Chapter V: Appendix (4)

In a previous page (99) we have alluded to the Temple of Hatasou, at Thebes, on the western bank of the Nile, and consequently its sepulchral side, in the front of which Mariette notes the pedestals of a pair of obelisks. Does not this discovery invalidate, in some degree at least, the theological hypothesis of the rising and the setting sun; the shore of the living, and the shore of the dead? We must confess to considerable hesitation in accepting the sun-theory as an explanation of the site of the obelisks. Nor do we perceive any more reason to assume that a superstitious speculation governed the establishment of the abodes of the living, and of the tombs of the dead, than that the selection was one of simple convenience. The Egyptians are an Asiatic people, and therefore we may presume that they were deeply imbued with theological mysticism from their earliest origin; but, looking upon them in the light of wanderers in search of a home, that word _home_, and its necessities, we should expect to be a stronger and more rational power to govern their choice of residence than the theosophy of their priests. The first monarchical cities of Egypt, Thinis and Memphis, were founded on the western bank of the Nile; and here likewise sprung up a vast city of tombs. At this early period, the obelisk, the herald of triumph, had not been invented;[39] it was the manifestation of a more advanced period of social progress, when Thebes had asserted her claim of being the head[40] place; and, subsequently, at a time when the western shore was deserted by ancient temple-builders, the obelisks followed in the train of the architectural developments of the Theban kings.

The earliest dynasties were too much occupied with cities, and pyramids, and tombs, to care much for temples and decorative architecture; but Usertesen, whilst he erected temples and obelisks to the sun, likewise excavated tombs on the eastern shore of the Nile; and, as if to exhibit his ignorance of hypothetical sun-worship, planted an obeliskoid monument on the western shore, in the delicious oasis of Fyoom.

[39] Mr. W. R. Cooper, in his excellent Monograph on “Egyptian Obelisks,” just published, makes note of the following curious and interesting quotation from “Letters from Egypt, by Lepsius:”—“A few days ago we found a small obelisk erect, in its original position, in a tomb, near the pyramids, of the commencement of the seventh dynasty (Memphite, 3500-3400 B.C.). It is only a few feet high, but in good preservation, and with the name of the occupant of the tomb inscribed upon it. This form of monument, which is first conspicuous in the new monarchy, is thus removed several dynasties further back, in the old monarchy, even than the obelisk of Heliopolis.” This obelisk is remarkable, as having apparently a funereal character.

[40] Ap, Apé, Tapé, signify, in the Egyptian language, the head or capital of the country; Tapé, in the Memphic dialect, becomes Thaba, which the Greeks have converted into Thebes.

Next in the historical series of events followed the five hundred years of stagnation caused by the shepherd invaders; after which, obelisks, delayed for a time, again sprung into existence with the family of their conqueror Amosis, the Amenophs, and the Thothmeses; and once more a contradiction to the sun-theory is presented, by not the least distinguished of the last brilliant family, the great Queen Hatasou, or Amun-noohet.

Furthermore, the legend recorded on the fragments of the Biggig obelisk corresponds precisely with that found on the other obelisks. Upon the upper part of this broken monolith, Sir Gardner Wilkinson informs us that there are five compartments, one above the other, in which are represented two figures of the Pharaoh Usertesen making offerings to two deities; below these are hieroglyphs; and on either side of the shaft is a column of hieroglyphs, including a cartouche of the king, on one side describing him as beloved of Ptah, and on the other as beloved of Mandoo.

Mr. Bonomi remarks, that at the time when obelisks first came into use in Egypt, the patriarchs of the Jews were in the habit of setting up large monoliths to perpetuate the memory of great events, and to dedicate the spot to the Almighty. But these stones were taken as they were found, and were unfashioned by the hand of the sculptor; neither were they engraven. The Egyptians likewise set up tables, or tablets, on which legends were engraved; or they carved inscriptions on the rocks. But the Biggig obelisk differs materially from these, as it does likewise from the remarkable, so-called obelisk of Axum. This latter is a very striking and extraordinary monument, and merits exclusion, both on account of its want of proportion, and likewise the absence of written inscriptions. At Axum, the ancient capital of Abyssinia, Bruce, the celebrated African traveller, observes:—“In one square are forty obelisks, none of which have any hieroglyphics. There is one, larger than the rest, still standing; but there are two, still larger than this, fallen. They are all of one piece of granite, and, on the top of that which is standing, there is a patera (vase), exceedingly well carved in the Greek taste. Below, there is the door-bolt and lock, which Poncet speaks of, carved on the obelisk, as if to represent an entrance through it to some building behind. The lock and bolt are precisely the same as those used at this day in Egypt and Palestine.”

