obelisk

The Luxor obelisk in the Place de la Concorde in Paris

An obelisk (from Greek ὀβελίσκος - obeliskos,^[1] diminutive of ὀβελός - obelos, "spit, nail, pointed pillar"^[2]) is a tall, narrow, four-sided, tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape at the top. Ancient obelisks were often monolithic whereas most modern obelisks are made of several stones, and can even have interior spaces.

The term stele (plural: stelae) is generally used for other monumental standing inscribed sculpted stones.

Because of the Enlightenment-era association of Egypt with mortuary arts, (and generally with great antiquity), obelisks became associated with timelessness and memorialization.

There are many smaller obelisks or similar forms to be found in European, Asian, and American cemeteries.

In geometry, the 'euclidean class' of an obelisk volume is given as a (n-1)-tuple.

Ancient obelisks

Egyptian

Obelisk of Pharaoh Senusret I, Al-Masalla area of Al-Matariyyah district in Heliopolis, Cairo

Obelisks were prominent in the architecture of the ancient Egyptians, who placed them in pairs at the entrance of temples. The word "obelisk" as used in English today is of Greek rather than Egyptian origin because Herodotus, the Greek traveller, was one of the first classical writers to describe the objects. Twenty-nine ancient Egyptian obelisks are known to have survived, plus the "Unfinished Obelisk" found partly hewn from its quarry at Aswan. These obelisks are now dispersed around the world, and less than half of them remain in Egypt.

The earliest temple obelisk still in its original position is the 20.7 m / 68 ft high 120 tons ^[3] red granite Obelisk of Senusret I of the XIIth Dynasty at Al-Matariyyah part of Heliopolis.^[4]

The obelisk symbolized the sun god Ra, and during the brief religious reformation of Akhenaten was said to be a petrified ray of the Aten, the sundisk. It was also thought that the god existed within the structure.

It is hypothesized by New York University Egyptologist Patricia Blackwell Gary and Astronomy senior editor Richard Talcott that the shapes of the ancient Egyptian pyramid and obelisk were derived from natural phenomena associated with the sun (the sun-god Ra being the Egyptians' greatest deity).^[5] The pyramid and obelisk might have been inspired by previously overlooked astronomical phenomena connected with sunrise and sunset: the zodiacal light and sun pillars respectively.

The Ancient Romans were strongly influenced by the obelisk form, to the extent that there are now more than twice as many obelisks standing in Rome as remain in Egypt. All fell after the Roman period except for the Vatican obelisk and were re-erected in different locations.

The tallest Egyptian obelisk is in the square in front of the Lateran Basilica in Rome. this one is 105.6 feet tall and weighs 455 tons ^[6]

Not all the Egyptian obelisks re-erected in the Roman Empire were set up at Rome. Herod the Great imitated his Roman patrons and set up a red granite Egyptian obelisk in the hippodrome of his grand new city Caesarea in northern Judea. This one is about 40 feet tall and weighs about 100 tons. ^[7] It was discovered by archaeologists and has been re-erected at its former site.

In Constantinople, the Eastern Emperor Theodosius shipped an obelisk in AD 390 and had it set up in his hippodrome, where it has weathered Crusaders and Seljuks and stands in the Hippodrome square in modern Istanbul. This one stood 95 feet tall, weighing 380 tons. Its lower half reputedly also once stood in Istanbul but is now lost. The Istanbul obelisk is 65 feet tall. ^[8]

Rome is the obelisk capital of the world. The most prominent is the 25.5 m/83.6 ft high 331 ton obelisk at Saint Peter's Square in Rome. ^[6] The obelisk had stood since AD 37 on its site on the wall of the Circus of Nero, flanking St Peter's Basilica:

"The elder Pliny in his Natural History refers to the obelisk's transportation from Egypt to Rome by order of the Emperor Gaius (Caligula) as an outstanding event. The barge that carried it had a huge mast of fir wood which four men's arms could not encircle. One hundred and twenty bushels of lentils were needed for ballast. Having fulfilled its purpose, the gigantic vessel was no longer wanted. Therefore, filled with stones and cement, it was sunk to form the foundations of the foremost quay of the new harbour at Ostia."^[9]

Re-erecting the obelisk had daunted even Michelangelo, but Sixtus V was determined to erect it in front of St Peter's, of which the nave was yet to be built, and had a full-sized wooden mock-up erected within months of his election. Domenico Fontana, the assistant of Giacomo Della Porta in the Basilica's construction, presented the Pope with a little model crane of wood and a heavy little obelisk of lead, which Sixtus himself was able to raise by turning a little winch with his finger. Fontana had the project.

