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Luxor Obelisks

January 01, 1970

The Luxor Obelisks (French: Obélisques de Louxor) are a pair of ancient Egyptian obelisks, over 3,000 years old, carved to stand either side of the portal of the Luxor Temple in the reign of Ramesses II (c. 1250 BC). The right-hand (western) stone, 23 metres (75 ft) high, was moved in the 1830s to the Place de la Concorde in Paris, France, while the left-hand (eastern) obelisk remains in its location in Egypt.

The Obelisk of Luxor at the centre of the Place de la Concorde, Paris
The remaining obelisk at Luxor Temple pylon
Both obelisks in their original position before the pylon of Luxor Temple, 1832

The Luxor Obelisk in Paris was classified officially as a monument historique in 1936.

Together in Egypt edit

Creation edit

The Luxor Temple predated Ramesses II by about 150 years. During his reign, renovations were made that included the addition of the two obelisks.

The obelisks were each carved from a single piece of red granite, quarried about 100 miles (160 km) south of Luxor in Aswan, transported on a specially designed barge, and lowered into place with ropes and sand.[1]

Physical features edit

The two obelisks were slightly different heights, and the one remaining in Luxor is taller. The shorter obelisk was mounted on a taller pedestal and placed farther from the pylon than the other. To an advancing spectator the obelisks may have appeared to be the same height, and this design choice may have been highly deliberate.[2][3]

The obelisk remaining in Luxor is leaning.[4] The Paris obelisk has a fissure in the original stone that had been tended to in antiquity.[5]

The eastern and western faces of each obelisk were slightly convex, the only two ancient obelisks with the feature, and the reason for this is not understood.[2]

Hieroglyphs edit

Both obelisks feature hieroglyphic text carved in sunken relief on all four sides. In the 19th century, François Chabas produced a full translation of the western (Paris) obelisk, which is about Ramesses II, Amun-Ra, and Horus, and can be read here.

Luxor Obelisk in Paris edit

 
Removal of the obelisk

Idea edit

The idea to transport the Luxor Obelisks to Paris appeared first during Napoleon's campaign in Egypt. On 21 March 1799 General Louis-Charles-Antoine Desaix wrote a letter to Napoleon informing him of the existence of two obelisks in Thebes which would constitute an extraordinary sight once brought to Paris.[6] Similarly, Vivant Denon recalls in his 1802 Voyage dans la basse et la Haute Égypte the possibility to bring the obelisks to Paris as a trophy of French conquest.[7] Finally, on 8 October 1800, Jean-Marie-Joseph Coutelle presented before the Institut d'Égypte in Cairo the first technical considerations on the transport and erection of one of the obelisks to the Place de la Concorde.[8] With the eventual end of the French Campaign in Egypt, these plans, however, were never realized.

Under Napoleon's successor, Louis XVIII, the French acquired rights to Cleopatra's Needle in Alexandria, though this obelisk was never moved to France and ended up in New York City in 1881.

In the 1820s King Charles X opened an Egyptian Museum and sought an obelisk as a piece of Egyptian art. Around this time, Jean-François Champollion, who had recently achieved prominence for his decipherment of the Rosetta hieroglyphs, saw the Luxor obelisks for the first time and urged the French government to acquire them over any other obelisks.[9]

Gift edit

 
Cairo Citadel Clock, reportedly given by the French in the 1840s, outside the Mosque of Muhammad Ali

In November 1830, Muhammad Ali Pasha, ruler of Ottoman Egypt, officially gave the Luxor obelisks to France. In so doing he reversed a previous gift of the two obelisks to the British: on a suggestion by France's Consul-General Mimault, himself inspired by Champollion, he instead gave the UK the obelisk of Hatshepsut in Karnak Temple, which was in fact impractical to extract from the surrounding stone structures as Champollion knew well; the British nevertheless accepted.[10] Also, French diplomat Baron Isidore Justin Séverin Taylor, Mimault's senior, finalized the terms of the gift despite having been mandated to do so by Charles X, who had been overthrown in the meantime by the July Revolution.[11]