The progress of Egyptological science appears, therefore, to demand that we should adopt the Biggig monolith as a genuine obelisk, however awkward it may be presumed to be in its proportions. It, no doubt, stood once in front of the entrance of a temple dedicated to Ptah, or Vulcan, like the temple of Memphis; and in its broken condition is still highly reverenced by the country-people, who “look on these fragments with the same superstitious feeling as on some stones at the temple of Panopolis, and other places; and the women recite the Fat’ha over them in the hope of a numerous offspring.”[41] That they have some ground for their credence may be gathered from the official legend engraved on the narrow sides, translated by the distinguished Egyptologist, M. Chabas:[42]—

_North._—“The heaven, the kingly Horus, life of _births_, lord of the diadems, life of _births_, king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Ra-kheper-ka, beloved of Ptah of Res-sobt-ef (Ptah of the southern wall), the life of _births_, golden hawk, good god, master of domination.”

_South._—“The heaven, the kingly Horus, life of _births_, lord of diadems, life of _births_, king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Ra-kheper-ka, beloved of Month, lord of Thebais, life of _births_, hawk of gold, good god, lord of the two lands,”.... [41] Murray’s Hand-book.

[42] “A Short History of the Egyptian Obelisks,” by W. R. Cooper, F.R.A.S., M.R.A.S.; 1877.

So long as the Biggig monolith was the only known example of an obelisk on the western shore of the Nile, there were grounds for considering it as an interloper and an impostor; but at present, since the discovery of the pedestals of obelisks in western Thebes by M. Mariette, it may assert its claim to be admitted into the group of genuine obelisks.

II.—THOTHMES I., of the eighteenth dynasty, which embraces the period between 1703 and 1462 B.C., stands next in age to Usertesen, although about 1,500 years must have elapsed between the dates of their respective works. The obelisk now standing in front of the propylon of the Osiris temple at Karnak, is the work of Thothmes I.; the companion obelisk lies broken by its side. The hieroglyphic exordium of Thothmes I. occupies the pyramidion and two of the faces of the obelisk; while the remaining faces have been appropriated by Rameses II. Two hundred and fifty years therefore must have intervened between the dates of the two writings.

III.—HATASOU, daughter of Thothmes I., erected two obelisks within the temple of Osiris at Karnak, to the honour of her father. Like the preceding, one has fallen to the ground, and one only remains. The standing obelisk is ninety-two feet high,[43] and is a beautiful work. It is upon the base of this pair of obelisks that we find the legend of their having been hewn from the rock, erected and finished in seven months. The pedestals of two other obelisks are mentioned by Mariette as standing in front of her temple at Deir-el-Bahari, on the western shore of the Nile, at Thebes; but the obelisks themselves are destroyed.

Cartouches of the Pharaoh, Thothmes III.; his prenomen
or first or divine name, and his surname or
family name; the former being represented by
the three syllables; the suns disk, _Ra_;
a turreted parallelogram, _men_; and the
scarab, _kheper_; _i.e._, Ra-men-kheper.
And the latter by the sacred Ibis, representing
_Thoth_, the god of letters; and the emblem of
birth, which stands for _mes_; making together
Thothmes.
]

IV.—THOTHMES III. follows next in succession with four obelisks, the four Needles; all erected at Heliopolis; the two beautiful obelisks termed Pharaoh’s Needles, and the pair at Alexandria called Cleopatra’s Needles. Pharaoh’s Needles were removed by the Emperor Constantine; one he conveyed to Constantinople, where it now stands;[44] and the other was sent to Rome by his son Constantius. The former records the conquest of Mesopotamia by Thothmes III.; while the latter is the celebrated obelisk of St. John Lateran: besides the cartouche of Thothmes III., it also bears in the lateral columns that of his grandson, Thothmes IV.; and of the pair it is said that, unlike the obelisks of Hatasou, they were thirty-six years in the artificers’ hands before they were completed. According to Mr. W. R. Cooper, the obelisk at Constantinople “was originally one of the splendours of Karnak.” It was broken on its journey to Byzantium; and judging from its present appearance, the upper part alone has been erected. An inscription formerly engraved on its pedestal in Greek and Latin, stated that thirty days were occupied in setting it up, and unpleasantly reminds us of “fire and sword:”—

