Although their host countries sometimes forget this in their literature about these fascinating and well-known obelisks, there are three Cleopatra’s Needles. Cleopatra’s Needle has three locations: one in London, one in Central Park in New York, and one in Paris. The Needles have a fascinating and long history as a group, and they are a popular tourist destination.
The name “Cleopatra’s Needle” is somewhat misleading, as these hieroglyphic-covered monuments have nothing to do with Cleopatra. They were built on Thutmose III’s orders around 1450 BCE, using red granite quarried in the Aswan region. The Needles stood around 68 feet (21 meters) tall and weighed 180 tons when completed. They were built at Heliopolis, then moved to Alexandria the Romans, where they eventually collapsed and were buried in sand.
The Viceroy of Egypt presented one of the obelisks to the United Kingdom in 1819. However, the British government refused to deal with the hassle of transporting it, and it wasn’t until the 1870s that a private citizen proposed bringing Cleopatra’s Needle to London. The needle was encased in a large hollow container designed for towing and nearly lost along the way, but it made it, and Cleopatra’s Needle, along with some faux-sphinxes, was installed in London in 1878.
Another obelisk was presented to the city of Paris in 1833, and it was placed in the Place de la Concorde. The transportation of the obelisk proved to be a huge challenge, and the site where the obelisk is installed has a lot of interesting diagrams of the process on display. The original cap for Cleopatra’s Needle had been damaged around the sixth century BCE, so the French made a new one.
The Cleopatra’s Needle is a landmark in Central Park in New York City. It was built in 1881 and given to the United States after the Suez Canal’s success, in the hopes of fostering positive trade relations between the two countries. Cleopatra’s Needle is located in New York, directly across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which also houses a number of fine Egyptian artifacts.
The technical challenges of transporting these massive and heavy monuments were significant, and these obelisks stand as testaments to the lengths to which people will go to achieve a goal.