The Obelisks of the Temple of Luxor

The Obelisks of the Temple of Luxor, Egypt.


The additions by Rameses II to the Temple of Luxor included the First Pylon and Great Court at the northern end of the temple. In front of this Pylon he erected two red granite obelisks with two seated statues of himself. However in 1833 the French obtained permission to remove both, in fact they just took one, and put it in the centre of the Place de la Concorde in Paris. According to Kent Weeks in his book "The Illustrated Guide to Luxor", "the story is told that Josephine bade farewell to Napoleon with the words; "While in Egypt if you go to Thebes, do send me a little obelisk".

The print by David Roberts, drawn some 5 years after the removal of the right hand obelisk

The obelisk today in the Place de la Concorde, Paris

Gustave Flaubert noted in his Travel Notebooks 1850 "how bored it must be in the Place de la Concorde, perched on its pedestal. How it must miss the Nile". Quoted by Paul William Roberts in the anthology "Egypt Through Writers Eyes" edited by deborah Manley & Saher Abdel-Hakim and published by Eland, London

Incidentally the obelisks in London and New York both came from Alexandria, where they had been moved by Cleopatra from Heliopolis, more about this later, inshallah! 

The first Pylon and Obelisk, Luxor, December 2011

An interesting book regarding "where are they now" is "The Rape of the Nile, Tomb Robbers, Tourists, and Archeologists in Egypt" by Brian M. Fagan, published by Charles Scribners' Sons, New York 1975.