“I was unwilling to obey imperial masters, but I was ordered to bear the palm after the destruction of tyrants. All things yield to Theodosius and his enduring offspring. Thus, I was conquered and subdued in thirty days, and elevated towards the sky in the prætorship of Proclus.” [43] Mr. W. E. Cooper states the height of Hatasou’s obelisk as upwards of 97 feet; Lenormant giving it 30 metres (97 feet 6 inches) in altitude, and 368 tons in weight. The height of the obelisk of Thothmes I. is, according to the same authority, 90 feet 6 inches.

[44] According to Mr. W. R. Cooper, the Constantinople obelisk was brought from Karnak; and sent to Constantinople A.D. 324. It was erected by Theodosius, seventy-three years later—namely, A.D. 397.

Of Cleopatra’s Needles, one stands at Alexandria; whilst the other, which had fallen several centuries ago, and been buried in the earth, will, we hope, soon fill a site on the banks of the Thames, by virtue of its privilege of being the British obelisk.

Mr. Bonomi admits into his list of obelisks two small granite monoliths dedicated to Thothmes III., which stand before the Usertesen sanctuary at Karnak. “I put them down,” he says, in a communication with which he favoured us recently, “as obelisks—because they stand in front of a temple, but doubt their claim to be reckoned such, for they never had the pointed apex. On the north face of the square block are three figures of the Papyrus of Lower Egypt, and, on the south face, three of the Papyrus of Upper Egypt. On the east and west sides are figures of Thothmes embraced by one of the goddesses of Egypt, repeated two or three times. The figures are in the sculpture peculiar to Egypt,[45] and a little more than three feet high.” We entirely agree with Mr. Bonomi, that the monoliths in question, however interesting in other respects, do not come up to the standard of the typical obelisk; and, although occupying so distinguished a place of honour as the front of a sanctuary temple, we must refuse them admission into our present list.

[45] The incavo-relievo.

V.—AMENOPHIS II., another Pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty, is the author of a small, but interesting obelisk, which was brought to England by the Duke of Northumberland (then Lord Prudhoe), in 1838, and now stands in the front hall of Syon House, at Isleworth. It is a monolith of syenite granite, 7 feet 6¾ inches in height, supported on a pedestal of 2 feet 8½ inches; making the total altitude of the monument 10 feet 3¼ inches. Its breadth at the base, on two of its faces, is 10⅞ inches, and that of the pyramidion 8½ inches; and, on the adjoining faces, 9⅞ inches, the base of the pyramidion being 8⅞ inches. It therefore happens that the base on two of the sides is only one inch broader than that of the pyramidion; whilst on the other sides the base exceeds that of the pyramidion nearly 2½ inches. The column is broken at the apex, and was found in one of the villages of the Thebaid. This obelisk was made the subject of an interesting paper, published in the “Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature” for 1843, by Mr. Joseph Bonomi, who observes, with regard to it, that it presents the peculiar feature of being inscribed only on one face. Its inscription reads as follows:—

On the _apex_, the god Chnoumis, ram-headed, is seated on a throne; Amenophis II. kneels before him, offering a pyramidal loaf of bread, and says:—“Khnoum, resident in the heart (or centre) of Phi (Elephantine) Ammenhetf (Amenophis II.), giver of life like the sun.”

On the _shaft_:—“The Harmachis, the living sun, the powerful bull, the very valiant king of the south and north, Aa-aa-cheferu (prenomen of Amenophis II.), son of the sun, Amenhetf, divine ruler of the Thebaid, has made his offering gift to his father Khnoum (Chnoumis); he has seen given to him two obelisks of the table of the sun (the altar of the sun), that he may make him (the king) a giver of life for ever.”