The obelisk, half-buried in the debris of the ages, was first excavated as it stood; then it took from April 30 to May 17, 1586 to move it on rollers to the Piazza: it required nearly 1000 men, 140 carthorses, 47 cranes. The re-erection, scheduled for September 14, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, was watched by a large crowd. It was a famous feat of engineering, which made the reputation of Fontana, who detailed it in a book illustrated with copperplate etchings, Della Trasportatione dell'Obelisco Vaticano et delle Fabriche di Nostro Signore Papa Sisto V (1590),^[10][11] which itself set a new standard in communicating technical information and influenced subsequent architectural publications by its meticulous precision.^[12] Before being re-erected the obelisk was exorcised. It is said that Fontana had teams of relay horses to make his getaway if the enterprise failed. When Carlo Maderno came to build the Basilica's nave, he had to put the slightest kink in its axis, to line it precisely with the obelisk.

An obelisk stands in front of the church of Trinità dei Monti, at the head of the Spanish Steps. Another obelisk in Rome is sculpted as carried on the back of an elephant. Rome lost one of its obelisks, which had decorated the temple of Isis, where it was uncovered in the 16th century. The Medici claimed it for the Villa Medici, but in 1790 they moved it to the Boboli Gardens attached to the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, and left a replica in its stead.

Several more Egyptian obelisks have been re-erected elsewhere. The best-known examples outside Rome are the pair of 21 m/68 ft Cleopatra's Needles in London(69 feet 187 tons) and New York City(70 feet 193 tons) and the 23 m/75 ft 227 ton obelisk at the Place de la Concorde in Paris. ^[13]

There are 29 ancient Egyptian obelisks in the following locations:

Tip of Hatshepsut's fallen obelisk, Karnak

The Obelisk of Tuthmosis III, Istanbul, Turkey

• Egypt – 9
  • Pharaoh Tuthmosis I, Karnak Temple, Luxor
  • Pharaoh Ramses II, Luxor Temple
  • Pharaoh Hatshepsut, Karnak Temple, Luxor
  • Pharaoh Senusret I, Al-Masalla area of Al-Matariyyah district in Heliopolis, Cairo
  • Pharaoh Ramses III, Luxor Museum
  • Pharaoh Ramses II, Gezira Island, Cairo, 20.4 m^[14]
  • Pharaoh Ramses II, Cairo International Airport, 16.97 m
  • Pharaoh Seti II, Karnak Temple, Luxor, 7 m
  • Pharaoh Senusret I, Faiyum (ancient site of Crocodilopolis), 12.9 m^[15]
• France – 1
  • Pharaoh Ramses II, Luxor Obelisk, in Place de la Concorde, Paris
• Israel – 1
  • Caesarea obelisk
• Italy – 11 (includes the only one located in the Vatican City)
  • 8 in Rome (see Obelisks in Rome)
  • Piazza del Duomo, Catania (Sicily)
  • Boboli Gardens (Florence)
  • Urbino
• Poland – 1
  • Ramses II, Poznań Archaeological Museum, Poznań (on loan from Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, Berlin)^[16]
• Turkey – 1
  • Pharaoh Tuthmosis III, in Square of Horses, Istanbul
• United Kingdom – 4
  • Pharaoh Tuthmosis III, "Cleopatra's Needle", on Victoria Embankment, London
  • Pharaoh Amenhotep II, in the Oriental Museum, University of Durham
  • Pharaoh Ptolemy IX, Philae Obelisk, at Kingston Lacy, near Wimborne Minster, Dorset
  • Pharaoh Nectanebo II, British Museum, London
• United States – 1
  • Pharaoh Tuthmosis III, "Cleopatra's Needle", in Central Park, New York

Assyrian

One obelisk form is known from the Assyrian civilization, represented by the Black Obelisk of King Shalmaneser III from the 10th century BC, now in the British Museum.

Axumite/Ethiopian

King Ezana's Stele in Axum.

A number of obelisks were carved in the ancient Axumite Kingdom of Ethiopia. Together with (21 m high) King Ezana's Stele, the last erected one and the only unbroken, the most famous example of axumite obelisk is the so-called (24 m high) Obelisk of Axum. It was carved around the 4th century AD and, in the course of time, it collapsed and broke into three parts. In these conditions it was found by Italian soldiers in 1935, after the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, looted and taken to Rome in 1937, where it stood in the Piazza di Porta Capena. Italy agreed in a 1947 UN agreement to return the obelisk but did not affirm its agreement until 1997, after years of pressure and various controversial settlements. In 2003 the Italian government made the first steps toward its return, and in 2008 it was finally re-erected.

