in vassalage all of the then known world. It is he whom Pliny calls Mesphres, and of whom he says that he erected a pair of obelisks, commemorating his valiant deeds. These obelisks are at present in London and New York.

Cartouche of Thothmes III. "The king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Men-Kheper-Ra, the son of Ra, Thoth-Meses".

The exact time of the erection of these two obelisks cannot be determined, as they bear no date, but it must have been in the earlier part of the reign of Thothmes III., which extended from 1591 to 1565 B. C. (according to Lepsius). He ordered them at the quarry in Syene and erected them in front of the temple of the sun in Heliopolis or the Egyptian,Ȧn. The site of this once prosperous city is now at the village of Matarîyeh near Cairo, which has no antiquities to boast of, except one erect obelisk of Usertesen I., the only vestige of the famous "City of the Sun". Here the obelisks stood for many centuries amid wonderful surroundings, guarding as it were the entrance to the sanctuary of the deity, to whom they were sacred.

Cartouche of Ramses II. "The king of Upper and Lower Egypt, User-Ma-Ra-Sotep-en-Ra, the son of Ra, Amen-Mer-Ra-Meses-Su."

King Ramses II.

They were not allowed to remain intact for a very long time, for a century is an insignificant matter when we deal with Egyptian history. Almost three centuries had passed, when a new conqueror arose, who was emulous of his great predecessor's deeds, and who envied him his renown. This was Ramses II., surnamed "the Great",the "Pharaoh of the Oppression", who reigned from 1388 to 1322 B. C. (according to Lepsius). Not only in his monuments but also in his deeds he carries off equal honors with Thothmes the Great. We find the wars of former days fought over again, and always successfully, and we see his exploits recorded not only on impassive monuments of stone but also in the writings on fragile papyrus. A second Iliad by the poet Pentaûr recalls some wonderful hymns addressed amid the din of battle to his guardian deities, in particular to Amen-Râ, and gives us such a vivid picture of war as to surpass in many respects even old Homer. Ramses' most stubborn opponents were the Kheta (Hittites) with whom he negotiated a most favorable treaty after many years of war. But with all his good qualities he had one great fault, vainglory. Not satisfied with erecting obelisks, stelé, and temples with his name inscribed on them in large letters, and seeinghis works recorded over all the known world, he even appropriated the monuments of his predecessors and, though not guilty of erasing their names and substituting his own instead, as Thothmes III. had done on his sister's obelisk and monuments, yet he crowded his name and the story of his deeds within all the available space left uninscribed on these monuments. He had the two outside columns on each side of our obelisk inscribed, leaving to Thothmes III. besides the pyramidion only about one third of the obelisk's surface. This, of course, gave him an advantage over his predecessors, and he thereby saved the large expense and the time that would have been required for quarrying and erecting monuments of his own. He died at an advanced age after having ruled over Egypt for 67 years. His mummy, discovered in 1881, now rests in the Museum of Bulak at Cairo.

Cartouche of Osarkon I. "The king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Kherp-Kheper-Ra-Sotep-en-Ra, the son of Ra, Amen-Mer-Usarken."

Cartouche of the emperor Augustus Cæsar. "The divine lord of the world, Autokrator, the son of Ra, lord of the diadems, Cæsar-Ankh-Zeta-Ptah-Ast-Mer."

The four sides of the obelisk were now filled, and it would appear impossible for another king to have used any other part of it for his own purpose. Such is, however, not the case. Osarkon I. had chiseled into the stone at the very edges of each side in diminutive characters his own name. He was a Pharaoh of the xxiid dynasty, who lived about 960 B. C., and represents the decline of the ancient Egyptian empire.

Cleopatra VI. (From an ancient coin.)

Cartouche of queen Cleopatra VI. "The queen and mistress of the world, Cleopatra."

Of the history of our obelisk since that time very little would be known except for the inscriptions found on the brass crabs at the base. From them we learn that the obelisk was taken away from its position in front of the temple of Heliopolis in theXVIIIth year of the reign ofAugustus Cæsar (12 B. C.) by Pontius during the prefecture of Barbarus. It was then transported to Alexandria and placed in front of the Cæsareum, the temple of the Cæsars, with the obelisk at present in London. During the transportation a large portion of the edges at the base was very badly damaged. Four large bronze crabs were then placed under the obelisk to keep it from falling over. Since this time of their erection in Alexandria tradition has associated one of them, the New York Obelisk, with the name of the monster-queen Cleopatra VI. She had, however, nothingwhatever to do with the removal of the obelisks as she and all her predecessors of the same name had been dead long before these were erected in Alexandria. Here both remained for many centuries until one—the present London Obelisk—fell prostrate and was left to lie half-hidden in the ground. It was subsequently taken in 1877 to England, while the other obelisk remained standing in Alexandria until 1880, when it was lowered into the steamer Dessoug, brought over to our country, and presented to New York City through the munificence of the late Mr. William H. Vanderbilt.

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