VI.—AMENOPHIS III., also a Pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty, and the Memnon of the Greeks, erected two obelisks in front of his temple at Karnak. The temple is now a mass of ruins, and the obelisks have utterly disappeared.

VII.—SETI I., or OSIREI, a Pharaoh of the nineteenth dynasty, which ranges in date between 1462 and 1288 B.C., was the author of two, at least, of the obelisks ascribed to his son Rameses the Great. He is said to have been of Semitic origin, and descended from the Hyksos or shepherd kings, and was struck blind at an early period of his career; but having recovered his sight, he devoted himself, for the rest of his life, to the construction of temples and obelisks. Rameses, who delighted in “the bubble reputation,” even to his father’s loss, inserted his own heraldic bearings on some of Seti’s monuments—for example, the Flaminian obelisk, as shown by Tomlinson—and therefore a certain amount of confusion is imported into the differentiation of the works of the two Pharaohs, father and son; although the confusion is at once cleared up when the hieroglyphic writing is investigated. To Seti belong the beautiful Flaminian obelisk at the Porta del Popolo, which is regarded as the first ever removed from Egypt, and that of the Trinita de Monti at Rome.[46] On these his legend occupies the middle column of the shaft; whilst the titles and praises of Rameses are displayed in the side columns. The Flaminian obelisk was conveyed from Heliopolis to Rome by the Emperor Augustus, as a trophy of war, in the tenth year before the Christian era, and was set up in its present place by Pope Sixtus V., in the year 1590. We arrive thus at the number seven for the city of Heliopolis, or more probably _eight_; for, as we now know, obelisks were set up in pairs; and we have reason to regard a city adorned with so many of these emblems of the sun, as very truly the city of the sun. Heliopolis, however, did not possess the greatest number of obelisks, inasmuch as, through the munificence of Rameses II., there were ten or more in the ruined city of San.

[46] Mr. W. R. Cooper observes, with regard to the Trinita de Monti—“From the style of art in which the characters are cut, it is the general opinion of antiquaries, that the monument is an ancient Roman copy of the larger obelisk in the Piazza del Popolo.”

Ovals or Cartouches of Rameses the Great,
prenomen and name; the former signifying
Ra-ouser-ma-sotep-en-Ra; and the latter,
Ra-mer-amen, child of the sun.
]

VIII.—RAMESES II. is the most prolific in the production of obelisks of all the kings of Egypt. The Luxor obelisks owe their origin to him: one is still standing in front of the colossal statues of himself and the magnificent propylon of the great hall of the temple; while the other occupies an admirable site in the Place de la Concorde, at Paris.

Two obelisks, bearing his name, ornament the public places at Rome; one in front of the Pantheon, in the middle of a fountain; the other in the garden of the Villa Mattei, on the Cœlian Hill. The former was originally placed in the Circus Maximus, whence it was removed, by Pope Paul V., to the Piazza di S. Martino, and subsequently erected on its present site by Clement XI., in the year 1711; while that of the Villa Mattei, or Cœli Montana, was set up by Pope Sixtus V. in the year 1590. An unlucky incident happened in connection with the latter event; for as the obelisk was being lowered into its place, the architect inadvertently got his hand entangled between its base and the pedestal; and as there was no means of lifting the obelisk, it became necessary to cut off the imprisoned hand at the wrist.

In addition to these four, we must likewise give to Rameses II. the credit of the ten ruined obelisks at Tanis, the field of Zoan; making a total of fourteen. But although, in the gross amount, Rameses II. exceeds all other Pharaohs, he only equals Thothmes III. in the number of the standing ones. Four only of the Rameses obelisks are erect—namely, Luxor, Paris, Pantheon, and Villa Mattei; whilst Thothmes III. equally lays claim to four—Constantinople, St. John Lateran, and the two Cleopatra’s Needles.