In reciprocation for the gift, France gave the Ottomans a mechanical clock in the 1840s, today known as the Cairo Citadel Clock.[4] The clock has rarely worked since its arrival in Cairo, but in 2021 the Supreme Council of Antiquities announced that "Egypt is seeking to repair the citadel clock, one of the oldest of its type in the world, so that it will work again."[12][13]

In 1981, President François Mitterrand of France definitively renounced possession of the second obelisk, thus restoring its property to Egypt.[14][15]

Transport and re-erection edit

 
Sphinx towing the barge Louqsor ferrying the Luxor Obelisk to France

It was decided that the western (shorter) obelisk would be moved first, and in 1831, it was taken down. It was transported by a ship custom-built for the transport, the Luxor. It arrived in Paris in 1833 and was erected in 1836 at the centre of Place de la Concorde by King Louis-Phillipe. Champollion could not see the completion of his project, since he died on 04-03-1832 as the obelisk was still between Luxor and Alexandria.[10]

The total cost of relocating the obelisk was estimated at 2.5 million francs (equivalent to an estimated €16 million or $19 million in 2020).[16][17] The high cost may be why the second obelisk was never moved.

The choice of the Concorde was politically expedient, because that spot was iconic and emotionally charged - not least for having been the main location of the guillotine during the French Revolution - and it was difficult to find a way to fill it in a way that would convey sufficient prestige but not inflame political passions. The obelisk matched these criteria perfectly, given its antiquity and lack of connection with French history. It won over alternative options including the Cour Carrée of the Louvre, which had been recommended by such luminaries as Edme-François Jomard and Vivant Denon, but would have been technically more difficult.[10]

Pedestal edit

 
Detail of the modern pedestal in Paris

The present-day pedestal was originally intended for an equestrian statue by Jean-Pierre Cortot of Louis XVI, but the statue was destroyed during the July Revolution in 1830.[citation needed] In 1839, diagrams explaining the complex machinery that was used for the transportation were added to the pedestal.[18]

The original Egyptian pedestals involved sculptures of baboons with prominent male genitalia, raising their hands to the sun. A fragment of this original pedestal from the rear of the remaining obelisk was brought to Paris at the same time as the obelisk, intended to be displayed with it. Deemed too obscene for public exhibition, it was sent to the Egyptian section of the Louvre.[19]

Pyramidion edit

France added a gold-leafed pyramid cap to the top of the obelisk in 1998,[20] with the costs covered by sponsorship from Yves Saint Laurent.[10] It had long been suspected that the bare pyramidion had originally been covered with a bronze, gold, or electrum cap,[21] speculated to have been stolen in the 500s BC.[citation needed]

With the pedestal and cap, the height of the monument is approximately 33.37m (109ft).[22]

Modern events edit

  • On 1 December 1993, demonstrators from Act Up Paris [fr], an organization dedicated to fighting AIDS, covered the Parisian obelisk with a giant pink condom to mark World AIDS Day.[23][24]
  • In 1998 Alain "Spiderman" Robert, the French urban climber, illegally scaled the Parisian obelisk without the use of any ropes or other climbing equipment or safety devices.[25]
  • In 1998, the monument was covered by a replica trophy as part of the 1998 World Cup[26]
  • In 1999 as part of Paris's millennium celebration activities, 300 brass disks and nearly 1,000 feet of yellow thermosensitive strips were placed around the obelisk in order to use the it as the gnomon of a functioning sundial. They remained until the end of the year 2000.[22]
  • In 2015 Milène Guermont's monumental interactive sculpture PHARES[27] was displayed next to the obelisk for several months, where it was designed to illuminate the obelisk.

