Philae Obelisk

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The Philae Obelisk with Kingston Lacy in the background

The Philae Obelisk is a red granite obelisk that was found on the Upper Egyptian island of Philae in 1815 and was acquired a short time later by the English explorer William John Bankes . Bankes noticed that the obelisk bore an ancient Greek inscription in addition to Egyptian hieroglyphs . In contrast to the Rosette stone , however, there were two different texts. Bankes deciphered the names Ptolemy and Cleopatra carved in cartouches on the obelisk , which Champollion later helped decipher the hieroglyphs .

The inscriptions date to 118 or 117 BC. Chr. , And contain a request of the Egyptian Priest of Philae and the authorization by Ptolemy VIII. Euergetes II. And the queens Cleopatra II. And Cleopatra III.

During the 1820s, Bankes acquired the Philae obelisk and had it transported to his Kingston Lacy estate in Dorset , England . The company was headed by the famous Egyptologist and adventurer Giovanni Battista Belzoni . The obelisk was placed in the garden and can still be seen there. The associated estate is now administered by the National Trust .

Due to its meaning similar to the stone of Rosette, the obelisk is the namesake for the Philae probe , which landed on the Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet on November 12, 2014 as part of the Rosetta mission .

See also

literature

  • Dieter Arnold : The temples of Egypt: apartments for gods, monuments, places of worship . Artemis & Winkler, Zurich 1992, ISBN 3-86047-215-1 , p. 91.
  • William John Bankes : Geometrical elevation of an Obelisk ... from the Island of Philae. London 1821.
  • Henry H. Gorringe: Egyptian Obelisks . New York 1882, pp. 139-141.
  • Erik Iversen: Obelisks in exile. Vol. 2: The obelisks of Istanbul and England. Gad, Copenhagen 1972, pp. 62-85.
  • TGH James : Egyptian antiquities at Kingston Lacy, Dorset: the collection of William John Bankes. KMT Communications, San Francisco 1993-1994.
  • Stefan Pfeiffer : Greek and Latin inscriptions on the Ptolemaic Empire and the Roman province of Aegyptus (= introductions and source texts on Egyptology. Volume 9). Lit, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-643-13096-9 , pp. 149–154.
  • Stephanie Roberts: The Real Cleopatra's Needle In: Ancient Egypt (Dec. 2007 / Jan. 2008).
  • Anne Sebba: The exiled collector: William Bankes and the making of an English country house. John Murray, London 2004.

Web links

Commons : Obelisk of Philae  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 50 ° 48 '34.9 "  N , 2 ° 1' 57.8"  W.