IX.—MENEPHTAH I., a son and successor of Rameses II., also of the nineteenth dynasty, is represented as the author of an obelisk which is placed before the front of St. Peter’s at Rome. It was brought from Heliopolis to Alexandria by Augustus Cæsar, and afterwards transported to Rome by the Emperor Caligula in the fortieth year of the first century of the Christian era, and marks the period when Peter was released from prison and made his entry into Rome (January 18th, 43 A.D.) The obelisk was erected by Pope Sixtus V., in the garden of the Vatican, in 1586; and is without inscription. It is of this obelisk that the anecdote is told of the almost failure of the operation of erection from the stretching of the ropes. Silence among the workmen had been enjoined under extreme penalties; but a sailor perceiving the difficulty and its cause, suddenly shouted, “Water the ropes.” Fontana, the architect, catching the practical force of the suggestion, acted upon it at once, and the danger which had been imminent was averted. Need we say that the sailor was not punished for his infraction of orders, but was handsomely rewarded.

X.—PSAMMETICUS I., a Pharaoh of the twenty-sixth dynasty, corresponding with the year 665 B.C., is the author of an obelisk which was originally erected at Heliopolis, and was brought to Rome by Augustus Cæsar, thirty years before the birth of Christ. It was made to serve the purpose of a gnomon, or pointer, to a great sun-dial in front of the church of St. Lorenzo in Lucina; and was afterwards moved to the Monte Citorio by Pope Pius VI., in 1792. It was found broken into four pieces, and bears marks of extensive repairs.

XI.—PSAMMETICUS II., likewise a Pharaoh of the twenty-sixth dynasty (588-567 B.C.), has his name inscribed on a small obelisk which was set up by Bernini on the back of a marble elephant in the Piazza della Minerva at Rome, by the command of Pope Alexander VII., in the year 1667. It was probably brought from Sais in the first instance, and was found amongst the ruins of the Temple of Isis and Serapis at Rome. An inscription on this monument reminds the reader, in allusion to the elephant, that a strong mind is needed for the maintenance and exercise of wisdom.

XII.—NECTANEBO I., a Pharaoh of the thirtieth dynasty (378 B.C.), is represented by two small obelisks of black basalt, preserved in the British Museum. Dr. Birch, in a recent communication to us with regard to them, observes, that they were dedicated to the god Thoth, the Mercury of the Greeks, “by a king now recognised as Nekht-her-hebi, the Nectabes or Nekterhebes of the lists; some call him Nectanebo I. They came from Cairo, and formed part of the antiquities surrendered by the French in Egypt after their capitulation, and were presented by George III. about the year 1801.” Both have been broken into several pieces, and have lost their summit as well as their pyramidion; their present dimensions being about 8 feet in height, by 1 foot 6 inches on two of the sides, and an inch less on the other two. Bonomi and Cooper, however, attribute them to Amyrtæus, a king of the twenty-eighth dynasty. Mr. Cooper states that they bear the cartouche of Amyrtæus, and mentions, as a curious part of their history, that one “was first noticed by Pocock as forming part of a window-sill in the castle of Cairo; and the other, broken in two pieces, was discovered by Niebuhr, one fragment serving as the door-sill of a mosque in the castle of Cairo, while a second was the door-step of a house near Kantara-siedid.... The French army of occupation carried off these obelisks from Cairo to Alexandria, and they consequently fell into the hands of the English at the capitulation of that city in 1801.... The hieroglyphic inscription has only been partly translated; but the portion so deciphered reads:—‘Amyrtæus, the living, like Ra, beloved of Thoth, the great lord of Eshmunayn.’”

XIII.—NECTANEBO II., the last of the Pharaohs, of the thirtieth dynasty, or 378 B.C., is the author of an obelisk without hieroglyphic sculpture, which was set up at Alexandria by Ptolemy Philadelphus, in front of the tomb of his wife Arsinoë. It was subsequently conveyed to Rome, at the command of Augustus, by Maximus, prefect of Egypt, in the tenth year before Christ; and its pyramidion was cut off with the intention of supplying its place with a gilded one: this intention, however, has never been accomplished. It was originally one of the pair, both uninscribed, and both without pyramidion, which were set up before the mausoleum of Augustus in the Campus Martius, and was subsequently placed by Sixtus V. behind the church of St. Maria Maggiore, in 1587. The fellow-obelisk is that now standing in the Piazza Quirinale, on the Monte Cavallo.

