The Central-Park Obelisk

The history of the obelisk in Central Park, New York, dates back (according to Dr. Brugsch Bey, the great Egyptologist) to the time of Thutmes III., 1600 B.C. Some authorities maintain that he is the Pharaoh, who, with his host, was overthrown in the Red Sea. The obelisk bears three separate sets of hieroglyphic inscriptions (translated by Dr. Brugsch Bey), marking three important epochs in the history of Egypt; viz.,--

I. Thutmes III., "the Alexander the Great of the Pharaonic period," or Egypt in the height of her prosperity.

II. Rameses II., the epoch when Egypt had ceased to conquer, and was merely defending herself against Asiatic preponderance.

III. Usorkon I., the epoch of the decline of the ancient Egyptian Empire.

Thutmes III., wishing to honor the solar divinity at On (Heliopolis), caused two obelisks to be erected in front of the Temple of the Sun at that place, as a thank-offering for the protection this divinity had afforded him in his campaigns in Central Africa and Mesopotamia. His inscriptions form the middle perpendicular lines of each face of the obelisk.

Three centuries later Rameses II. had these two obelisks removed to Alexandria; and when his wars were ended he caused his name and titles to be inscribed upon the obelisks on each side of the inscriptions of his renowned ancestor, Thutmes III.

King Usorkon I. (933 B.C.) is supposed to have visited Alexandria, and to have ordered his name also to be inscribed upon the obelisk of his ancestors, the two greatest Pharaohs of Egyptian history; for we see them on the extreme edges in small characters.

In 1877 Ismail Pasha, father of the present Khedive of Egypt, signified his wish to present an obelisk to the United States. After the selection had been made, the entire control of the operations attending its removal was intrusted to the late Lieut.-Commander Henry H. Gorringe, U.S.N., who conducted the whole affair in a most satisfactory manner, from the taking-down of the obelisk at Alexandria, to the re-erecting of it on its present site.

The time occupied in its removal was exactly one year and four months: the removal of the obelisk of Luxor to Paris occupied six years' time.

The whole cost of transportation, about $105,000, was defrayed by Mr. William H. Vanderbilt of New York.

The machinery for moving this great monolith was all made in this country: it consisted simply of a pair of iron trunnions and a pair of steel derricks.

The stone was carried overland seven miles to the government dock at Alexandria, and was then put in the hold of the steamship "Dessoug" (a vessel of sixteen hundred tons), which reached New York, July 20, 1880.

The work of moving it across the city was skilfully managed; and exactly at noon on the 22d of January, 1881, this stranger from the banks of the Nile was placed on the site prepared for it in the New World, in the presence of about five thousand people.

The height of the obelisk, including the base on which it stands, is 80 feet, 11 inches. The weight, with pedestal and foundation, is 712,000 pounds. The total elevation from mean high water to the top of the obelisk is 194 feet, 6 inches.

This monument of antiquity is an inestimable treasure to our country. We can hardly appreciate that we have, standing in New York, a column upon which Moses and Aaron looked, and whose hieroglyphics they could doubtless read; that Darius, Cambyses, Alexander the Great, the Ptolemies, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Mark Antony, and Augustus were familiar with it.

Grave fears are entertained that it will not stand our Northern climate. Some evidences of its beginning to crumble are already noticeable.

This obelisk is red granite of Syene, and bears the name of "Cleopatra's Needle."

The other of the two obelisks erected by Thutmes III., was removed to London, and placed on the Thames embankment, in 1878.