OBELISK

(Or. oPtktoKOs, dim. from:■■■,, Lat. obelus,a needlt, or dart.) A lofty quadrangular monolithic column, " diminishing upwards, with the sides gently inclined,but not so as to terminate in an apex at the top; neither is it truncated or cut off at the summit, but the sides are sloped oft' so as to form a flattish pyramidal figure, by which the whole is suitably finished off and brought to a point, without the upper part being so contracted as to appear insignificant." Egypt was, properly speaking, the land of obelisks; and they are unquestionably to be reckoned among the most ancient monuments of that extraordinary people. Much learning and ingenuity has been expended in endeavouring to ascertain their origin, and the purposes for which they were erected; but it does not appear that any satisfactory solution of the problem has hitherto been given. It has been frequently a erted that obelisks were originally erected in honour of the sun, of which they were said to be symbolical, and that they served the purposes of a gnome or sun-dial; but this opinion is now almost totally rejected, and it is generally believed that obelisks were nothing more than monumental structures, serving as ornaments to the open squares in which they were generally built, or intended to celebrate some important event and to perpetuate its remembrance. They were usually adorned with hieroglyphics; and we learn from the testimony of Diodorus and Strabo that the inscriptions with which they were charged declared the amount of gold and silver, the number of troops, and the quantity of ivory, perfumes, and corn which all the countries subject to Egypt were required to furnish. The two largest obelisks were erected by Sesostris in Helio polis. They were formed of a single block of granite, and measured 180 feet in height. When Egypt became a Roman province, August us removed these obelisks to his own capital; and this practice found numerous imitators both in some of his succe ors to the imperial throne, and, at a much later period, in many of the Roman pontiffs, from the 16th century down to the present times. Of these obelisks that of the Later an, which is the largest now known, being 105 feet in height exclusive of the pedestal, and weighing 440 tons, was brought by Const an tine from Helio polis to Alexandria, and thence by Constant i us his son to Rome, where it was erected in the Circus Maximus. The obelisk next in size to that of the Later an was placed originally in the Vatican circus by Caligula, but it now stands in the piazza of St. Peter's; its entire height is 132 feet, including the pedestal, . The obelisks most generally known, at least in name, are the Luxor, which was removed to Paris in 1833; and the two monoliths called Cleopatra's Needles, of which one is standing, and the other on the ground; but these are smaller than those we have adverted to, the Luxor being 76 feet in842height, and the Needle of Cleopatra, which still [s. 856]