Mr. W. R. Cooper remarks, with regard to these two obelisks, that according to tradition, they “were set up at Memphis by King Pepi Merira (Apappus of Eratosthenes), of the sixth dynasty, a monarch who is recorded on the hieroglyphic texts to have reigned for one hundred years, less one hour.” They were removed from Egypt to Rome by Claudius Cæsar, A.D. 57, and placed in front of the mausoleum of Augustus. Then sharing the universal fate of all the obelisks at the fall of Rome, they became buried in the earth, and when disinterred had lost the pyramidion, and were otherwise broken. The smaller of the two was dug out by Pius VI. so recently as 1786; “but it occupies, perhaps, a finer position than any of its companions in the city of Rome, except the obelisk of the Vatican, since the architect Antinori erected it on the place of the Monte Cavallo, between the two splendid bronze horses called Castor and Pollux, which once adorned the centre of the Baths of Constantine, and are now the glory of Rome.”

In the British Museum, Dr. Birch mentions the existence of a fragment which would appear to be part of an obelisk of Liliputian dimensions. And he further observes that several such small obelisks are known. Mr. Bonomi likewise includes in his list a small obelisk which formerly stood at Constantinople, and quotes from the work of Petrus Gyllus, or Pierre Gilles,[47] as follows:—

[47] Born 1490; died 1555. “Antiquities of Constantinople, written originally in Latin,” by Petrus Gyllus, a Byzantine Historian. Translated by John Ball. London, 1729.

“It is very probable that Constantinople had more obelisks than one. When first I arrived at Constantinople I saw two of them: one in the Circus Maximus, another in the Imperial Precinct, standing on the north side of the first hill. This last was of a square figure, and was erected near the houses of the Grand Seignor’s Glaziers. A little time after I saw it lying prostrate without the Precinct, and found it to be thirty-five feet in length. Each of its sides, if I mistake not, was six feet broad; and the whole was eight yards in compass. It was purchased by Antonius Priolus, a nobleman of Venice, who sent it thither, and placed it in St. Stephen’s Market. The other is standing in the Hippodrome to this day.” But, according to Long, writes Mr. Cooper, “this obelisk was never removed, but is identical with one of red granite, which still stands in the Sultan’s gardens, on the most northern eminence there. From its dimensions, this obelisk is probably of the period of the middle empire;[48] but as a copy of its inscriptions has not yet reached Europe, or been elsewhere published, all speculation as to its original place of erection, or the monarch who erected it, would be useless.”

[48] The middle empire is composed of eight dynasties, eleventh to eighteenth inclusive; its date ranges in years between 3064 and 1462 B.C.; and it is made illustrious by the celebrated names of Usertesen, Amenemha, Amenophis, and Thothmes.

Mr. Cooper also includes, in the series of Pharaonic obelisks, a small monolith of sandstone, eight feet in length, which was found by Rüppel lying prostrate on the ground near the wells of Nahasb, in the deserts of Arabia Petræa. The inscriptions on the three sides exposed to the atmosphere are obliterated; but on the under-surface, the hieroglyphs, as far as he could examine them, appeared to be beautifully preserved. The monument was probably of Saitic origin.

Moreover, we must not fail to notice two obelisks, of large size, which were removed from Thebes by the conquering army of Assurbanipal in 664 B.C., and conveyed to Nineveh; where, as they have not since been found, it is to be presumed that they still lie buried in the ruins. “It is not stated from what temple these monuments were taken, and of course it is unknown now, by whom they were erected; but this was the first instance in which an Egyptian obelisk suffered transportation.”[49]

[49] Cooper.

This concludes our survey of the Pharaonic obelisks; and next in order to these follow the obelisks of Philæ, of Ptolemaic origin; the obelisks constructed at the command of Roman emperors, and regarded by _virtuosi_ as spurious; and other obelisks of obscure origin. The Philæ obelisks are three in number—the two of sandstone and uninscribed, which stood in front of the Temple of Isis, one of which is still erect, while the other is lost; and a very interesting obelisk of syenitic granite, which was found by Mr. William Bankes and Belzoni among the ruins at Philæ, and was brought to England by Mr. Bankes. This latter is known among Egyptologists as the Corfe Castle Obelisk, and the Soughton Hall Obelisk, although it has never possessed any other site than that on the lawn in front of Kingston-Lacy Hall, at Wimborne in Dorsetshire,[50] and would more correctly be described as the Bankes obelisk. The Bankes obelisk enjoys the distinction of bearing the cartouches of Ptolemy and Cleopatra, and was one—and a very important one—of the sources whence Champollion drew his interpretation of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

[50] _Vide_ Hutchins’ edition of Dorset, 1st edition.

