Obelisk: Cleopatra's needle
Erection date: /9/1878
{The base of the needle carries a large bronze plaque on each face. The monument was undergoing restoration on our visit and we could only see two of the plaques.
{Plaque on north-east face:}
This obelisk quarried at Syene was erected at On (Heliopolis) by the Pharaoh Thothmes III about 1500 B. C. Lateral inscriptions were added nearly two centuries later by Rameses the Great. Removed during the Greek dynasty to Alexandria, the Royal city of Cleopatra, it was there erected in the 18th year of Augustus Caesar B. C. 12.
{Plaque on river face:}
Through the patriotic zeal of Erasmus Wilson F.R.S. This obelisk was brought from Alexandria encased in an iron cylinder. It was abandoned during a storm in the Bay of Biscay, recovered and erected on this spot by John Dixon C. E., in the 42nd year of the reign of Queen Victoria, 1878.
Pink granite, 68.5 feet high, 186 tons. Vulliamy created, and Youngs cast, the bronze sphinxes at the base, about which our colleague, Alan Patient, says: Apparently they are sited incorrectly, in that they should be guarding the obelisk rather than facing it. Presumably it was more aesthetically pleasing to place them the way they are.
Site: Cleopatra's needle (2 memorials)
WC2, Victoria Embankment
A misnomer since there is no connection with Cleopatra at all. In 1500 BC Pharaoh Thothmes erected three red granite obelisks at Heliopolis. The Romans took them to Alexandria in 12 BC where an earthquake brought them down. In 1819, following Nelson's victory at the Battle of the Nile Britain was presented with this obelisk by the Viceroy of Egypt. It was not until 1877 that funds had been raised for shipment to London. It was almost lost in the Bay of Biscay in a storm in which 6 crew were killed and the barge broke loose. But eventually it reached London and was erected on a plinth containing a time capsule from that era. Its mates are erected in Central Park, New York, and in Place de la Concorde, Paris.
Go to map of other memorials in this area
