Cleopatra’s Needles

Cleopatra’s Needle is the popular name for each of three ancient Egyptian obelisks re-erected in London and new York City USA during the nineteenth century.  Both of them  have no particular connection with Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt, and Both were already dated back to the 18th dynasty made for King Thutmose III brought from Heliopolis around 1450  B.C.  The obelisks were moved to Alexandria and set up in the Caesaraum temple (Ramel Station Nowadays). the two obelisks moved  from Alexandria to London and New York 1870-1880.

In the 1860s, Antonio Beato photographed one of the obelisks, hemmed in by its modern neighbors, including a crude shack that blocked his camera’s view. In 1881 this needle was taken to New York and erected in Central Park; three years earlier, its partner had been installed on the Thames Embankment in London. From dynastic Egypt to Roman imperium to Victorian England and Gilded Age America, the three-millennium migration of Cleopatra’s Needles traces a history of empire from empire’s beginnings to the present.

Cleopatra’s Needle (New York’s) in Alexandria 1860

New York City’s Cleopatra’s Needle in Alexandria 1861

 

 NYC Central Park Cleopatra’s Needle as it stood in Alexandria Egypt in 1880

Cleopatras Needle being rigged down Ramel Station Alexandria 1880

View from mid-Thames, 2009 repairs in progress (London)

Cleopatras Needle just after being raised in NY city USA