The obelisk, named Cleopatra's Needle has a twin in New York, 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 granite was cut from the quarries of Aswan, near the first cataract of the Nile.
Granite is an igneous rock, igneous rocks form through the crystallisation of magma (molten rock). They are referred to as ‘plutonic intrusives’ when they form deep below the Earth’s surface, ‘volcanic intrusives’ when emplaced in the shallow subsurface, and ‘volcanic extrusives’ when coming from a volcano and deposited on the surface. The size of the crystals in the granite is related to the rate of cooling (larger crystals form when cooling is very slow).
The inscriptions on the obelisks were added around 1250 BC 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 honour 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.
The London needle 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.
The obelisk remained in Alexandria until 1877 when Sir William James Erasmus Wilson, a distinguished anatomist and dermatologist, sponsored its transportation to London 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.
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.
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 granite plinth.
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- What is the name of the process that would have removed all trace of the hieroglyphs had the obelisk not been buried in the sand for 2000 years?
- The twin to this obelisk can be found in New York. The hieroglyphs on that one have suffered more than the London example despite being made form the same granite. Why do you think that is?
- Describe the nature of the damage (size of marks and estimate of number) on the right hand plinth that one of the sphinx sits on. What property/properties of granite helped it to absorb the impact of the shrapnel?
- As an optional extra post a picture of yourself and or your GPSr in front of the needle.
