The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1880-11-18
CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE.
1.-THE OLDEST NATION N THE WORLD TO Ts1
YOUNGEST"


YOUNGEST"
The Egyptian Obelisk, bearing the above name
is'now in place in Central Park, New York. II
took the name of Cleopatras Needle, says the
National Citizen, because that luxurious Queen
caused it to be transported from Heliopols, the
City of the Sun, to Alexandria. Cleopatra lived
about the time of Christ, but the obelisk had then
been standing fifteen hundred years. It was
thousand and five hundred years old at Cleopatra's
birth. Although its erection not due to Cleo
patra, another more ancient, more powerful queen
than she caused it to be hewn from its quarry,
covered with hieroglyphics, and set before a tenn
pie in that olden city OF temples Heliope-
lis. Cleopatra of Greek origin, Ptolemy,
but Queen Hatasu, to whom the obeisk is due,
was Pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty, and one
of the wisest and most powerful monarchs that
ever reigned over Egypt. Hers was the golden
art age of Egypt, when the whole country
adorned with finest sculpture
Egypt possessed several distinct periods of archi
lecture known as the pyramid period the temple
period and the obelisk period. The Obelisk period
continued for fifteen hundred years but was at it
elimination during the reign of Hatasu. The two
/ largest Obeli-ks cut from single stone were
those erected by HatasU before the Divine C.te Of
Karnak, the most magnificent temple in Thebes.
in honor of the god Amun-Ra. They were of tbs
/ rose-colored Syene granite, ninety-four feet "a
height, the tops broad enough for a hundred meu
| to stand upon, and We're ornamented by PYRAMIDS
of gold made from the spoil of captured enemies
Eighteen figures of life-size were sculptured upon
each, and exquisitey done that it resembles the
finest intagIios of the Greeks rather than scuIp-
ture. No tools known to moderns are capable Of
doing such work to-day. One of them is still
standing where first erected three thousand five
hundred years ago, and still bears record t. Elle
world that il erected III the sixteenth wear OF
Hatasu's reign. The quarries from whence they
were brought were six hnnfl-a,l miles Toas
Modern science, with all its boasted advancement
could not to-day cut such monuments as these or
move them into place. These two obelisks ars
very much larger than CleOpatra's Needle pre-
sented to the United States by the Khedive This
needle, which must be remembered as also dating
back to Hatusa's reign, is seventy feet square az
the base five feet three inches on top, and weighs
two hundred tons. It is in as perfect condition a.
the day it left the quarry thousand five hundred
years before Christ. 1t is a monument that has
been conspicuous in history for ages not only for
the fifteen hundred years it did duty as a religious
monument in the City of the Sun, but for the
nineteen hundred years it stood by the sea in thai
city built by Alexander the Great, until now uI-
wrecked by time, solid and unbroken but brown
from the storms of nearly four thousand years, it
has been brought to adOrn the proudest city of the
new world.
At the time this Obelisk was hewu, not only was
the throne of Egypt occupied by powerful queen
but women the whole land were on an equal
ity with men. They entered the professions, were
priests and physicians, "the medicines of the
daughters of Egypt" being mentioned by the
prophet jeremiah. queen of Egypt, Alexandra
wife of Polybius, gave to Helen of Troy the famous
potion Nepenthes, which was said to cure sOr-
row and render person insensible to pain
Women taught in temples of learning, woman'A
colleges abounding. In of these Moses ~
ceived his training. The women OF Egypt were
engaged in commerce and manufactures, although
the men chiefly wOve, and Herodotus paints the
latter as sitting in the house at work while their
wives traded in the markets Every position open
to man in Egypt was also open to woman, and
now that we shall have this Obesk of forty centu-
res looking down upon us, hope the inspira-
ton of its presence the message of equality it car
ries and its record of woman's power in the past
will be to the men Of country constant n
minder of wOman's inequality here. Over tire
door of the Egyptian Pavilion at the Centennial
Exposition was this inscription: ''The Oldest Ma
tiOn in the World to the Youngest" May this
monument of the oldest nation in the world be s
constant reminder to the youngest that rights are
not of sex, but belong to humanity