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ "Building the Great Obelisks at Luxor", History, 22 August 2018, retrieved 8 October 2021
  2. ^ a b Gorringe, Henry Honeychurch (1882). Egyptian Obelisks. author. p. 119.
  3. ^ Illusionism in Egyptian Architecture (PDF). 1969. p. 23.
  4. ^ a b "Egypt's Obelisks Are No Longer Standing Tall". Los Angeles Times. 22 July 1990. Retrieved 8 October 2021.
  5. ^ Gorringe, Henry Honeychurch (1882). Egyptian Obelisks. Author. p. 86.
  6. ^ Sauzet, Armand. Desaix, le sultan juste. p. 234.
  7. ^ Denon, Vivant (1989). Voyage dans la basse et la haute Égypte. Le Caire: Institut français d'archéologie orientale. p. 21.
  8. ^ Bret, Patrice (2001). "Le Guerrier Philosophie Desaix, L'institut d'Égypte et la commission des sciences et arts". Annales historiques de la Révolution française. 324: 72.
  9. ^ Gorringe, Henry Honeychurch (1882). Egyptian Obelisks. Author. p. 77.
  10. ^ a b c d Luc Gabolde (Fall 2022), "L'Obélisque de la Concorde et Champollion", Grande Galerie / Le Journal du Louvre: 65
  11. ^ Gorringe, Henry Honeychurch (1882). Egyptian Obelisks. Author. p. 78.
  12. ^ Nevine El-Aref. "175-year-old Cairo Citadel clock to be repaired". ahramonline, 6 May 2021.
  13. ^ "Egypt's first ticking clock ticks again - Al-Monitor: The Pulse of the Middle East". www.al-monitor.com. 6 October 2021. Retrieved 9 October 2021.
  14. ^ "L'Obélisque de Louxor fait peau neuve" (in French). Retrieved 19 December 2023.
  15. ^ "De Louxor à la Concorde, la fabuleuse odyssée de l'Obélisque" (in French). franceinfo France Télévisions. 11 February 2014. Retrieved 19 December 2023.
  16. ^ L'Abeille (in French). Petit Séminaire de Québec. 1848.
  17. ^ "Historical Currency Converter". www.historicalstatistics.org. Retrieved 5 October 2021.
  18. ^ Solé, Robert (2004). Le Grand Voyage de l'Obélisque. Seuil. p. 199. ISBN 978-2-02-039279-2.
  19. ^ . 8 July 2015. Archived from the original on 8 July 2015. Retrieved 9 October 2021.
  20. ^ "Paris obelisk finally gets its gold cap". The Independent. 23 October 2011. Retrieved 9 October 2021.
  21. ^ Gorringe, Henry Honeychurch (1882). Egyptian Obelisks. New York: Henry Gorringe. p. 82.
  22. ^ a b Burke, Rose Marie (10 September 1999). "Millennial Countdown Is Aided by a Sundial". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 8 October 2021.
  23. ^ . Archived from the original on 8 March 2009.
  24. ^ http://www.qrd.org/qrd/aids/cdc/daily.summaries/1993/12.01.93 [bare URL plain text file]
  25. ^ "FRANCE: PARIS: 'SPIDERMAN' ALAIN ROBERT STRIKES AGAIN | AP Archive". www.aparchive.com. Retrieved 2 October 2021.
  26. ^ "Dressing up the Obelisk for the opening of the Football World Cup in 1998, Paris – C&E Construction et Environnement".
  27. ^ "PHARES (2015)". Milène GUERMONT.

