Cleopatra's Needle

The Cleopatra's Needle in New York City

Cleopatra's Needle is the popular name for each of three Ancient Egyptian obelisks re-erected in London, Paris, and New York City during the nineteenth century. The obelisks in London and New York are a pair, and the one in Paris is also part of a pair originally from a different site in Luxor, where its twin remains. Although all three needles are genuine Ancient Egyptian obelisks, their shared nickname is a misnomer, as they have no connection with Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt, and were already over a thousand years old in her lifetime. The London and New York "needles" were originally made during the reign of the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Thutmose III. The Paris "needle" dates to the reign of 19th Dynasty Ramesses II and was the first to be moved and re-erected as well as the first to acquire the nickname, "L'aiguille de Cléopâtre" in French.

London and New York pair

Cleopatra's Needle and the plaque to Erasmus Wilson at its base

Both examples are made of red granite, stand about 21 metres (69 ft) high, weigh about 224 tons and are inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphs. They were originally erected in the Egyptian city of Heliopolis on the orders of Thutmose III, around 1450 BC. The material of which they were cut is granite, brought from the quarries of Aswan, near the first cataract of the Nile. The inscriptions were added about 200 years later by Ramesses II to commemorate his military victories. The obelisks were moved to Alexandria and set up in the Caesareum – a temple built by Cleopatra in honor of Mark Antony or Julius Caesar – by the Romans in 12 BC, during the reign of Augustus, but were toppled some time later. This had the fortuitous effect of burying their faces and so preserving most of the hieroglyphs from the effects of weathering.

London needle

Cleopatra's Needle, London

The London needle is in the City of Westminster, on the Victoria Embankment near the Golden Jubilee Bridges. It is close to the Embankment underground station. It was presented to the United Kingdom in 1819 by the ruler of Egypt and Sudan Muhammad Ali, in commemoration of the victories of Lord Nelson at the Battle of the Nile and Sir Ralph Abercromby at the Battle of Alexandria in 1801. Although the British government welcomed the gesture, it declined to fund the expense of transporting it to London.

Cairo to Alexandria

Giovanni Battista Belzoni (1778–1823, born Bolzon) was born in Padua (Padova) Italy. After many adventures around the globe he arrived in England where he made his living as a circus strong man. At 6 and a half feet tall he had incredible strength; and was often billed as the Patagonian Samson. He also studied and exhibited/promoted hydraulic engines which provided him with business connections close to the Royal Family and representatives of the establishment. In 1815 he was persuaded by the agent of Egypt's Turkish Ruler, Pasha Mohammed Ali to go to Egypt and help to restore the country's prosperity. Once in Cairo he excavated many Egyptian Tombs along with discovering the colossal sculpture of the head of Ramesses II ('the Younger Memnon') for The British Museum. He also discovered the tomb of Seti I in the nearby Valley of Kings, which contained the king's magnificent alabaster sarcophagus which now resides in the basement of Sir John Soane's Museum, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, London. Although his methods were crude by today's archaeological standards he was a great archaeologist and recorded everything in great depth. He was responsible for removing many artefacts which can be seen in the British Museum and many other places around the Globe to this day. His contribution to Egyptology should not be forgotten as he is considered the Father of modern Egyptology. Howard Carter (one of two people who discovered the resting place of Tutankhamun) called him "one of the most remarkable men in the whole history of Egyptology".

It was Belzoni who approached Pasha Mohammed Ali to argue that Cleopatra’s Needle should be presented to the British Government and it was agreed it should be transported to Alexandria, a route that was always considered technically impossible. Thanks to Belzoni's engineering skills and knowledge of transporting heavy statues and using his own money and time he delivered it to Alexandria. Once there Belzoni could not fund the journey any further, so there it lay for just short of 60 years due to previous Governments not wanting to fund the journey of the obelisk from Alexandrea to London.

Alexandria to London

The obelisk remained in Alexandria until 1877 when Sir William James Erasmus Wilson, a distinguished anatomist and dermatologist, sponsored its transportation to London from Alexandria at a cost of some £10,000 (a very considerable sum in those days). It was dug out of the sand in which it had been buried for nearly 2,000 years and was encased in a great iron cylinder, 92 feet (28 m) long and 16 feet (4.9 m) in diameter, designed by the engineer John Dixon and dubbed Cleopatra, to be commanded by Captain Carter. It had a vertical stem and stern, a rudder, two bilge keels, a mast for balancing sails, and a deck house. This acted as a floating pontoon which was to be towed to London by the ship Olga, commanded by Captain Booth.

London's Needle being erected, August 1878.

