The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1877-10-19

Ql0 not go DeyOnO the moQel. For the
Albert Memorial, the Queen suggested,
at first, an obelisk, and the subject was
discussed by a Committee of Advice
The committee vainly endeavored to
procure suitable stone for that purpose
their nearest approach to what was
wanted being found in some light red
granite of the Duke of Argyll; but
when block of the Scotch granite had
been excavated, it was pronounced weak
in the middle. The estimate of the
cost of the obelisk with incised sculp
ture was from $3.50. 900 to S3O0, 900. All
things considered, it is not surprising
that the committee deemed it wise to
forego the great stone. No precedent
can be offered in answering the ques
ton, d" What shall be done with it
when the gift of Mehemet Ali and Mr..
Erasmus Wilson reaches the London
docks. In one public square, say the
critics, the monolith will be dwarfed
by the size of the buildings around it;
in another. they say, it will spoil the
architectural effect of the neighboring
structures. With a foresight that is
creditable, the authorities have set up
a wooden model of Cleopata's Needle
in one of the squares, in order that crit
icism may exhaust itself in determining
the site before the great stone is itself
placed in position.
Whether Parliament Square. or the
front of the British Museum, or the
Thames Embankment shall finally re
ceive the 200 tons of sienite, it is GER
tain to be unique feature in the Lon
don streets. There will be nothing |
more strikingly quaint, and few things |
so old in all England; the exceptions, |
if any, being among the antiquities of
the British Museum. The misnomer
of Cleopatra'S Needle is not more alb |
surd in its reference to the emblem of
female industry, than in connecting it |
with the name of a daughter of thePtol |
emies who probably never saw it, and
to whom its hieroglyphs would have
been easily worse than Greek, since |
Greek was her ancestral tongue, and |
presumably her vernaeular. The mon
arch for whom this block was excavat-
ed from the quarries of Syene, lived in
the very dawn of the historical period,
and only in very recent years has the
veil of the past been so far drawn aside
as to give US some record of his reign.
Champollion attributed the erection OF
this and other famous obelisks at He'll
opolis, to Morris, the sovereign who
constructed lake known by his name,
for regulating the overflow of the Nile.
But more recent students have changed
all this, including the name of the con
of the Lake of Morris, which
was certainly one of the greatest of an
cient works of engineering. Egyptol-
ogis.s now agree that the two obelisks
which, till within few weeks, were in
Alexandria, and latterly known there
as Cleopatra's Needles, were originally
erected at Heliopolis by Thothmes Ill
That monarch set many obelisks;
among the rest the highest one known,
which is now at Rome and goes by the
name of st. John Lateran. The date
of the reign of Thothmes III, may be
placed (within a century or two) at
1900 &C. great credit is given him by
antIquaries for sound architectural
taste.
AT this point the confusion begins in
the story. Wilkenson says that Thoth-
mes III. was the Pharaoh of the Bib ,
lcal narrative, in whose time the
Israelites made their escape from ,
Egypt The incident is calculated to I
have occurred in the fourth year of his
long reign, and if that be admitted be
could not have been drowned with bis 6
army in following the Israelites. Ma /
riette dates the Exodus in the reign of
Merneptah, the son of one of the
greatest of Egyp's soyereigns, both as
a warrior and builder-Rameses II. $
The chronology of Mariette would place
the Exodus at about 1850 B. c. The
next point of interest is as to the reno
val Of the obel,sks from Heliopolis to
There is evidence that
this was effected in the time of the
Caesars; but there is also a statement
that it was performed by Rameses H. .
The chief difficulty about the latter
is that the founding of Alex
andria is usually dated about thou
sand years later. The companion obe- {
Iisk to the one now on its way TO Eng 6
land is still standing at Alexandria {
and bears the name of Rameses ii.
among its inscriptions; but his name is !.
found on many Monuments which he 1
did not erect, as well on those which t
be did. The removal of obelisks from
Africa to Europe began in the Angus .
tan era. Most of them went in the
time of the Caesars to Rome, and there /
are dozen there at the present day. :
No date is assigned Tor the fall of the
obelisk that Is now on its way to EOg-
land: it has long lain half buried in the c
sand at Alexandria, and has been much I
maltreated.
TIE exact significance of obelisks in
the ancient religion of Egypt has not q
been aScertained. Pliny says that fhe
Egyptian equivalent for the word obe- =,