Further reading edit

  • Bret, Patrice (2001). "Le Guerrier Philosophie Desaix, L'institut d'Égypte et la commission des sciences et arts". Annales historiques de la Révolution française. 324: 69–82. doi:10.3406/ahrf.2001.2517. S2CID 145094387.
  • Follert, Michael. (2014). Enjoyment Petrification: The Luxor obelisk in a melancholic century.
  • Levin, William C. (2006). Cultural Commentary: Le Vin in Paris. Bridgewater Review, 25(1), 30-32. Available at:
  • Place de la Concorde: Obélisque de Luxor
 
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48°51′56″N 2°19′16″E / 48.86556°N 2.32111°E / 48.86556; 2.32111

January 01, 1970
luxor, obelisks, french, obélisques, louxor, pair, ancient, egyptian, obelisks, over, years, carved, stand, either, side, portal, luxor, temple, reign, ramesses, 1250, right, hand, western, stone, metres, high, moved, 1830s, place, concorde, paris, france, whi. The Luxor Obelisks French Obelisques de Louxor are a pair of ancient Egyptian obelisks over 3 000 years old carved to stand either side of the portal of the Luxor Temple in the reign of Ramesses II c 1250 BC The right hand western stone 23 metres 75 ft high was moved in the 1830s to the Place de la Concorde in Paris France while the left hand eastern obelisk remains in its location in Egypt The Obelisk of Luxor at the centre of the Place de la Concorde ParisThe remaining obelisk at Luxor Temple pylonBoth obelisks in their original position before the pylon of Luxor Temple 1832 The Luxor Obelisk in Paris was classified officially as a monument historique in 1936 Contents 1 Together in Egypt 1 1 Creation 1 2 Physical features 1 3 Hieroglyphs 2 Luxor Obelisk in Paris 2 1 Idea 2 2 Gift 2 3 Transport and re erection 2 4 Pedestal 2 5 Pyramidion 3 Modern events 4 See also 5 References 6 Further readingTogether in Egypt editCreation edit The Luxor Temple predated Ramesses II by about 150 years During his reign renovations were made that included the addition of the two obelisks The obelisks were each carved from a single piece of red granite quarried about 100 miles 160 km south of Luxor in Aswan transported on a specially designed barge and lowered into place with ropes and sand 1 Physical features edit The two obelisks were slightly different heights and the one remaining in Luxor is taller The shorter obelisk was mounted on a taller pedestal and placed farther from the pylon than the other To an advancing spectator the obelisks may have appeared to be the same height and this design choice may have been highly deliberate 2 3 The obelisk remaining in Luxor is leaning 4 The Paris obelisk has a fissure in the original stone that had been tended to in antiquity 5 The eastern and western faces of each obelisk were slightly convex the only two ancient obelisks with the feature and the reason for this is not understood 2 Hieroglyphs edit Both obelisks feature hieroglyphic text carved in sunken relief on all four sides In the 19th century Francois Chabas produced a full translation of the western Paris obelisk which is about Ramesses II Amun Ra and Horus and can be read here Luxor Obelisk in Paris edit nbsp Removal of the obelisk Idea edit The idea to transport the Luxor Obelisks to Paris appeared first during Napoleon s campaign in Egypt On 21 March 1799 General Louis Charles Antoine Desaix wrote a letter to Napoleon informing him of the existence of two obelisks in Thebes which would constitute an extraordinary sight once brought to Paris 6 Similarly Vivant Denon recalls in his 1802 Voyage dans la basse et la Haute Egypte the possibility to bring the obelisks to Paris as a trophy of French conquest 7 Finally on 8 October 1800 Jean Marie Joseph Coutelle presented before the Institut d Egypte in Cairo the first technical considerations on the transport and erection of one of the obelisks to the Place de la Concorde 8 With the eventual end of the French Campaign in Egypt these plans however were never realized Under Napoleon s successor Louis XVIII the French acquired rights to Cleopatra s Needle in Alexandria though this obelisk was never moved to France and ended up in New York City in 1881 In the 1820s King Charles X opened an