Cleopatra's Needle WITH A PRELIMINARY SKETCH OF THE HISTORY ERECTION, USES, AND SIGNIFICATION OF OBELISKS BY CHARLES E. MOLDENKE, A.M., Ph.D. NEW YORK ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH AND CO. 38 West Twenty-Third Street 1891 Copyright , 1891, By Charles E. Moldenke . University Press: PRESSWORK BY John Wilson and Son, Cambridge....

The oldest nation on the globe sends her greeting to her youngest sister. The "Setting Sun" has shed its last rays on the Old World from Egypt's sunny land and now appears on this western shore as a brilliant "Rising Sun". In the metropolis of the Western Hemisphere one of Egypt's grandest treasures meets our eyes and, though silent, reminds us of her former greatness. Here stands a monument of two of her greatest Pharaohs, lords and conquerors, scourges of their people, and a terror to their fo

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 ad

The quarrying, transporting, and raising of obelisks. §1. Egypt is undoubtedly in every respect a land of wonders. At the most remote period of its history we observe that it was already in such an advanced state of civilization, as would appear to us to be wholly incompatible with its venerable age. When Greece first began to issue from its times of heroes and demi-gods and advance on a path of civilization, Egypt had already for at least twenty centuries possessed everything that enlightened G

The form, name, dimensions, invention, material, and use of obelisks. §1. Obelisks are monoliths, that is, they are made of one piece 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 p

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 wer

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

The inscriptions of the new york obelisk. I. Inscriptions of Thothmes III. The inscriptions of Thothmes III. comprise the four sides of the pyramidion and the central columns of the four faces of the obelisk. The Pyramidion. The pictures of the four sides of the pyramidion here given are reproduced from the squeezes taken under the direction of Mr. Gorringe as published in his "Egyptian Obelisks". They are, however, given in their correct form, as the squeezes seem to have been taken by an inexp

Notes on the translation and the crabs. §1. On looking over the translation of our obelisk, as set forth in the preceding pages, the reader will perhaps feel disappointed in the substance of its inscriptions. These contain, as has already been stated, only laudatory phrases and vainglorious titles, and furnish us with no historical data nor anything that would be of value to scholars. People have for many centuries suspected them of an utterly different meaning, and have given them the most fanc

Egypt: its geographical divisions and its cities. Egypt, called by its former inhabitants glyph Qem·t , " the black land ", on account of the richness and color of its soil, and by the Greeks Αἴγυπτος [Aiguptos], has been correctly and appropriately described by the ancients as "a gift of the river Nile", which flows throughout its entire length. Lying between two vast tracts of desert land, and encompassed by immense ranges of mountains, the Nile is its only source of life and means of support.

OF HIEROGLYPHS OCCURRING IN THIS BOOK, TOGETHER WITH THEIR PRONUNCIATION AND DETERMINATIVE VALUE. We divide the Egyptian hieroglyphs, after the manner of Lepsius, into twenty-five classes. In the following list the hieroglyphs are given together with what they were probably meant to represent. The more important pronunciations are added, which, however, can not be used indiscriminately, but are fixed by complements , that is, letters of the alphabet indicating the pronunciation and either prefix

OF THE EGYPTIAN WORDS OCCURRING ON THE NEW YORK OBELISK. The words in this Glossary are arranged according to the Hieroglyphic alphabet as follows: As there was no fixed orthography among the ancient Egyptians the same word is frequently spelled in many different ways. This will be noticed in the following pages.—The plural of nouns or adjectives was formed by adding three lines ( glyph ) to the word or by repeating the Hieroglyphic sign of the word three times.—The dual was formed by adding two

For a full account of the removal of the obelisk and everything connected with it, the reader is referred to the admirable book of the late Commander Gorringe, entitled: Egyptian Obelisks . New York, 1882. This is the so-called "shield-name", the heraldic motto or device of the Pharaoh, occurring in many variations on the obelisk. The two diadems referred to are 1) the crown surmounted by an Uræus snake or cobra, symbolizing the king's power over life and death, and 2) the crown with the vulture