OBELISK, in printing and writing, in its Latin sense, a sign like a sharp pointed spear ( !) with which doubtful passages were marked, or references made to notes in the margin, or at the foot of a page; a dagger.
In architecture, a quadrangular, slender stone shaft, with a pyramidal apex. The width of the base is usually about one-tenth of the height, and the pyramidal apex has about one-tenth of the whole length. Obelisks were com monly formed from a single stone, mostly of granite. Obelisks were erected in pairs, and many still exist on the an cient sites, while others have been re moved and set up elsewhere.
The obelisk was the Egyptian symbol of the supreme God. The Arabians called them Pharaoh's needles, and the Egyptian priests the fingers of the sun. The first obelisk is said to have been erected by Rameses, King of Egypt, in the time of the Trojan war; it was 40 cubits high, and employed 20,000 men in building. There are about a dozen Egyptian obelisks erected in Rome. One was erected by the Emperor Augustus in the Campus Martius, on the pave ment of which was a horizontal dial that marked the hour, about 14 B. C. Of the obelisks brought to Rome by the em perors, several have been restored and set up by various Popes. The largest is that from Heliopolis. It is of granite,
and now stands before the N. portico of the Church of St. John Lateran, where it was erected in 1588. Its whole height is about 149 feet; without the base, 105 feet. It was removed to Alexandria by Constantine, and to Rome by his son Constantius, and placed in the Circus Maximus. The obelisk at Luxor was presented to the French nation, in 1820, by Mehemet Ali, and was re-erected in Paris in 1833. Its height is 73 feet. The obelisk presented to the English nation was removed to England and set up on the Thames Embankment in London. Of Egyptian obelisks 42 are known, some broken; 12 at Rome; 1, from Luxor, set up in the Place de la Concorde, Paris, October, 1836; 5 in England; 1 in Cen tral Park, New York. The obelisks im properly named "Cleopatra's Needles" were erected by Thothmes HI. at On (Heliopolis), about 1600 B. C. One was removed to Alexandria by Augusta, about 23 B. C.
The Washington obelisk at Washing ton is 555 feet high, and was dedicated Feb. 22, 1885. The Bunker Hill Monu ment may also be properly called an obelisk, and that with the Washington are the two most famous of American construction.