Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1881-02-21
THE OBELIsK.

The obelisk which adorns Central
Park, New York, was quarried at AS
souan, in Nubia (the far Syene of the
Scriptures), and brought down the Nile
on immense RATS and set up at the ia
nous city of Heilopolis, in Lower Egypt.
1t is of sienite, or, as the French call it,
rose granite. an exceedingly durable
stone. There is still remaining in this
same quarry a monolith, which, had the
ancients succeeded in getting it out,
would have been the largest ever erect
ed but, unfortunately, it broke in the
middle, and so was abandoned in the
| quarry.
From Heliopolis the Cleopatra mono
| liths were removed to Alexandria, after
having stood before the Temple of the
Sun at the former city for over thou
sand years. So the volumptuous Queen
had nothing to do with the obelisk that
bears her name. Cleopatra Needles"
are misnomer as much SO as Pompey's
Pillar is to the column of Dioclesian, for
we now know they were set up at Alex
andria in the eighth year of the reign of
Augustus, or twenty-three years before
the birth of Christ, and seven years af-
ter the death of Cleopatra herself.
Heliopolis seems to have been literal
ly city of obelisks, for it has furnished
nearly all that were transported to Eu-
rope. Only one is now remaining where
once stood this mighty city-a monu-
ment of divine wrath-for Heliopolis is
the Bethshemath of the Scriptures, the
destruction of which Ezekiel prophesied,
and to render his words as they should
be: "Thus saith the Lord God, behold,
I am against the Pharaoh, and I will
send Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.
and when he cometh he shall smite the
land he shall break the obelisks that
are in Bethshemath, which is in the land
of Egypt, and the temples of the gods Of
the Egyptians shall burn with fire.
Surely as live, saith Lord of hosts, as
Tabor is among the mountains, and Car
mel by the sea, so shall he come. And
the land of Egypt shall be utterly waste
and desolate, from the tower of Syene
even to the borders of Ethiopia" This
prophecy is literally fulfilled. and the
obelisk still standing at Bethshemath is
monument to the truth thereof.
These 0belisks were usually erected to
commemorate some important event in
the life of the ruling king. and were
: always dedicated to the gods. so that
their sacredness would prevent their
: overthrow. The park obelisk is dedicated
: to the god Ra. or the Sun; as the hawk
hieroglyphs at the pyramidion, as the
| top of the shaft is called, indicate. The
e hawk, as flying the highest, and conse-
3 quently nearest to the sun, and believed
to have the faculty of gazing on the orb,
e was especially dedicated to the Sun God,
or Ra, as in the ancient Egyptians. The
G observer will notice, at intervals among
the hieroglyphs, long oval figures, con-
tanning within them various hieroglyph-
b ical characters. These are the names of
, certain kings of Egypt. These ovals
S are called by the Psychologists "rOyal
e cartouches." They gave the first clew
y to the deciphering of the hierOglyphs. the
S name of PtOlemy Epiphanes heiDg the
e first kings name that was phonetically
: made out. Now the names of all the
y kings. or 'pharaOhs. of Egypt are
known a long way back, anterior to the
n time of Moses, or before Abraham enter
IL ed the land.
e' The key to the reading of the sacred
l. characters. as the hieroglyphs are called,
re was discovered in the famous Rosetta
$, stone, now in the British Museum
If When Napoleon was in Egypt an officer
q of the engineers found this stone at Rc-
l. setta, when he was constructing a
e redoubt. 1t had an engraved inscription
r in three different characters, one being
y in Greek. AS we can read the Greek,
le through it the reading of the ancient
1t Egyptian characters was finally discov-
10 cred.