The obelisks constructed by order of the Roman emperors, include those of Domitian, Domitian and Titus, Hadrian, and a small obelisk “executed in Egypt by Santus Rufus ... in honour of one of the Roman emperors ... and afterwards sent to Rome.” This is termed the Albani Obelisk, and is now at Munich.[51]

[51] Cooper; quoted from Westropp’s “Hand-book of Archæology.” First edition, p. 56.

Domitian’s obelisk, also styled the Pamphilian Obelisk, and the Obelisk of the Piazza Navona, in Rome, is erected on a base of rock, forty feet high, in the midst of a fountain, and is ornamented at the four corners with statues of river-gods. It is placed in front of the church of St. Agnes, and is supposed to occupy the spot where that saint suffered her martyrdom. The height of the obelisk is 54 feet 3 inches, and its breadth at the base 4 feet 5 inches. It was set up in its present place by Bernini, in 1651, at the command of Pope Innocent X.

Domitian and Titus are represented in cartouches on a small obelisk of red granite, a little more than nine feet high, which stands in the Cathedral Square of Benevento. It is carved with several columns of hieroglyphs, but is much mutilated. The inscription records the dedication of a temple to the goddess Isis by the two emperors.[52] Mr. Cooper, however, takes no notice of a shorter fragment of an obelisk at Benevento, which is set down by Bonomi in his list of erect obelisks.

[52] Cooper.

Hadrian and Sabina are commemorated by an obelisk of red granite, thirty feet in height, which now stands on the Monte Pincio at Rome. It is one of a pair originally planted in front of a temple in the Egyptian city of Antinoopolis, A.D. 131; and records the sacrifice of Antinous, the celebrated favourite of Hadrian. A few years later it was removed to Rome, and erected on the Monte Pincio, where it shared the fate of the rest of the Roman obelisks, thrown down and buried; until, in 1822, it was recovered and set up by Pope Pius VII. “After the erection of this last obelisk,” says Mr. Cooper, “no more inscribed obelisks were set up, either in Egypt or in Rome. For this there was ample reason: the Egyptian language had been entirely supplanted by the Latin and the Greek; the significance of the characters was unknown; already Pliny had proved his entire ignorance of the script; and Pliny, it must be recollected, was the learned centre of all the science of his time.”

Among the obelisks of obscure origin, are a small sandstone monolith, without inscription, in the possession of the Duke of Northumberland, and preserved in the museum at Alnwick Castle; two small obelisks in the museum at Florence; and the obelisk of the city of Arles, on the Rhone.

The two obelisks in the Florentine Museum are only 5 feet 10 inches, and 6 feet high, but differ in breadth, and are the smallest of the obelisk family. They are fashioned of red granite, the pyramidion perfect; but being uninscribed, their authorship and origin are unknown.

The Arles obelisk, from its position in the city of Arles, on the banks of the Rhone, has suggested the idea that it might have been sent from Egypt to Arles by Constantine, at the time when he was projecting a second Constantinople on that spot; but this illusion is dissipated by the discovery that it is composed of granite of a grey colour, which is found in the neighbouring quarries of Mont Esterel, near Frejus. It is uninscribed, and therefore unable to tell the story of its life; is nearly 57 feet in height, by 7 feet 6 inches in greatest breadth, and “is probably of Roman workmanship.” Mr. Cooper remarks, that it must have been left for seventeen centuries on the ground where it was discovered; and, although royal directions were given for its disinterment about the year 1389, it was not until 1676 that it was erected in commemoration of Louis XIV. It is surmounted with a globe representing the earth, and above it a sun: while “beneath the inscription in honour of Louis XIV., is another referring to the late emperor, Napoleon III.”[53]

[53] Murray’s Hand-book for France, 1877.

We have, therefore, brought under our notice a list of thirteen Egyptian Pharaohs (including one Queen), who have left behind them proofs of their taste in the construction of obelisks; namely:—