Cleopatra's Needles are a separated pair of
ancient Egyptian obelisks now in
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
and
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
. The obelisks were originally made in
Heliopolis (modern
Cairo
Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...
) during the
New Kingdom
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
** "New" (Paul McCartney song), 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, 1995
* "New" (Daya song), 2017
* "New" (No Doubt song), 1 ...
period, inscribed by the
18th dynasty
The Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XVIII, alternatively 18th Dynasty or Dynasty 18) is classified as the first dynasty of the New Kingdom of Egypt, the era in which ancient Egypt achieved the peak of its power. The Eighteenth Dynasty ...
pharaoh
Thutmose III
Thutmose III (variously also spelt Tuthmosis or Thothmes), sometimes called Thutmose the Great, (1479–1425 BC) was the fifth pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt. He is regarded as one of the greatest warriors, military commanders, and milita ...
and
19th dynasty pharaoh
Ramesses II
Ramesses II (sometimes written Ramses or Rameses) (; , , ; ), commonly known as Ramesses the Great, was an Pharaoh, Egyptian pharaoh. He was the third ruler of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Nineteenth Dynasty. Along with Thutmose III of th ...
. In 13/12 BCE they were moved to the
Caesareum of Alexandria by the
prefect of Egypt Publius Rubrius Barbarus. Since at least the 17th century the obelisks have usually been named in the West after the
Ptolemaic Ptolemaic is the adjective formed from the name Ptolemy, and may refer to:
Pertaining to the Ptolemaic dynasty
*Ptolemaic dynasty, the Macedonian Greek dynasty that ruled Egypt founded in 305 BC by Ptolemy I Soter
*Ptolemaic Kingdom
Pertaining t ...
Queen
Cleopatra VII
Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (; The name Cleopatra is pronounced , or sometimes in both British and American English, see and respectively. Her name was pronounced in the Greek dialect of Egypt (see Koine Greek phonology). She was ...
. They stood in Alexandria for almost two millennia until they were re-erected in London and New York City in 1878 and 1881 respectively. Together with
Pompey's Pillar, they were described in the 1840s in
David Roberts' ''
Egypt and Nubia'' as "
hemost striking monuments of ancient Alexandria".
The removal of the obelisks from Egypt was presided over by
Isma'il Pasha
Isma'il Pasha ( ; 25 November 1830 or 31 December 1830 – 2 March 1895), also known as Ismail the Magnificent, was the Khedive of Egypt and ruler of Sudan from 1863 to 1879, when he was removed at the behest of Great Britain and France. Shari ...
, who had greatly indebted the
Khedivate of Egypt
The Khedivate of Egypt ( or , ; ') was an autonomous tributary state of the Ottoman Empire, established and ruled by the Muhammad Ali Dynasty following the defeat and expulsion of Napoleon Bonaparte's forces which brought an end to the short- ...
during its rapid modernization. The London needle was presented to the United Kingdom in 1819, but remained in Alexandria until 1877 when Sir
William James Erasmus Wilson, a distinguished anatomist and dermatologist, sponsored its transportation to London.
In the same year, Elbert E. Farman, the then-
United States Consul General at Cairo, secured the other needle for the United States. The needle was transported by
Henry Honychurch Gorringe. Both Wilson and Gorringe published books commemorating the transportation of the Needles: Wilson wrote ''Cleopatra's Needle: With Brief Notes on Egypt and Egyptian Obelisks'' (1877) and Gorringe wrote ''Egyptian Obelisks'' (1885).
The London needle was placed on the
Victoria Embankment
Victoria Embankment is part of the Thames Embankment (the other section is the Chelsea Embankment), a road and river-walk along the north bank of the River Thames in London, England. Built in the 1860s, it runs from the Palace of Westminster to ...
, which had been built a few years earlier in 1870, whilst the New York needle was placed in
Central Park
Central Park is an urban park between the Upper West Side and Upper East Side neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City, and the first landscaped park in the United States. It is the List of parks in New York City, sixth-largest park in the ...
just outside the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...