The largest obelisk, Great Stele at Axum, now fallen, at 33 m high and 3 by 2 meters at the base (520 tons)^[17] is one of the largest single pieces of stone ever worked in human history (the largest is either at Baalbek or the Ramesseum) and probably fell during erection or soon after, destroying a large part of the massive burial chamber underneath it. The obelisks, properly termed stelae or the native hawilt or hawilti as they do not end in a pyramid, were used to mark graves and underground burial chambers. The largest of the grave markers were for royal burial chambers and were decorated with multi-story false windows and false doors, while nobility would have smaller less decorated ones. While there are only a few large ones standing, there are hundreds of smaller ones in "stelae fields".

Ancient Roman

The Romans commissioned obelisks in an Egyptian style.

• Arles Obelisk, Arles, France — in Place de la République, a 4th century obelisk of Roman origin
• Munich — obelisk of Titus Sextius Africanus, Staatliches Museum Ägyptischer Kunst, Kunstareal, 1st century AD, 5.80 m
• Rome — there are five ancient Roman obelisks in Rome. See Obelisks in Rome.

Byzantine

• Walled Obelisk, Hippodrome of Constantinople. Built by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (905–959) and originally covered with gilded bronze plaques.

Keralian

The obelisk stone (rock) crosses of Kerala form another category of obelisks. The Syrian Christians or St. Thomas Christians of Malabar on the west coast of India had close contacts with the Egyptian and Assyrian worlds, the original habitat of obelisks. The "Ray of the Sun" and Horus concepts are to be found in the idea of Christ and in the orientation of the churches East-West. The use of the cylinder and socket method is found in both structures.^{[18][unreliable source?]}

Pre-Columbian

The "Tello Obelisk", from Chavín de Huantar, which used to be housed in the Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú in Lima until it was relocated to the Museo Nacional de Chavín in July 2008, is a monolith stele with obelisk-like proportions.

Obelisk erecting experiments

Roger Hopkins and Mark Lehner teamed up with a NOVA (TV series) crew to erect a 25-ton obelisk in late summer of 1999. This was the third attempt to erect a 25-ton obelisk; the first two ended in failure. There were also two successful attempts to raise a two-ton obelisk and a nine-ton obelisk. In 1994 and again in the spring of 1999 Roger Hopkins, Mark Whitby and Mark Lehner teamed up to attempt to erect a 25-ton obelisk but were unable to complete the job. Finally in Aug–Sep of 1999 after learning from their experience they were able to erect one successfully.

First Roger Hopkins and Rais Abdel Aleem organized an experiment to tow a block of stone weighing about 25 tons. They prepared a path by embedding wooden rails into the ground and placing a sledge on them with a megalith weighing about 25 tons on it. Initially they tried to tow it with over 100 people but were unable to budge it, presumably because they weren't all pulling together. Finally with well over 130 people pulling at once when Roger Hopkins yelled "Allah Akbar" and an additional dozen using levers to prod it forward they managed to move it a little at a time. Over the course of a day they were able to tow it 10 to 20 feet. They had several problems with broken ropes. Presumably if they had more people pulling together they would have been able to move it at a faster pace. This was adequate to prove that it could be moved this way. ^[19] Additional experiments were done in Egypt and other locations to tow megalithic stone with ancient technologies, some of which are listed here.

An experiment was also done to transport a small obelisk on a barge in the Nile River. This was done on a barge built based on ancient Egyptian designs. The barge had to be very wide to handle the obelisk with a 2 to 1 ratio length to width and it was at least twice as long as the obelisk. The obelisk was about 10 feet long and no more than 5 tons. A barge big enough to transport the largest Egyptian obelisks with this ratio would have to be close to 200 feet long and 100 feet wide. They used ropes that were wrapped around a guide that enabled them to pull away from the river while they were towing it onto the barge. The barge was successfully launched into the Nile. This would require a launch where the water was deep enough to handle the weight.

