Cleopatra's Needle

Cleopatra's Needle in London

Cleopatra's Needles are a pair of obelisks in London and New York. Each is made of red granite, stands about 21 metres (68 feet) high, weighs about 180 tons and is inscribed with hieroglyphs. Although the needles are genuine Ancient Egyptian obelisks, they are somewhat misnamed as neither has any connection with the legendary queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt. They were originally erected in the Egyptian city of Heliopolis on the orders of Thothmes III, around 1500 BC. The inscriptions were added about 200 years later by Ramses II to commemorate his military victories. The obelisks were moved to Alexandria by the Romans in 12 BC, during the reign of Augustus Caesar, but were toppled some time later. This had the fortuitous effect of burying their faces and so preserving most of the hieroglyphs from the effects of weathering.

History of the needles

London

The London needle is in the City of Westminster, on the Victoria Embankment near Hungerford Bridge. It was presented to the United Kingdom in 1819 by Mehemet Ali, the Albanian-born viceroy of Egypt, 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 ÃÂ£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 long and 15 feet in diameter, designed by the engineer John Dixon and dubbed Cleopatra. 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.

Cleopatra's Needle being erected, August 1878

The effort met with disaster on 14 October 1877, when the Cleopatra foundered in a storm in the Bay of Biscay, with the loss of six lives. The Cleopatra did not sink but instead drifted in the Bay until it was rescued by the English ship Fitzmaurice and taken to Ferrol in Spain for repairs. It finally arrived in Gravesend on 21 January 1878. The obelisk was erected on the Victoria Embankment the following August.

Cleopatra's Needle is flanked by two faux-Egyptian sphinxes cast from bronze. The Embankment has other Egyptian flourishes, such as buxom winged sphinxes on the armrests of benches. On 4 September 1917, during World War I, bombs from the first German air raid on London by German aeroplanes 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.

New York

The New York needle is in Central Park. It was presented to the City of New York by Ismail Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt, and its transportation was funded by the railroad tycoon William Henry Vanderbilt. In contrast with the tortuous journey of the London needle, it arrived safely and was erected in Central Park on 22 February 1881.