Egyptian Museum and sought an obelisk as a piece of Egyptian art Around this time Jean Francois Champollion who had recently achieved prominence for his decipherment of the Rosetta hieroglyphs saw the Luxor obelisks for the first time and urged the French government to acquire them over any other obelisks 9 Gift edit nbsp Cairo Citadel Clock reportedly given by the French in the 1840s outside the Mosque of Muhammad Ali In November 1830 Muhammad Ali Pasha ruler of Ottoman Egypt officially gave the Luxor obelisks to France In so doing he reversed a previous gift of the two obelisks to the British on a suggestion by France s Consul General Mimault himself inspired by Champollion he instead gave the UK the obelisk of Hatshepsut in Karnak Temple which was in fact impractical to extract from the surrounding stone structures as Champollion knew well the British nevertheless accepted 10 Also French diplomat Baron Isidore Justin Severin Taylor Mimault s senior finalized the terms of the gift despite having been mandated to do so by Charles X who had been overthrown in the meantime by the July Revolution 11 In reciprocation for the gift France gave the Ottomans a mechanical clock in the 1840s today known as the Cairo Citadel Clock 4 The clock has rarely worked since its arrival in Cairo but in 2021 the Supreme Council of Antiquities announced that Egypt is seeking to repair the citadel clock one of the oldest of its type in the world so that it will work again 12 13 In 1981 President Francois Mitterrand of France definitively renounced possession of the second obelisk thus restoring its property to Egypt 14 15 Transport and re erection edit nbsp Sphinx towing the barge Louqsor ferrying the Luxor Obelisk to France It was decided that the western shorter obelisk would be moved first and in 1831 it was taken down It was transported by a ship custom built for the transport the Luxor It arrived in Paris in 1833 and was erected in 1836 at the centre of Place de la Concorde by King Louis Phillipe Champollion could not see the completion of his project since he died on 04 03 1832 as the obelisk was still between Luxor and Alexandria 10 The total cost of relocating the obelisk was estimated at 2 5 million francs equivalent to an estimated 16 million or 19 million in 2020 16 17 The high cost may be why the second obelisk was never moved The choice of the Concorde was politically expedient because that spot was iconic and emotionally charged not least for having been the main location of the guillotine during the French Revolution and it was difficult to find a way to fill it in a way that would convey sufficient prestige but not inflame political passions The obelisk matched these criteria perfectly given its antiquity and lack of connection with French history It won over alternative options including the Cour Carree of the Louvre which had been recommended by such luminaries as Edme Francois Jomard and Vivant Denon but would have been technically more difficult 10 Pedestal edit nbsp Detail of the modern pedestal in ParisThe present day pedestal was originally intended for an equestrian statue by Jean Pierre Cortot of Louis XVI but the statue was destroyed during the July Revolution in 1830 citation needed In 1839 diagrams explaining the complex machinery that was used for the transportation were added to the pedestal 18 The original Egyptian pedestals involved sculptures of baboons with prominent male genitalia raising their hands to the sun A fragment of this original pedestal from the rear of the remaining obelisk was brought to Paris at the same time as the obelisk intended to be displayed with it Deemed too obscene for public exhibition it was sent to the Egyptian section of the Louvre 19 Pyramidion edit France added a gold leafed pyramid cap to the top of the obelisk in 1998 20 with the costs covered by sponsorship from Yves Saint Laurent 10 It had long been suspected that the bare pyramidion had originally been covered with a bronze gold or electrum cap 21 speculated to have been stolen in the 500s BC citation needed With the pedestal and cap the height of the monument is approximately 33 37m 109ft 22 Modern events editOn 