Why is this ancient Egyptian obelisk in New York City?
The New York Obelisk (Cleopatra’s Needle) c. 1425 B.C.E. (erected at the Temple of the Sun, Heliopolis, Egypt, re-erected in Alexandria 13 B.C.E.), red granite from Aswan, 71 feet high (since 1881 Greywacke Knoll, Central Park, New York City). Speakers: Dr. Elizabeth Macaulay and Dr. Steven Zucker
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0:00:06.6 Dr. Steven Zucker: We’re in Central park in New York City, standing directly in back of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, looking at what is clearly the oldest monument in New York City. I grew up calling this Cleopatra’s Needle, but it is more accurately an ancient Egyptian obelisk. We’re recording this in 2022, a time when museums are beginning to repatriate objects to their countries of origin. But this was not stolen. It was gifted.
0:00:30.8 Dr. Elizabeth Macaulay: It was gifted by Ismail Pasha of Egypt in the 1870s as a gift from Egypt to the United States. Ismail Pasha was the Khedive or the Viceroy of Egypt for the Ottoman Empire.
0:00:43.2 Dr. Steven Zucker: The idea was that a substantial diplomatic gift might interest American capital in investment in Egypt at a time when there were increasing stresses in Egypt’s relationship with both France and Britain. And on the other side of the equation, New York was interested in this obelisk because both Paris and London sported their own.
0:01:02.2 Dr. Elizabeth Macaulay: And New York at this point, coming out of the American Civil War, was a city on the rise. It was the financial powerhouse of the United States. But it also wanted cultural cachet.
0:01:13.3 Dr. Steven Zucker: The Metropolitan Museum of Art had only been founded about a decade earlier, and that was very much an attempt to put New York on the cultural map.
0:01:21.5 Dr. Elizabeth Macaulay: So when the opportunity presented itself to get an obelisk to New York, two individuals sprung into action. One to fund it and one to figure out how to move it.
0:01:30.4 Dr. Steven Zucker: William Vanderbilt was willing to underwrite the significant cost of the transportation of this from the city of Alexandria in Egypt to New York, which even in the late 19th century was a substantial engineering feat.
0:01:43.1 Dr. Elizabeth Macaulay: And the man who was going to undertake that feat was Henry Honeychurch Gorringe, an engineer formerly of the U.S. Navy. But one thing we should note is a little bit of the story of how this obelisk ended up in Alexandria before it came to New York. Obelisks were thought to embody the sun or be the embodiments of sunbeams in ancient Egypt. They were erected in front of temples of the sun. And in ancient Egypt, they were erected in pairs, generally. So this one was erected in a pair in front of the Temple of the Sun in Heliopolis by Thutmose III. But the ancient Roman emperor Augustus, the first emperor had conquered Egypt, that was how he won the civil war against Mark Antony and Cleopatra. He moved two obelisks, this pair, from Heliopolis to Alexandria and re-erected the obelisk in front of a temple to Caesar, partially to claim that he was the son of Caesar.
0:02:31.3 Dr. Steven Zucker: It’s important to remember that Augustus lives over a thousand years after this obelisk was created.
0:02:37.5 Dr. Elizabeth Macaulay: Oh, even more than that, almost 1400 years. The obelisk had huge symbolic meaning in antiquity, both for ancient Egyptians and for ancient Romans. So Gorringe built a structure to turn the obelisk from its vertical position to being a horizontal position so that he could load it onto a steamer ship and sail it across the Atlantic.
0:02:58.5 Dr. Steven Zucker: This was not an easy journey, but it finally did reach a berth at 96th street on the Hudson River. But the Hudson River is quite some distance from Greywacke Knoll in Central Park. And train tracks and a large trestle were constructed to move this object.
0:03:13.4 Dr. Elizabeth Macaulay: It had to be moved through a very particular route through Central Park because Central Park’s topography is purposefully hilly to evoke a natural landscape. And so moving a monolith that’s 71 feet tall through Central Park is quite a challenge.
0:03:28.4 Dr. Steven Zucker: This is 220 tons.
0:03:31.2 Dr. Elizabeth Macaulay: Also, the winter of 1880–1881 was one of the coldest on record. So on this incredibly cold day, spectators braved a New York winter to come out and see the obelisk lowered onto its pedestal at Greywacke Knoll.
0:03:44.8 Dr. Steven Zucker: But even as New Yorkers were celebrating this extraordinary acquisition, Egyptians with a rising sense of nationalism and appreciation for their history, were mourning its loss.
0:03:55.8 Dr. Elizabeth Macaulay: The inhabitants of Alexandria, as well as other members of the Egyptian elite, were opposed to the removal of the obelisks, starting to want to keep their cultural heritage in their own country and it reminds us that Egyptology as a field and the collecting of Egyptian objects is quite fraught and very much connected to European powers having an interest in Egypt. Because Egypt, of course, was always seen as Mother of Civilization.
0:04:20.7 Dr. Steven Zucker: Let’s take a look at the obelisk itself. It is this slightly tapering, four-sided object that moves up to this pyramid form at the top and then it is covered with hieroglyphics.
0:04:30.7 Dr. Elizabeth Macaulay: And those hieroglyphics detail the achievements of Thutmose III.
0:04:34.8 Dr. Steven Zucker: But although the main shaft sits on its original platform, there is one important change. If you look carefully, just at the base, you can see these large bronze crabs that are helping to sort of wedge the object into place because it has lost some of the base.
0:04:50.2 Dr. Elizabeth Macaulay: When Augustus re-erected it, he added the crabs, two of which survived. Crabs seem to have had some connection to Apollo, who is the Roman sun god and the patron god of Augustus. And these four crabs are replicas of the four originals that would have stood in Alexandria. Two of the original crabs survived into the 19th century. And Gorringe made those as a gift to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where they can be seen today. And those were the first two Egyptian artifacts that the Metropolitan Museum of Art received for its collection. The Metropolitan Museum of Art would go on through excavation, partage, which is the splitting of fines between the host nation and the museum, and through purchases, to build one of the largest collections of Egyptian art in the world.
0:05:31.2 Dr. Steven Zucker: But the crabs are also a clear reminder of the complex history of this object, that the form that we’re seeing here today in New York is an expression of the ambitions of 19th-century America, but also a reminder of the role that the Romans played in the history of this object and, of course, in its origins in Pharaonic Egypt. I just heard some thunder and I don’t think the obelisk is the best place to stand near when there’s an electrical storm. Let’s seek cover.
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