Detail of the pedestal.
The remaining obelisk at Luxor
Temple.
The
Luxor Obelisk (French: Obélisque de
Louxor) is a 23 metres (75 ft) high Egyptian obelisk standing at the center of the Place de la
Concorde
in Paris
, France
.
It was
originally located at the entrance to the Luxor Temple
, in Egypt
.
History
The 3,300-year-old obelisk once marked the entrance to the Luxor
Temple.
The Ottoman viceroy of Egypt,
Mehmet Ali,
offered the two obelisks standing at the entrance of Luxor Temple
to France in 1829.
The obelisk now standing in Paris arrived in Paris on December 21,
1833. Three years later, on October 25, 1836,
King Louis-Philippe had it placed
in the center of Place de la Concorde, where a
guillotine used to stand during the
Revolution.
The other one stayed in Egypt, too difficult and heavy to move to
France with the technology at that time. In the 1990s,
President François Mitterrand
officially gave the second obelisk back to the Egyptians.
Features
The obelisk, a red
granite column, rises
high, including the base, and weighs over . It is decorated with
hieroglyphics exalting the reign
of the pharaoh
Ramses II.
Given the technical limitations of the day, transporting it was no
easy feat — on the pedestal are drawn diagrams explaining the
machinery that were used for the transportation. The obelisk is
flanked on both sides by fountains constructed at the time of its
erection on the Place.
Missing its original cap, believed stolen in the 6th century BC,
the government of France added a gold-leafed pyramid cap to the top
of the obelisk in 1998.
Events
Early morning on December 1, 1993, the French AIDS fighting society
Act
Up Paris carried out a fast and unwarned commando-style
operation. A giant pink condom was unrolled over the whole
monument.
Without warning, in 2000 French urban climber
Alain "Spiderman" Robert, using only his bare
hands and climbing shoes on his feet and with no safety devices,
scaled the obelisk all the way to the top.
See also
References
- One participant recounts (in French) her experience, and a
photo is shown at [1]
External links