The effort met with disaster on 14 October 1877, in a storm in the Bay of Biscay, when the Cleopatra began wildly rolling, and became untenable. The Olga sent out a rescue boat with six volunteers, but the boat capsized and all six crew were lost – named today on a bronze plaque attached to the foot of the needle's mounting stone. Captain Booth on the Olga eventually managed to get his ship next to the Cleopatra, to rescue Captain Carter and the five crew members aboard Cleopatra. Captain Booth reported the Cleopatra "abandoned and sinking," but instead she drifted in the Bay until found four days later by Spanish trawler boats, then rescued by the Glasgow steamer Fitzmaurice and taken to Ferrol in Spain for repairs. The Master of the Fitzmaurice lodged a salvage claim of £5,000 which had to be settled before departure from Ferrol, which was negotiated down and settled for £2,000. The William Watkins Ltd paddle tug Anglia under the command of Captain David Glue was then commissioned to tow the Cleopatra back to the Thames. On their arrival in the estuary, the school children of Gravesend were given the day off when she arrived on 21 January 1878. A wooden model of the obelisk had been placed outside the Houses of Parliament but the location had been rejected, so the London needle was finally erected on the Victoria Embankment on 12 September 1878.

On erection of the obelisk in 1878 a time capsule was concealed in the front part of the pedestal, it contained : A set of 12 photographs of the best looking English women of the day, a box of hairpins, a box of cigars, several tobacco pipes, a set of imperial weights, a baby's bottle, some children's toys, a shilling razor, a hydraulic jack and some samples of the cable used in erection, a 3' bronze model of the monument, a complete set of British coins, a rupee, a portrait of Queen Victoria, a written history of the strange tale of the transport of the monument, plans on vellum, a translation of the inscriptions, copies of the bible in several languages, a copy of John 3:16 in 215 languages, a copy of Whitaker's Almanack, a Bradshaw Railway Guide, a map of London and copies of 10 daily newspapers.

Cleopatra's Needle is flanked by two faux-Egyptian sphinxes cast from bronze that bear hieroglyphic inscriptions that say netjer nefer men-kheper-re di ankh (the good god, Thuthmosis III given life). These Sphinxes appear to be looking at the Needle rather than guarding it. This is due to the Sphinxes' improper or backwards installation. The Embankment has other Egyptian flourishes, such as buxom winged sphinxes on the armrests of benches. On 4 September 1917, during World War I, a bomb from a German air raid landed near the needle. In commemoration of this event, the damage remains unrepaired to this day and is clearly visible in the form of shrapnel holes and gouges on the right-hand sphinx. Restoration work was carried out in 2005. The original Master Stone Mason who worked on the granite foundation was Lambeth-born William Henry Gould (1822–1891).

New York needle

The New York City needle was erected in Central Park (at 40°46′46.67″N 73°57′55.44″W, just west of the Metropolitan Museum of Art) on 22 February 1881. It was secured in May 1877 by judge Elbert E. Farman, the then-United States Consul General at Cairo, as a gift from the Khedive for the United States remaining a friendly neutral as the European powers – France and Britain–maneuvered to secure political control of the Egyptian Government.

Securing the obelisk

Cleopatra's Needle as it stood at Alexandria Egypt in 1880

The original idea to secure an Egyptian obelisk for New York City came out of the March 1877 New York City newspaper accounts of the transporting of the London obelisk. If Paris had one and London was to get one, why should not New York get one? The newspapers mistakenly attributed to a Mr. John Dixon the 1869 proposal of the Khedive of Egypt, Mehmet Ali Pasha, to give the United States the remaining Alexandria obelisk as a gift for increased trade. Mr. Dixon was the 1877 contractor who arranged the transport of the London obelisk and denied the newspaper accounts. In March 1877 and based on the newspaper accounts, Mr. Henry G. Stebbins, then Commissioner of the Department of Public Parks of the City of New York, undertook to secure the funding to transport the obelisk to New York. The Commissioner of Public Parks of the City of New York, Henry G. Stebbins, started a fund raising effort to move the obelisk to New York. However, when the railroad magnate William H. Vanderbilt was asked to head the subscription, he generously offered to finance the project with a donation of over $100,000.

Mr. Stebbins then sent two acceptance letters to the Khedive through the Department of State which forwarded them to Judge Farman in Cairo. Realizing that the New York accounts were false and that he might be able to secure one of the two remaining upright obelisks — either the mate to the Paris obelisk in Luxor or the London mate in Alexandria — Judge Farman formally asked the Khedive in March 1877 and by May 1877 he had secured the gift in writing.

Location

The obelisk was placed on an obscure site, some yards behind the Museum. This location appeared to be a site decided by Vanderbilt's wishes. Offering appallingly flimsy justifications for the choice, Gorringe wrote, "In order to avoid needless discussion of the subject, it was decided to maintain the strictest secrecy as to the location determined on." He noted that the prime advantage of the Knoll was its "isolation" and that it was the best site to be found inside the park, as it was quite elevated and the foundation could be firmly anchored in bedrock, lest Manhattan suffer "some violent convulsion of nature."

