ANCIENT OBELISKS.

Shannon News, 23 May 1924, Page 4

ANCIENT OBELISKS.

HOW thW Were 'made. EARLY EGYPTIAN DEVICES. Most Britishers know, of, or have eeen. Cleopatra's Needle on the Victoria Embankment, which achieved a new distinction when it was bombed during the war. They know vaguely tliati it came from Egypt, but there knowledge, and perhaps interest, eiids. In "The Problem of the Obelisks," It. Engelbaeh, am American who is Chief Inspector'of-Antiquities, Upper Egypt, gives the results of the latest researches as to how the obelisks were extracted and erected in ancient times. A good deal of light has recently bocii' thrown on the subject by the author's minute examination of the huge unfinished obelisk lying in the quarries at Aswan. GIANT TELLS SECRETS.

Though it was never removed from the bed in which it lies, owing to an unexpected fissure in the rock, it has taught more to the modern engineer of the Egyptian methods than any other monument in Egypt. If it had been succcsfully completed'and set up it would be the largest obelisk of which wo have any knowledge. In length it is 137 ft, and its weight is estimated at 11G8 tons. The next size is only 105 ft in height and of 455 tonnage, while our own Cleopatra's Needle is a mere midget by comparison, being no more than 6aft high with a weight of 187 tons.

Mr. Engelbaeh has come to theconclusion that, though fire and wedges and copper chisels were used to cut out the obelisk from the quarry, most of the work was douc by pounding with a hammer of black granite weighing about 121 b. In this laborious way trenches were cut on either side of the proposed obelisk and a tunnel on the under surface.

A gigamtic sledge, and perhaps roil-' eis, were used to get the great block of granite to the Nile, where it was placed on a barge for'transport. Some of these barges are known to have been over 200 ft long. MOUNTING THE NEEDLE.

How did the Egyptians, who had no knowledge of the screw-jack, the capstan winch, or cvew the pulley, put the great masses of stone on their pedestals? Mr. Engelback suggests that a great mound was built round the pr - posed site and the obelisk was dmv

by man-power up the incline and then lowered into a cutting in the mound. When it had been slid into the socket the mound'was removed. Since the time of Constantino the Great, about 1200 years ago, it has been the custom to take obelisks out of Egypt as souvenirs. Rome has the largest, and eight others over 25ft high, while Constantinople, Paris, London and Now York all have one large obelisk as well as several small ones in museums, private collections and

gardens. The last to be acquired were the pair which arc now set up in London and New York. "Both countries," says the author, "claim their own to bo the one aiKl original 'Cleopatra's Needle,' though why they should be so keen on this title 1 cannot imagine, since they were both made by Tuthmosis 111. some fourteen centuries earlier." They were originally in the Temple of Heliopolis, and were removed to Alexandria in 13-12 B.C.