OBELISK, a word derived from the Greek obelos and obeliskos, signifying a spit, applied to prismatic monuments of stone and other materials, terminating with a pyramidal or pointed top. These monuments, called tekhen, were placed upon bases before gateways of the principal temples in Egypt, one on each side of the door. They served in Egyp tian art for the same purposes as the stele of the Greeks and columns of the Romans, and appear to have been erected to record the honors or triumphs of the monarch. They have four faces, are cut out of one piece, and are broader at the base than at the top, at a short distance from which the sides form the base of a in which the obelisk terminates. They were placed upon a cubical base of the same material, which slightly surpassed the breadth of their base. Each side of the obelisk at the base measures ?Olt of the height of the shaft, from the base line to that where the cap, or pyramidion com mences. cap is also A of the same height. Their sides are slightly concave, to increase their apparent height. Their height varies from upwards of 100 ft. to a few inches, the tallest known being that of Karnak, which rises to 105 ft. 7 inches. The sides are generally sculptured with hierogylphs and representations, recording the names and titles of kings, generally in one line of deeply-cut hieroglyphs down each side. The pyramid of obelisks was sometimes decorated with subjects. The mode by which they were made appears to have been to first in the rough out of a solid piece in the quarries, and one unfinished specimen thus prepared still remains in the quarries of Syene. They were transported down the Nile during the inundation, on rafts to the spot where they were intended to be placed, and raised from their horizontal position by inclined planes, aided by machinery. Some obelisks, before their erection, had their pyramid capped with bronze gilded, or gold, the marks of such covering still being evi dent on their surfaces. Under the Roman empire, they were raised by pulleys and heavy tackle. The difficulty of erecting the fallen onds in the ages of renaissance, as also the mechanical appliances for the lowering from its original site the obelisk of Luxor in 1831. and erectinglt in the Place de la Concorde in 1833 by Le Bas, show the difficul ties experienced by the ancients. The use of obelisks is as old as the appearance of art itself in Egypt; these grand, simple, and geometric forms being used in the 4th dynasty, and continued till the time of the Romans. Their object is enveloped in great obscurity. At the time of the 18th dynasty, it appears that religious ceremonies and oblations were offered to the obelisks, which were treated as divinities. Their sepulchral use is evinced by their discovery in the tombs of the 4th dynasty, and the vignettes of early papyri. No large obelisk is older than that of Matarieh or Heliopolis, erected by Osortesen I. about 1900 B.C.; and that of Beggig or Crocodilopolis is, in reality, only a stele. Thothmes I. placed two of large size before the granite sanctuary of Karnak, and his daughter Hatasu, two others of above 90 ft. high before the second Additional sculptures were made on these obelisks by Sethos I, who restored them. Thothmes III. appears to have erected many obelisks. The oldest is that of the Atmei lati or Hippodrome of Constantinople, erected to record his conquests of Naharania or Mesopotamia. Two others, which formerly stood at Heliopolis. were subsequently
re-erected by Rameses IL at Alexandria, and have been popularly known as Cleopatra's Needles. One still stands there erect; the other, which long lay prostrate, was after an adventurous voyage brought to London in 1878, and erected on the Thames embank ment. The highest of all obelisks, that of St. John of the Lateran, appears to have been removed from Thebes, and set up by Thothmes IV. A small obelisk of Amenophis II., said to have been found in the Thebaid, apparently from Elephantine, is in the collec tion of the duke of Northumberland at Sion. Sethos I. commenced the Flaminian obe lisk, subsequently completed by Rameses II., and placed at the temple of ,Heliopolis. It was removed to Rome by Constantius, and found 16 ft. under the surface in the pon tificate of Gregory XIII., and erected in that of Sextus V. by the architect Fontana. The other obelisks of Rameses.II, are, the,one at the Luxor quarter of Thelle,s, the companion of which was removed tothe Place de la Concorde at Paris in 1833; the two obelisks of San or Tanis; that of the Boboli gardens of Florence, transported from the circus of Flora at Rome; the obelisk of the Rotonda at Rome, erected by Clement XII. 1711 A.D.; and that of the Villa Mattel, which decorated the Ara Cmli of the capitol. A fragment of another obelisk was in the Collegio Romano. No obelisks are known of other monarchs till the 2Gth dynasty. That of the Monte Citorio at Rome, erected .by Psammetiehus II. at Heliopolis, was transported by Augustus to the Campus Martius, exhumed 1748 A.D., and erected by the architect Antinori in that of Pius Two other obelisks of small size, made of black basalt, dedicated by Nekhtherhcbi or Nectanebes II, at Hermopolis, commonly known as the obelisks of Cairo, are in the British museum. Ptolemy Philadelphus is said to have erected in the Arsinoeum at Alexandria a plain obelisk of 80 cubits, cut in the quarries by Nectabis. It was set up by the architect Satyrus. Two obelisks, erected by Ptolemy Euergetes II. and his wife Cleopatra, stood before the temple of Philae, one of which was removed to Corfe castle by Mr. Bankes. The so-called Pamphiliano obelisk at Rome, erected by E. Bernin in 1651, in the Piazza Navona, under the pontificate of Innocent X., was removed from the Circus of Maxentius, having, as their hieroglyphical legends testify, been originally erected by Domitian before the Serapeum at Rome. The last of the Roman obefisks was the Barberini, which was found in 1633 on the site of the Cir cus of Aurelian, and filially erected in 1822 on the Monte Pincio. It was placed by the emperor Hadrian before, the mausoleum or cenotaph either of himself or Antinous, between 132-8 A.D. Barbarous hieroglyphs, found on the Sallustian obelisk, are copied from the Flaminian obelisk. It is supposed to have been transported to Rome, una dorned with hieroglyphs, by Sallustius Crispus, prefect of Nutnidia, and to have been set up in the gardens of Sallust, in the reign of Vespasian. It was erected by Antinori, 17S9, before the Church of Trinita del Monte. It has been seen how, on the renaissance of the arts, the obelisks were restored and applied to the embellishments of modern Rome, either as columns in the centers of piazzas or squares, or else as the ornaments of fountains; one obelisk being set up alone in the center of the piazzas and places of Italy and France, while in antiquity they always stood in pairs before the Pylons.