1 December 1993 demonstrators from Act Up Paris fr an organization dedicated to fighting AIDS covered the Parisian obelisk with a giant pink condom to mark World AIDS Day 23 24 In 1998 Alain Spiderman Robert the French urban climber illegally scaled the Parisian obelisk without the use of any ropes or other climbing equipment or safety devices 25 In 1998 the monument was covered by a replica trophy as part of the 1998 World Cup 26 In 1999 as part of Paris s millennium celebration activities 300 brass disks and nearly 1 000 feet of yellow thermosensitive strips were placed around the obelisk in order to use the it as the gnomon of a functioning sundial They remained until the end of the year 2000 22 In 2015 Milene Guermont s monumental interactive sculpture PHARES 27 was displayed next to the obelisk for several months where it was designed to illuminate the obelisk See also editCleopatra s Needle List of Egyptian obelisksReferences edit Building the Great Obelisks at Luxor History 22 August 2018 retrieved 8 October 2021 a b Gorringe Henry Honeychurch 1882 Egyptian Obelisks author p 119 Illusionism in Egyptian Architecture PDF 1969 p 23 a b Egypt s Obelisks Are No Longer Standing Tall Los Angeles Times 22 July 1990 Retrieved 8 October 2021 Gorringe Henry Honeychurch 1882 Egyptian Obelisks Author p 86 Sauzet Armand Desaix le sultan juste p 234 Denon Vivant 1989 Voyage dans la basse et la haute Egypte Le Caire Institut francais d archeologie orientale p 21 Bret Patrice 2001 Le Guerrier Philosophie Desaix L institut d Egypte et la commission des sciences et arts Annales historiques de la Revolution francaise 324 72 Gorringe Henry Honeychurch 1882 Egyptian Obelisks Author p 77 a b c d Luc Gabolde Fall 2022 L Obelisque de la Concorde et Champollion Grande Galerie Le Journal du Louvre 65 Gorringe Henry Honeychurch 1882 Egyptian Obelisks Author p 78 Nevine El Aref 175 year old Cairo Citadel clock to be repaired ahramonline 6 May 2021 Egypt s first ticking clock ticks again Al Monitor The Pulse of the Middle East www al monitor com 6 October 2021 Retrieved 9 October 2021 L Obelisque de Louxor fait peau neuve in French Retrieved 19 December 2023 De Louxor a la Concorde la fabuleuse odyssee de l Obelisque in French franceinfo France Televisions 11 February 2014 Retrieved 19 December 2023 L Abeille in French Petit Seminaire de Quebec 1848 Historical Currency Converter www historicalstatistics org Retrieved 5 October 2021 Sole Robert 2004 Le Grand Voyage de l Obelisque Seuil p 199 ISBN 978 2 02 039279 2 Four baboons adoring the rising sun Louvre Museum Paris 8 July 2015 Archived from the original on 8 July 2015 Retrieved 9 October 2021 Paris obelisk finally gets its gold cap The Independent 23 October 2011 Retrieved 9 October 2021 Gorringe Henry Honeychurch 1882 Egyptian Obelisks New York Henry Gorringe p 82 a b Burke Rose Marie 10 September 1999 Millennial Countdown Is Aided by a Sundial Wall Street Journal ISSN 0099 9660 Retrieved 8 October 2021 Civismemoria fr Interviews en tout genre Archived from the original on 8 March 2009 http www qrd org qrd aids cdc daily summaries 1993 12 01 93 bare URL plain text file FRANCE PARIS SPIDERMAN ALAIN ROBERT STRIKES AGAIN AP Archive www aparchive com Retrieved 2 October 2021 Dressing up the Obelisk for the opening of the Football World Cup in 1998 Paris C amp E Construction et Environnement PHARES 2015 Milene GUERMONT Further reading editBret Patrice 2001 Le Guerrier Philosophie Desaix L institut d Egypte et la commission des sciences et arts Annales historiques de la Revolution francaise 324 69 82 doi 10 3406 ahrf 2001 2517 S2CID 145094387 Follert Michael 2014 Enjoyment Petrification The Luxor obelisk in a melancholic century Levin William C 2006 Cultural Commentary Le Vin in Paris Bridgewater Review 25 1 30 32 Available at Place de la Concorde Obelisque de Luxor nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Luxor Obelisk 48 51 56 N 2 19 16 E 48 86556 N 2 32111 E 48 86556 2 32111 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Luxor Obelisks amp oldid 1221499170, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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