Latest / Ramses the Great: Egypt's Most Powerful Pharaoh — Fexingo History / Ramses the Great's Obelisks: Giant Needles of Power
Transcript
- Lucas: So, we've talked a lot about Ramses's temples, his statues, his stelae — but there's one type of monument he raised more than almost any other pharaoh, and we haven't really dug into it yet: obelisks. Luna: Oh, those giant stone needles? I see them in photos from Egypt and even in Paris — but I never really understood what they were for. Lucas: Exactly. And Ramses was obsessed with them. He erected more obelisks than any other king of the New Kingdom — at least a dozen that we know of, and probably more. They were usually set up in pairs at temple entrances, especially at Karnak and Luxor. Lucas: The word 'obelisk' is Greek — it means 'little spit' or 'skewer'. But the Egyptians called them tekhenu. Their shape was deeply symbolic: a square base tapering to a pyramidion at the top, which was often plated with electrum — a gold-silver alloy — to catch the morning sun. Luna: So they were literally sun catchers. Linked to Re? Lucas: Exactly. The pyramidion represented the benben — the primordial mound where the sun first rose at creation. So every obelisk was a piece of the original moment of light. By raising them, the pharaoh was re-enacting creation and associating himself with Re. Lucas: But the real feat was how they were made. The stone came from the granite quarries at Aswan, about 200 kilometres south of Thebes. Workers used dolerite hammers — hard, dark stones — to pound channels into the granite. It was brutally slow: a single obelisk might take months of pounding. Luna: Dolerite — that's the same stone they used for the stonemasons episode, right? Lucas: Right, from Gebel el-Silsila, though here at Aswan it's a different quarry. They'd cut trenches around the intended monolith, then exploit natural fractures in the granite. They'd also use the swelling of wet wooden wedges to split the stone. It was a huge coordinated effort. Lucas: The largest obelisk Ramses attempted never left the quarry. It's called the Unfinished Obelisk — it's still lying in the granite bed at Aswan. It was supposed to be about 42 metres tall and weigh nearly 1,200 tons — but a crack appeared in the stone, and they abandoned it. It gives us a perfect window into their methods. Luna: So even a failed project teaches us something. How did they move these things — some of them weigh hundreds of tons — to Thebes? Lucas: That's the next miracle. They'd wait for the Nile flood — Hapi's gift — to lift the barges. The obelisk would be slid onto a huge purpose-built ship, sometimes with multiple barges lashed together. One surviving relief at Karnak shows an obelisk being towed by 27 boats, with crews of rowers and sailors. Lucas: At the temple, they'd use a ramp of earth and sand to raise it. They'd dig a pit for the base, then tip the obelisk into position by removing the ramp support from underneath. The whole process was a display of organisational power — the ability to command thousands of workers and coordinate a supply chain over hundreds of kilometres. Luna: It's almost like a space programme for its time — the scale, the precision, the political statement. Lucas: Exactly. And Ramses used obelisks to broadcast his names — Userrenput-aanehktu, 'Strong in years, great in victories' — and scenes of his offerings to Amun-Re. They were permanent billboards for his piety and his power. Lucas: But here's a twist: not all of Ramses's obelisks were originally his. Some were originally raised by earlier pharaohs — especially Thutmose III and Hatshepsut — and Ramses had his name carved over theirs. It's a form of damnatio memoriae, but also a way to claim their prestige. Luna: So he was literally rewriting history. But some of his own obelisks survived and ended up far from Egypt, right? Lucas: Yes — the most famous is the one now in the Place de la Concorde in Paris. It originally stood at Luxor Temple, one of a matching pair. In 1831, the French king Louis-Philippe received it as a gift from the Ottoman viceroy of Egypt, Muhammad Ali. It was transported to France on a specially built ship, the Louqsor, and erected in Paris in 1836. Luna: I've seen it — it's covered in hieroglyphs. And its twin is still at Luxor? Lucas: That's right. The other obelisk still stands at Luxor Temple, where it's been for over 3,000 years. Ramses had his name and titles carved on both. The Paris one, though, has a gilded pyramidion on top — the original electrum was long gone. Lucas: And there are obelisks of Ramses in Rome — at the Piazza del Popolo and the Piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano. The Romans loved Egyptian obelisks; they moved dozens to Rome, often re-carving them with imperial dedications. So Ramses's propaganda ended up serving Augustus and Constantine. Luna: It's amazing that these stones outlasted the empires that moved them. I'm curious — did Ramses break any records with his obelisks? Lucas: He did. One of his obelisks at Karnak, now fallen and broken, was about 32 metres tall and weighed around 323 tons — that's heavier than any obelisk erected by any earlier king, except possibly Hatshepsut's giant at Karnak, which was 29.5 metres and 328 tons. But Ramses's was taller. He was competing even with his predecessors. Lucas: And he didn't stop at two: he set up at least four pairs at Karnak alone, plus others at Luxor, Heliopolis, and probably Tanis. They were a signature of his reign. Luna: Speaking of records — and this might seem like a side note — it strikes me how much of what we know about Ramses comes from these monumental projects. And that's what makes this show so rewarding: we get to look at the actual evidence. Lucas: Absolutely. And if today was actually useful to you, the way these episodes stay ad-free is listener support — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It means we can keep digging into these details without any commercial breaks. Luna: Yeah, it's a small way to keep the history flowing. And it really helps. Lucas: So, back to the obelisks: one last detail I love is that Ramses sometimes had his name carved in vertical columns on the obelisk shaft, so that as the sun moved, the shadows would highlight his cartouche. The monument itself became a kind of solar clock. Luna: That's brilliant — literally and figuratively. So the obelisks were not just static symbols; they interacted with the environment. Lucas: Exactly. They marked the hours, oriented the temple, and linked the pharaoh to the daily rebirth of the sun. Every sunrise, Ramses's name was illuminated anew. Luna: It's a powerful image. I'll never see an obelisk the same way again. Lucas: And that's the thing about Ramses — he thought in millennia. He built not just for his reign, but for eternity. And in a way, he succeeded: his obelisks still stand, some still in their original places, others scattered across the world, but all carrying his name. Luna: Graffiti on a global scale — but beautiful graffiti. Lucas: Exactly. So next time you see an obelisk in a city square, take a closer look. It might have started as a tekhenu in Kemet, raised by the great Userrenput-aanehktu himself.