Obelisk

A long square tapering shaft, with slightly convex faces, and pyramidion at the top. Obelisks were made of varying sizes and in different materials. The finest are in granite from the Aswan quarries. The largest and best worked of those still standing is that erected by Queen Hatshepsut at Karnak. It is 109 feet high, and an inscription tells how it was quarried, transported, carved, and set up in position in seven months. The obelisk at Helio polis, which is the oldest, is 68 feet high, those at Karnak measure 77 feet and 75 1/2 feet. Usually they were capped with bronze or gilt copper. They were placed in front of the colo i that were put on either side of the main entrance to a temple. There were always two of them, though in point of height they might not be a pair. Although many have thought that the obelisk represents some religious emblem—a finger of God, or ray of the sun—it is more probable that the idea in the minds of those who raised them was similar to that of the raisers of menhirs or standing stones. Under the IVth Dynasty we find small obelisks in the tombs placed on either side of the stela. At Begig, in the Fayum, there is an obelisk of rectangular form, having a rounded top with a groove intended to receive some object, po ibly a hawk emblem. The pyramidion of an obelisk was decorated with scenes of offerings. The sides bore perpendicular lines of hieroglyphs containing the king’s names and titles, and his praises. The pedestal on which the obelisk stood was decorated with inscriptions or figures of cynocephali (q.v.).