TAHRIR SQUARE

Finally, Cairo has an Obelisk like Rome, Paris and London

NEW TAHRIR SQUARE

Pharaoh Ramses II

Also known as Ramses the Great, was the third pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt. He is often regarded as the greatest, most celebrated, and most powerful pharaoh of the New Kingdom, itself the most powerful period of Ancient Egypt.

UNFINISHED OBELISK ASWAN
abandonted in granite quarry

Ramses II Obelisk Carved out of pink granite is distinguished by the beauty of its inscriptions depicting Ramses II standing before one of the deities, surrounded by inscriptions of his various titles.

The obelisk installed in “Tahrir Square” is one of many obelisk belonging to King Ramses II this one found in San el-Hagar archaeological area in Sharqiyah is nearly 17 meters (half the hight of Lateran Basilica in Rome at 32.2 m) in  high when fully assembled and weighs an impressive 90 tons.

What exactly is an Obelisk?

INSTALLING RAMSES II OBELISK
IN TAHRIR SQUARE (2020)
CAIRO - EGYPT

An obelisk is a stone rectangular pillar with a tapered top forming a pyramidion, set on a base, erected to commemorate an individual or event and honor the gods. The ancient Egyptians created the form at some point in the Early Dynastic Period (c. 3150-c. 2613 BCE) following their work in mud brick mastaba tombs and prior to the construction of the Step Pyramid of Djoser (c. 2670 BCE). It is thought that the earliest obelisks served as a kind of training for working in stone on monumental projects, which was a necessary step toward pyramid building.

The name "obelisk" is Greek for "spit", as in a long pointed piece of wood generally used for cooking, because the Greek historian Herodotus was the first to write about them and so named them. The Egyptians called them “tekhenu”, which means, "to pierce" as in "to pierce the sky". The earliest obelisks no longer exist and are only known through later inscriptions but appear to have been only about ten feet (3 meters) tall. In time they would reach heights of over 100 feet (30 meters). 

PLACE CONCORDE, PARIS

Although many cultures around the world from the Assyrian to the Mesoamerican employed the obelisk form, only ancient Egypt worked in monolithic stone, almost always red granite. Each ancient Egyptian obelisk was carved from a single piece of stone, which was then moved to its location and raised onto a base. While archaeologists and scholars understand how these monuments were carved and transported, no one knows how they were raised; modern day efforts to replicate the raising of an obelisk, using ancient Egyptian technology, have failed.

The obelisk symbolized the sun god Ra, and during the religious reformation of Akhenaten it was said to have been a petrified ray of the Aten, the sundisk.

LONDON OBELISK

Around 30 B.C., after Cleopatra "the last Pharaoh" committed suicide, Rome took control of Egypt. The Ancient Romans were awestruck by the obelisks they saw, and looted the various temple complexes; in one case they destroyed walls at the Temple of Karnak to haul them out. The majorities of obelisks were dismantled during the Roman period over 1,700 years ago and were sent to different locations. More Obelisks and the best were shipped out of Egypt by the Romans than what remain now in Egypt.

TALLSEST EGYPTIAN OBELISK
"LATERAN BASILICA" ROME

The largest standing and tallest Egyptian obelisk is the Lateran Obelisk in the square at the west side of the Lateran Basilica in Rome at 105.6 feet (32.2 m) tall and a weight of 455 metric tons.

The well-known iconic 25 meters (82 ft), 331-metric-ton is the obelisk at Saint Peter's Square. Brought to Rome by the Emperor Caligula in AD 37,

Pope Sixtus V was determined to erect the obelisk in front of St Peter's, of which the nave was yet to be built. He had a full-sized wooden mock-up erected within months of his election. Domenico Fontana, the assistant of Giacomo Della Porta in charge of the Basilica's construction, presented the Pope with a little model crane, made of wood and a heavy little obelisk of lead, which Sixtus himself was able to raise by turning a little winch with his fingers. Fontana was given the project. Half-buried in the debris of the ages, it was first excavated as it stood; then it took from 30 April to 17 May 1586 to move it on rollers to the Piazza: it required nearly 1000 men, 140 carthorses, and 47 cranes. The re-erection, scheduled for 14 September, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, was watched by a large crowd.

CLEOPATRA NEEDLE - SAINT PETER VATICAN

Here is a list of the many Egyptian obelisks around the world, while a total of eight only are left in Egypt.

Hieroglyphs on
OBELISK

One In France

Pharaoh Ramses II, Luxor Obelisk, in Place de la Concorde, Paris

One in Israel

Caesarea obelisk

Thirteen in Italy

(Includes the one located in the Vatican City).

Eight in Rome.

One in Piazza del Duomo, Catania (Sicily)

One in Boboli (Florence)

One in Urbino

Two in museums.

REMAINING OBELISK IN KARNAK TEMPLE LUXOR EGYPT

  

One in Poland

Ramses II, Poznań Archaeological Museum, Poznań 

(on loan from Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, Berlin)

One in Turkey

Pharaoh Tuthmosis III, the Obelisk of Theodosius in the Hippodrome of Constantinople (now Sultan Ahmet Square), Istanbul

Four in United Kingdom

Pharaoh Tuthmosis III, "Cleopatra's Needle", beside the Thames Victoria Embankment, in London

Pharaoh Amenhotep II, in the Oriental Museum, University of Durham

Pharaoh Ptolemy IX, Philae obelisk, at Kingston Lacy, near Wimborne Minster, Dorset

Pharaoh Nectanebo II, British Museum, London (pair of obelisks)

OBELISK IN CENTRAL PARK NY

One in the United States

Pharaoh Tuthmosis III, "Cleopatra's Needle", in Central Park, New York

Tahrir  (Ismaileya) Square 1941

Ismaileya Square (1944) 

Contrary to the beleive that the "Mugamaa" governmental building 
was build after the 1952 revolution. 

The Mugamaa complex replaced
part of this garden and was inaugurated in 1949
by King Farouk

Tahrir square, showing a pedestal and 

the Mugamaa complex. (1967) 

Tahrir (Liberty) Square used to be called Ismailiah square (Khedive Ismail) until the 1952 Revolution. Many projects to beautify the square failed to materialize and Tahrir stayed over 60 years without purpose. In 2011 the people revolution, millions of peaceful demonstrators  came to the square to protest against the regime and eventually toppled the President Hosny Mubarak. 

Some additional notes added to the blog on Juin 3, 2020