Tiffany Jenkins

Symbols of eternity

Bob Brier reveals how most of these great symbols of eternity, now lost to Egypt, have ended up in the Eternal City

issue 23 April 2016

  • Cleopatra’s Needles: The Lost Obelisks of Egypt

    Bob Brier

    Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 248

On the banks of the River Thames in central London, an ancient Egyptian obelisk, known as Cleopatra’s Needle, reaches towards the sky. Carved from a single slab of red granite, it is 69 feet tall, weighs a substantial 224 tonnes, is decorated with hieroglyphs, and was made for the Pharaoh Thotmes III in 1460 BC.

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