The final and successful attempt was organized by Rick Brown, Roger Hopkins, Mark Lehner and Gregg Mullen in a Massachusetts quarry. The preparation work was done with modern technology but experiments have proven that with enough time and people it could have been done with ancient technology. The obelisk raising operation began with the obelisk lying on a gravel and stone ramp. There was a sand pit in the middle which was filled with dry sand. Previous experiments showed that wet sand wouldn't flow as well. The ramp was secured by stone walls and the obelisk was raised by slowly removing the sand while three crews of men pulled on ropes to control the descent. The back wall was designed to guide the obelisk into its proper place. The obelisk had to catch a turning groove which would prevent it from sliding. They used brake ropes to prevent it from going too far. These turning grooves were found on the ancient pedestals. Gravity did most of the work until the final 15° had to be completed by pulling the obelisk forward. They used brake ropes again to make sure it didn't fall forward. On September 12 they completed the project. ^[20]

This theory has been used to explain how the obelisks may have been erected in Luxor and other locations. It seems to have been supported by a 3,000-year-old papyrus scroll where one scribe taunts another to erect a monument for "thy lord". The scroll reads "Empty the space that has been filled with sand beneath the monument of thy Lord." ^[21] To erect the obelisks at Luxor with this method would have involved using over a million cubic meters of stone, mud brick and sand for both the ramp and the platform used to lower the obelisk. ^[22] The largest obelisk successfully erected in ancient times was 455 tons. There was also a 520-ton stelae in Axum but this was believed to have been broken while attempting to erect it.

Notable modern obelisks

(Listed in date order)

17th century

Fontaine des Quatre Dauphins in Aix-en-Provence.

• Aix-en-Provence – Fontaine des Quatre Dauphins, 1667

18th century

• St Luke Old Street (church), London, spire by Nicholas Hawksmoor circa 1727-33.
• Mamhead obelisk, one hundred feet, built 1742-1745 as an aid to shipping.^[23]
• Stowe School, Buckinghamshire – General Wolfe's Obelisk, 1754
• Kagul Obelisk in Tsarskoe Selo, 1772
• Chesma Obelisk in Gatchina, 1775
• Villa Medici, Rome – a 19th century copy of the Egyptian obelisk moved to the Boboli Gardens in Florence in 1790.
• Rumyantsev Obelisk in St Petersburg, 1799
• Obelisk at Slottsbacken, Stockholm, erected 1800

19th century

The Wellington Monument in Phoenix Park, Dublin

The Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., USA

• Nelson memorial, Springfield Park, Liverpool, circa 1805.
• "Brightling Needle", Brightling, East Sussex (65 ft), circa 1815.^[24]
• Patriots' Grave, Old Burying Ground, Arlington, Massachusetts (1818).
• Captain Cook's Monument, Easby Moor, Great Ayton, North Yorkshire, 1827 (15.5m, 51ft).^[25]
• Battle of Groton Heights Monument (Fort Griswold), Groton, Connecticut, 1830, (41.15m, 135ft) dedicated to the defense of Groton and New London, and the lives lost during Benedict Arnold's attack on New London.
• Bunker Hill Monument, Charlestown, Massachusetts – built between 1827 and 1843.
• Villa Torlonia, Rome – two obelisks erected 1842.
• Reggio Emilia obelisk, commemorates marriage of Francis V, Duke of Modena to princess Adelgunde of Bavaria, built 1842.
• Rutherford's Monument near Anwoth, Scotland erected in 1842 as a memorial to Samuel Rutherford.
• The Political Martyrs monument, Edinburgh, erected 1844 as a memorial to the "Scottish Martyrs to Liberty".
• Lansdowne Monument, near the Cherhill White Horse, Wiltshire, 1845, 38 metres, erected by the 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne to commemorate Sir William Petty.^[26]
• Newcastle, New South Wales – "The Obelisk", built 1850.
• Wellington Monument, Wellington, Somerset, completed 1854, (53.34m, 175ft).
• Stoodley Pike, Todmorden, West Yorkshire, built 1856.
• Obelisk of Fontenoy, 1860.
• Wellington Monument, 1861, (62m, 205ft), Phoenix Park, Dublin, Ireland.
• Lincoln's Tomb in Springfield, Illinois, 1865, (35.66m, 117ft).
• Brigadier-General John Nicholson's monument on top of the Margalla Pass aka "Nicholson's Defile" on the GT Road to Peshawar, about 40 km from Islamabad Pakistan. 1868. Picture here
• Captain Cook Obelisk, Kurnell, New South Wales, 1870.
• The Dauphin County Veteran's Memorial Obelisk in Harrisburg, PA, completed 1876, (33.52m, 110ft).
• The Washington Monument in Washington DC, USA, measuring 555 feet 5.5 inches (169.29 m) in height, is the world's tallest true obelisk; completed in 1884.
• The Oriskany Battlefield monument in Rome, NY, dedicated in 1884 as a memorial to the Revolutionary War battle in 1777.
• The Bennington Battle Monument in Bennington, Vermont, 1889.
• Dalhousie Obelisk, in Raffles Place, Singapore, 1891.

