The oldest man-made object in Central Park, New York City.
When one thinks of Egyptian monuments, New York City
doesn’t exactly come to mind. Nevertheless, if you ever find yourself walking
through Central Park, you may just stumble upon one of these historic treasures. Dubbed ‘Cleopatra’s Needle’, it
is one of the oldest man made objects in New York. Created over 3,000 years ago,
it has had a turbulent past and survived many voyages. Now tucked away between trees
and shrubs, it stands quietly without being noticed. Today most people in the city
don’t know that it even exists. Yet almost one hundred years ago, it was one of
the most popular attractions in town.
During the reign of Pharaoh
Thutmose III, Egypt was a vast empire, the largest ever seen in its
history. A wave of successful military
campaigns made the Egyptians invincible, allowing their territory to stretch
from Syria to Nubia. To
commemorate this victorious era, Thutmose III erected two granite obelisks
outside the Temple of the Sun in the city of Heliopolis near modern day
Cairo. The giant pillars were 70
feet tall and weighed about 200 tons each. On each of their four sides were beautifully carved
hieroglyphs dedicating the obelisks to the sun god Ra. Completed in 1450 B.C., they stood
there for hundreds of years until Caesar Augustus arrived in 12 B.C. and moved
them to Alexandria.
But the journey for the obelisks
didn’t stop there. During the 19th
century Europeans, became fascinated with all things Egyptian and craved for
original artifacts from antiquity.
At the time the ruler of Egypt was Muhammad Ali Pasha, who was known for
gifting ancient treasures to European countries in return for foreign aid. While in power he granted two obelisks
to Paris and wanted to send out others as well. Soon the obelisks in Alexandria would be split up, with one
going to London and the other to New York City. The journeys to deliver them were quite strenuous with a
storm sinking the ship of the obelisk going to London and killing 6
sailors. Fortunately, the treasure
was recovered and raised on the banks of the Thames River in London in
1878. Getting the other obelisk to
New York City would turn out to be another incredible feat as well.
While receiving a gift from
Egypt may have been free, getting it from one continent to another would prove
to be quite challenging. Luckily in 19th century New York City,
there were more than a handful of tycoons who wanted to sponsor such a
project. One of them being William
H. Vanderbilt who put up $100,000 of his own money for the transportation fees. In June 1880 the remaining obelisk in
Alexandria was dismantled and placed on board a cargo steamer, which over a
period of 5 weeks crossed the Atlantic Ocean until it arrived at the docks of
the Hudson River. But the real difficult part was about to begin, how to get a 200-ton
stone obelisk through Manhattan to Central Park.