's
main building, also built just a few years earlier in 1872.
Damage to the obelisks by weather conditions in London and New York has been studied, notably by Professor Erhard M. Winkler of the
University of Notre Dame
The University of Notre Dame du Lac (known simply as Notre Dame; ; ND) is a Private university, private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, United States. Founded in 1842 by members of the Congregation of Holy Cross, a Cathol ...
.
Zahi Hawass
Zahi Abass Hawass (; born May 28, 1947) is an Egyptians, Egyptian archaeology, archaeologist, Egyptology, Egyptologist, and former Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities (Egypt), Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, a position he held twice. He has ...
, a former Egyptian
Minister of Antiquities, has called for their restoration or repatriation.
Alexandria
The name ''Cleopatra's Needles'' derives from the French name, "Les aiguilles de Cléopâtre", when they stood in Alexandria.
The earliest known post-classical reference to the obelisks was by the Cairo-based traveller
Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi in c.1200 CE, who according to
E. A. Wallis Budge
Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge (27 July 185723 November 1934) was an English Egyptology, Egyptologist, Orientalism, Orientalist, and Philology, philologist who worked for the British Museum and published numerous works on the ancient ...
described them as "Cleopatra's big needles".
At this point, both obelisks were still standing – it is thought that the toppling of one of the obelisks happened during the
1303 Crete earthquake, which also damaged the nearby
Lighthouse of Alexandria
The Lighthouse of Alexandria, sometimes called the Pharos of Alexandria, was a lighthouse built by the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (280–247 BC). It has been estimated to have been at least ...
.
George Sandys
George Sandys ( "sands"; 2 March 1578[''Sandys, George''](_blank)
in: ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' online ...
wrote of his 1610 journey: "Of Antiquities there are few remainders: onely an Hieroglyphicall Obelisk of Theban marble, as hard welnigh as
Porphir, but of a deeper red, and speckled alike, called Pharos Needle, standing where once stood the pallace of Alexander: and another lying by, and like it, halfe buried in rubbidge."
Two decades later, another English traveller
Henry Blount wrote "Within on the North towards the Sea are two square obeliskes each of one intire stone, full of Egyptian Hieroglyphicks, the one standing, the other fallen, I thinke either of them thrice as bigge as that at Constantinople, or the other at Rome, & therefore left behind as too heavy for transportation: neere these obeliskes, are the ruines of Cleopatraes Palace high upon the shore, with the private Gate, whereat she received her Marke Antony after their overthrow at Actium".
In 1735, the former French consul in Egypt,
Benoît de Maillet
Benoît de Maillet ( Saint-Mihiel, 12 April 1656 – Marseille, 30 January 1738) was a well-travelled French diplomat and natural historian. He was French consul general at Cairo, and overseer in the Levant. He formulated an evolutionary hypoth ...
, wrote in his ''Description de l'Egypte'':
Cleopatra's Needles: After this famous monument, the oldest and most curious in modern Alexandria are these two Needles, or Obelisks, which are attributed to Cleopatra, without anyone knowing too well on what basis. One is now overturned, and almost buried under the sands; the other still remains upright.
In 1755,
Frederic Louis Norden wrote in his ''
Voyage d'Egypte et de Nubie'' that:
Some ancient authors have written that these two Obelisks were found in their time in the Palace of Cleopatra; but they do not tell us who had placed them there. It is believed that these monuments are much older than the City of Alexandria, and that they were brought from some place in Egypt, to decorate this Palace. This conjecture is well founded, as we know that at the time of the foundation of Alexandria, these monuments covered with hieroglyphs were no longer made, the understanding and use of which had already been lost long before.
Images from 18th and 19th century Alexandria show two needles, one standing and the other fallen. The London needle was the fallen needle.
The location is now the site of a statue of Egyptian statesman
Saad Zaghloul.