20th century

Obelisk of Buenos Aires, Argentina

Obelisk at the Plaza Francia, Caracas, Venezuela

Obelisk of São Paulo, Brazil

• The William Dudley Chipley Memorial, in the Plaza Ferdinand VII, Pensacola, Florida, 1901.
• The Sergeant Floyd Monument, on US Highway 75, Sioux City, Iowa, 1901.
• Joseph Smith Birthplace Memorial, South Royalton, Vermont, 1905.
• McKinley Monument, Niagara Square, Buffalo, New York, 1907, (96 ft / 29 m).
• The Veterans' Monument obelisk, constructed primarily from river rock collected from the nearby Doe River in downtown Elizabethton, Tennessee and with two short American Civil War field cannon, dedicated in 1904 to Union and Confederate veterans from Carter County, Tennessee.
• The Chalmette Monument, in Chalmette, Louisiana, commemorating the Battle of New Orleans, 1908.
• In 1908, President William Howard Taft signed a bill that allowed for the building of a monument for those killed under the command of Arthur St. Clair and Anthony Wayne in Fort Recovery, OH. The monument was built in 1912 and dedicated on 1 July 1913. The obelisk stands at 101', 4" tall. It weighs approximately 800 tons and cost $23,700 to build.
• The National Women's Monument in Bloemfontein, South Africa, It was erected in 1913.
• The War Memorial in London Square, Southport, Lancashire, England, designed by Grayson and Barnish, 1923. It is flanked by two colonnades each supported by Doric columns, all constructed of Portland stone.
• Jefferson Davis Monument at Jefferson Davis State Historic Site in Fairview, Kentucky, (351 ft / 107 m) tall, mostly concrete, 1924.
• The Foshay Tower, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, modeled after the Washington Monument, 1929.
• Obelisk of Montevideo, Uruguay, 1930.
• High Point Monument, Montague, New Jersey. A (220 ft /67 m) obelisk on top of New Jersey's highest point, 1,803 ft (550 m) above sea level, 1930.
• Foro Italico, Rome (on Lungotevere Maresciallo Diaz), erected to honour Benito Mussolini, 1932.
• Obelisk of Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1936.
• San Jacinto Monument in Deer Park, Texas commemorating the Texan army's victory at the Battle of San Jacinto and thus gained independence over Mexico, 1939.
• Trylon and Perisphere, 1939 New York World's Fair, Flushing, New York; not a true obelisk, but an art deco variant, (700 ft / 213 m), 1939.
• Plaza Francia obelisk in Caracas, Venezuela, 1944.
• The Obelisk on One Tree Hill in Auckland, New Zealand
• Obelisk of São Paulo, Brazil, 1954.
• Trujillo Obelisk, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 1960, (137 ft / 42 m).
• Obelisk of La Paz, Bolivia
• Demidov Column in Barnaul, Siberia, Russia.
• Victory Obelisk in Moscow
• Abolition Park in Ponce, Puerto Rico.
• A small obelisk stands at Trinity site, the location of the first atomic bomb explosion.
• Rugby, North Dakota, the geographical center of North America (Mexico, USA and Canada).
• Pirulito da Praça Sete in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
• In Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., an obelisk stands in front of the Luxor Hotel, a pyramid-shaped hotel along The Strip.
• An obelisk stands in front of radio talk show host Clint Ferro's boyhood home, Endicott, New York, 1975.
• A large obelisk with the world's largest apple on top stands at Cornelia, Georgia. It was erected in 1925.

21st century

• Capas National Shrine in Tarlac province, Philippines, a 70-meter obelisk erected in 2003.
• Pond and white obelisk monument in the main square of Vigan City in the Philippines.
• "Obelisco Novecento", Rome, 2004. Sculpture by Arnaldo Pomodoro.

See also

• List of megalithic sites

References

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

Further reading

• Curran, Brian A., Anthony Grafton, Pamela O. Long, and Benjamin Weiss. Obelisk: A History. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009
• Wirsching, Armin. Obelisken transportieren und aufrichten in Aegypten und in Rom. Norderstedt: Books on Demand 2007, ISBN 978-3 8334-8513-8

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Obelisks

• Obelisk of the World (Shoji Okamoto)
• History of the Egyptian obelisks
• Obelisks in Rome (Andrea Pollett)
• Obelisks of Rome (series of articles in Platner's Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome)
• Obelischi di Roma
• History of the obelisk of Arles (in French)
• Octavo Edition of Domenico Fontana's book depicting how he erected the Vatican obelisk in 1586.
• National Geographic: "Researchers Lift Obelisk With Kite to Test Theory on Ancient Pyramids"