Moving the obelisk

The formidable task of moving the Obelisk from Alexandria to New York was given to Henry Honychurch Gorringe, a lieutenant commander on leave from the U.S. Navy. Cleopatra's Needle is a 240-ton, 68 foot 10 inch, single shaft of red granite from the Assuân (formerly Syene) Quarries at the 1st Cataract of the Nile. The 220-ton granite needle was first shifted from vertical to horizontal, nearly crashing to ground in the process. In August 1879 the movement process was suspended for two months due to local protests and legal challenges. Once those were resolved the obelisk was transported seven miles to Alexandria and then put into the hold of the steamship Dessoug which set sail 12 June 1880. The Dessoug was heavily modified with a large hole cut into the starboard side of its bow. The obelisk was loaded through the ship's hull by rolling it upon cannonballs to somewhat ease this arduous task.

Placing the Obelisk in the Hold of the Steamship Dessoug

Despite a broken propeller, the SS Dessoug was able to make the journey to the United States. The obelisk and its 50-ton pedestal arrived at the Quarantine Station in New York in early July 1880. It took 32 horses hitched in pairs to bring it from the banks of the Hudson River to Central Park, finally arriving on 20 July 1880. The final leg of the journey was made by pushing the obelisk with a steam engine across a specially built trestle bridge from Fifth Avenue to its new home on Greywacke Knoll, just across the drive from the then recently built Metropolitan Museum of Art. It took 112 days from Quarantine Station to arrive at the knoll. By the time the obelisk had finally entered Central Park, it was the dead of winter.

Jesse B. Anthony, Grand Master of Masons in the State of New York, presided as the cornerstone for the obelisk was laid in place with full Masonic ceremony on 2 October 1880. Over nine thousand Masons paraded up Fifth Avenue from 14th Street to 82nd Street and it was estimated that over fifty thousand spectators lined the parade route. The benediction was presented by R.W. Louis C. Gerstein. The obelisk was righted by a special structure built by Henry Honychurch Gorringe. The official ceremony for erecting the obelisk was 22 January 1881.

Hieroglyphs

The surface of the stone is heavily weathered, nearly masking the rows of Egyptian hieroglyphs engraved on all sides. Photographs taken near the time the obelisk was erected in the park show that the inscriptions or hieroglyphs, as depicted below with translation, were still quite legible and date first from Thutmosis III (1479–1425 BC) and then nearly 300 years later, Ramesses II the Great (1279–1213 BC). The stone had stood in the clear dry Egyptian desert air for nearly 3000 years and had undergone little weathering. In a little more than a century in the climate of New York City, pollution and acid rain have heavily pitted its surfaces. In 2010, Dr. Zahi Hawass, sent an open letter to the president of the Central Park Conservancy and the Mayor of New York City insisting on improved conservation efforts. If they are not able to properly care for the obelisk, he has threatened to "take the necessary steps to bring this precious artifact home and save it from ruin."

The Obelisk Hieroglyphics with translations. See also: 1800s translation before damage

Paris needle

Cleopatra's Needle in Paris at the Place de la Concorde.

Main article: Luxor Obelisk

The Paris Needle ("L'aiguille de Cléopâtre") is in the Place de la Concorde. The centre of the Place is occupied by the giant Egyptian obelisk decorated with hieroglyphs exalting the reign of the pharaoh Ramesses II. Along with its twin (still in situ), it once marked the entrance to the Luxor Temple. The ruler of Egypt and Sudan, Muhammad Ali, presented the 3,300-year-old Luxor Obelisk to France in 1826. King Louis-Philippe had it placed in the centre of Place de la Concorde in 1833 near the spot where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette had been guillotined in 1793. Given the technical limitations of the day, transporting it was difficult – on the pedestal are diagrams explaining the machinery used for its transportation. The red granite column rises 23 metres high, including the base, and weighs over 250 tonnes. Missing its original cap, believed stolen in the 6th century BC, in 1998 the government of France added a goldleafed pyramid cap to the top of the obelisk. The obelisk is flanked by two fountains constructed at the time of its erection on the Place.

The Paris obelisk was described as "l'Aiguille de Cléopâtre" by 1877, but the London obelisk was referred to as Cleopatra's Needle as early as 1821, suggesting the nickname came from the pair located in Alexandria. However, the Paris obelisk is now more often referred to more formally as "the Luxor Obelisk".

Gallery

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  The Central Park obelisk as it stood in Alexandria, published 1884.

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  Close up of London's Cleopatra's Needle

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  View of London's Needle from mid-Thames, 2009.

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  One of two sphinxes at the base of London's Cleopatra's Needle. The scars on the pedestal were from fragments of a bomb dropped close to this spot, during a World War I airstrike.

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  New York's Cleopatra's Needle in Central Park

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  Close up of one side of New York's Cleopatra's Needle

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  The plaque under New York's Needle

See also

• Obelisks in Rome

References

Notes

Further reading

• D'Alton, Martina (1993). The New York obelisk, or, How Cleopatra's Needle came to New York and what happened when it got here. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 0870996800. 

External links

•  "Cleopatra's Needles". Encyclopedia Americana. 1920. 
•  "Cleopatra's Needles". New International Encyclopedia. 1905. 
• Moving the Axum Obelisk, William Drenttel, Design Observer,10 March 2005