London needle
The London needle is in the
City of Westminster
The City of Westminster is a London borough with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in Greater London, England. It is the site of the United Kingdom's Houses of Parliament and much of the British government. It contains a large par ...
, on the
Victoria Embankment
Victoria Embankment is part of the Thames Embankment (the other section is the Chelsea Embankment), a road and river-walk along the north bank of the River Thames in London, England. Built in the 1860s, it runs from the Palace of Westminster to ...
near the
Golden Jubilee Bridges.
In 1819,
Muhammad Ali Pasha gave Britain the fallen obelisk as a gift. However, Britain's prime minister at the time,
Lord Liverpool
Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool (7 June 1770 – 4 December 1828) was a British Tory statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1812 to 1827. Before becoming Prime Minister he had been Foreign Secretary, ...
, hesitated on having it brought to the country due to shipping expenses.
Two prior suggestions had been made to transport the needle to London – in 1832 and in the 1850s after the
Great Exhibition
The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, also known as the Great Exhibition or the Crystal Palace Exhibition (in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held), was an international exhibition that took ...
; however, neither proceeded.
In 1867,
James Edward Alexander was inspired on a visit to
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
'
Place de la Concorde
The Place de la Concorde (; ) is a public square in Paris, France. Measuring in area, it is the largest square in the French capital. It is located in the city's eighth arrondissement, at the eastern end of the Champs-Élysées.
It was the s ...
to arrange for an equivalent monument in London.
[ He stated that he was informed that the owner of the land in Alexandria where the British needle lay had proposed to break it up for building material. Alexander campaigned to arrange for the transportation.][ In 1876 he went to Egypt and met ]Isma'il Pasha
Isma'il Pasha ( ; 25 November 1830 or 31 December 1830 – 2 March 1895), also known as Ismail the Magnificent, was the Khedive of Egypt and ruler of Sudan from 1863 to 1879, when he was removed at the behest of Great Britain and France. Shari ...
, the Khedive
Khedive ( ; ; ) was an honorific title of Classical Persian origin used for the sultans and grand viziers of the Ottoman Empire, but most famously for the Khedive of Egypt, viceroy of Egypt from 1805 to 1914.Adam Mestyan"Khedive" ''Encyclopaedi ...
of Egypt, together with Edward Stanton then the British Consul-General
A consul is an official representative of a government who resides in a foreign country to assist and protect citizens of the consul's country, and to promote and facilitate commercial and diplomatic relations between the two countries.
A consu ...
. Alexander's friend, William James Erasmus Wilson, agreed to cover the costs of the transportation, which took place in October 1877.[
On 4 September 1917, during World War I, a bomb from a German air raid landed near the needle. In commemoration of this event, the damage remains unrepaired to this day and is clearly visible in the form of shrapnel holes and gouges on the western sphinx. Restoration work was carried out in 2005.
]
New York needle
In 1869, at the opening of the Suez Canal
The Suez Canal (; , ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, Indo-Mediterranean, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia (and by extension, the Sinai Peninsula from the rest ...
, Isma'il Pasha suggested to American journalist William Henry Hurlbert the possible transportation of an obelisk from Egypt to the United States.
The New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
needle was erected in Central Park
Central Park is an urban park between the Upper West Side and Upper East Side neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City, and the first landscaped park in the United States. It is the List of parks in New York City, sixth-largest park in the ...
, just west of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...
, on 22 February 1881. It was secured in May 1877 by judge Elbert E. Farman, the then-United States Consul General
A consul is an official representative of a government who resides in a foreign country to assist and protect citizens of the consul's country, and to promote and facilitate commercial and diplomatic relations between the two countries.
A consu ...
at Cairo, as a gift from the Khedive
Khedive ( ; ; ) was an honorific title of Classical Persian origin used for the sultans and grand viziers of the Ottoman Empire, but most famously for the Khedive of Egypt, viceroy of Egypt from 1805 to 1914.Adam Mestyan"Khedive" ''Encyclopaedi ...
for the United States remaining a friendly neutral as the European powers – France and Britain – maneuvered to secure political control of the Egyptian Government.
