Obelisk

An obelisk is a type of stone monument consisting of a base that supports a narrow rectangular column topped by a pyramid-shaped peak. In ancient times, obelisks were usually built for religious purposes, to honor important people, or to memorialize significant events. Modern obelisks largely serve purely decorative functions but are often specifically chosen for sites because they suggest an air of historical legacy. The Washington Monument, which is often cited as the world's tallest existing obelisk, is a well-known example of this practice.

Obelisks and obelisk-like monuments were features of numerous archaic civilizations, but they are most commonly associated with ancient Egypt. The Egyptians called these structures tekhen, with the English word obelisk coming from the Greek term obeliskos, which means "skewer." Egyptians are credited with inventing the classic obelisk form, and some historians have theorized that obelisks originated from stone quarrying and carving techniques that later facilitated the construction of the Egyptian pyramids.

Background

In ancient Egypt, obelisks were tied to creation myths and had strong associations with the cult of the civilization's sun god, Ra. According to Egyptian mythology, the creator god Atum had only a nascent embankment to stand on before the world existed. This mound was known as the benben, and it was here that Atum created a creature known as the benu bird, which was similar in nature to Greek conceptions of the phoenix. Legends told of the benu bird's piercing cry, which was said to awaken all of creation and bring about the processes that created all life.

As ancient Egyptian civilization evolved, the benu bird came to be associated with Ra. Artifacts from the Egyptian city of Heliopolis, which served as the spiritual center of Ra's cult, indicated a belief that the benu bird perched atop the primordial benben, which was depicted by this point as a primal, rudimentary obelisk. By the era of ancient Egypt's New Kingdom (c. 1570–1069 BCE), obelisks had become a prominent symbol of Ra and served as central focal points of religious rituals involving ceremonial offerings to pharaohs, who held demigod status in the civilization's belief system. These ceremonial offerings continued to be presented to pharaohs after their deaths, delivering essential items they were thought to need in the afterlife. Thus, the pharaohs of the New Kingdom viewed obelisks as crucially important to their survival beyond death and considered obelisks important symbols of both their earthly vitality and their eternal immortality.

While Egyptian pharaohs commissioned the construction and erection of obelisks throughout the civilization's history, it is believed that they were built at especially robust rates during the New Kingdom period. The ancient Egyptian word for obelisk, tekhen, can be translated as "to pierce" and carries the connotation of piercing the sky or the heavens.

Overview

Without exception, ancient Egyptian obelisks were constructed from single pieces of stone, and any obelisk that was cracked or broken into multiple pieces during the quarrying, construction, or transporting processes was abandoned. While most surviving Egyptian obelisks stand today as single monoliths, the ancient Egyptians always erected them in pairs, reflecting the high spiritual value the civilization placed on the concept of harmonious balance. They believed that every pair of earthly obelisks had a counterpart pair in the heavens, and they served as an expression of cosmological equilibrium through the unity of opposites: earth and heaven, life and death.

Ancient Egyptian laborers used copper, stone, and wooden tools to carve obelisks directly out of large deposits of bedrock, with the igneous quarries at Elephantine serving as the primary site of their creation. Their pyramidion tips, called benben due to their associations with the mythical mound upon which Atum stood when he created the benu bird, were often covered in shiny metal that reflected sunlight. Obelisks were positioned with the utmost care and precision to ensure that these metal-tipped benben peaks captured both the first light of sunrise and the last light of sunset. Their sizes were also carefully preconceived to ensure they fit to scale at their intended erection sites.

Experts have a full understanding of how Egyptian obelisks were carved and transported, but they have yet to determine how they were raised and placed in their final positions. While the erection and placement processes are depicted in surviving artifacts from ancient Egyptian times, contemporary attempts to replicate these techniques using technologies known to be available to the ancient Egyptians have all failed. Some have theorized that elephants were used to pull the extremely heavy stone monoliths into an upright position, but others doubt this claim on the basis that elephants were not common in ancient Egypt during the New Kingdom period.

The ancient Egyptians often placed obelisks in the courtyards of temples dedicated to various gods, where they served to honor both the god to which the temple was dedicated and Ra, who was believed to sail overhead each day in his solar chariot. The thirtieth anniversary of a pharaoh's reign was one of the most common occasions on which obelisks were raised, as this traditionally served as the point at which pharaohs would petition the mythical benu bird to replenish their earthly strength.

The lone Egyptian obelisk still in its original place was commissioned by the pharaoh Senusret I. Conquering powers that later invaded and overtook Egypt removed many obelisks and transported them to new destinations. One particularly well-known example of this practice can be seen in the square outside St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, where an Egyptian obelisk appropriated by the Roman emperor Caligula in 37 CE still remains. In modern times, the Egyptian government has also given away obelisks to institutions and other countries as gifts.

The Washington Monument, completed in 1885, stands 555 feet (169 meters) in height, and it is often cited as the world's tallest existing obelisk. However, its status as a true obelisk is contentious, as the monument is not built from a single stone and thus does not meet the definitive criteria of an obelisk as applied to the ancient Egyptian structures it was intended to emulate.

Bibliography

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