Galleries
In Alexandria
File:Cleopatra's Needle in Vray portraict de la Ville d'Alexandrie en Egypte - Belon Pierre - 1554 (cropped).jpg, 1554 map of Alexandria showing both Cleopatra's Needles (standing and fallen) in Belon's Observations
File:Voyage d'Egypte et de Nubie 7 par Norden 1795.png, 1737 sketch from Frederic Louis Norden's ''Voyage d'Egypte et de Nubie''
File:Description de l'Egypte, Antiquites V, Plate 32, Cleopatra's needles and the Tower of the Romans, drawn c.1798, published in the Panckoucke edition of 1821-9.jpg, 1798 (both needles visible)
File:Alexandrie fortifications.jpg, 1803 (only New York needle visible)
File:Cleopatra's Needle at Alexandrie (Alexandria). Vue de l'esplanade ou grande place du Port Neuf, et de l'enceinte des arabes, première partie (NYPL b14212718-1268809) (cropped).tiff, 1809 (only New York needle visible)
File:Illustration by David Roberts, digitally enhanced by rawpixel-com 19.jpg, 1830s lithograph from David Robert's '' The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia''
File:L'Ago di Cleopatra ad Alessandria d'Egitto, Carlo Mancini.png, 1870s, by Carlo Mancini
File:Artotypes of the removal transport and erection of Cleopatras Needle from Egypt to the Metropolitan Museum in New York in Egyptian obelisks Plate no I.jpg, 1880 (New York needle only)
File:ACSIE010 - The Obelisk now in Central Park, New York, as it Stood in Alexandria, Egypt.jpg, 1884 (New York needle)
File:Drie sculpturen van krabben, afkomstig van de piëdestal van de Naald van Cleopatra The crabs as found (titel op object), RP-F-2001-7-1549-4.jpg, The inscribed crabs, as they were found
In London and New York
File:Cleopatra's needle being brought to England, 1877 RMG BHC0641.tiff, ''Cleopatra's needle being brought to England'', George Knight, 1877
File:Cleopatra.needle.arp.400pix.jpg, Close-up of London's Cleopatra's Needle
File:Embankment Westminster London Egyptian obelisk 2009 mid June under repair.jpg, View of London's needle from mid-Thames, 2009
File:Cleopatra.needle.sphynx.arp.750pix.jpg, One of two sphinx
A sphinx ( ; , ; or sphinges ) is a mythical creature with the head of a human, the body of a lion, and the wings of an eagle.
In Culture of Greece, Greek tradition, the sphinx is a treacherous and merciless being with the head of a woman, th ...
es at the base of London's Cleopatra's Needle. The scars on the pedestal
A pedestal or plinth is a support at the bottom of a statue, vase, column, or certain altars. Smaller pedestals, especially if round in shape, may be called socles. In civil engineering, it is also called ''basement''. The minimum height o ...
were from fragments of a bomb dropped during a World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
airstrike
An airstrike, air strike, or air raid is an offensive operation carried out by aircraft. Air strikes are delivered from aircraft such as blimps, balloons, fighter aircraft, attack aircraft, bombers, attack helicopters, and drones. The official d ...
.
File:Cleopatra's Needle-2.jpg, Close-up of one side of New York's Cleopatra's Needle
Notes and references
Notes
References
Further reading
*
External links
*
* {{Cite NIE, wstitle=Cleopatra's Needles , year=1905 , short=x
15th-century BC establishments in Egypt
15th-century BC steles
1878 in London
1881 establishments in New York City
Ancient Egyptian obelisks
Central Park
Cleopatra's Needles
Diplomatic gifts
Victoria Embankment
Thutmose III
Ramesses II
Cleopatra
Muhammad Ali of Egypt
Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool