One of the "Cleopatra's needles," an Egyptian obelisk weighing 224 tonnes and covered in hieroglyphs, can now be admired not in Cairo, but in London. The ancient Egyptians left behind a magnificent cultural heritage, a testament to their three-thousand-year-old civilization. There is no doubt that the obelisk constitutes one of the most characteristic monumental expressions of this heritage. Yet, few of these obelisks remain in Egypt today. This tall, slender column was often placed in pairs in front of temple entrances. Originally erected in honor of the god Ra, the obelisk quickly became popular in Egypt and elsewhere, serving as both a war treasure, a gift from one nation to another, and a piece of history that leaders sought to appropriate. One of the first known foreigners to admire the obelisk was the Assyrian king Assurbanipal (reigned approximately 669-627 BCE). After sacking Thebes in 664 BCE, he had a pair transported to his royal palace in Nineveh, now in Iraq. The Roman Empire possessed several obelisks: some taken from Egypt, others made locally. Today, Egyptian obelisks can be found in New York, Istanbul, and Paris. The Greeks named these monuments "obeliskos," a word meaning "small pointed columns." In contrast, the Egyptians called them "tekhen," a word of uncertain origin. Generally made of granite, obelisks have a square base and become slightly narrower as they rise. Their top is crowned with a small pyramid, the pyramidion, as the Greeks called it. To reflect the rays of the sun, the pyramidion was sometimes covered with gold or electrum, a natural alloy of gold and silver. The Egyptians called the pyramidion "benben," meaning "to shine, to radiate." It symbolized the primordial mound, the seat from which Atum (a manifestation of Ra) created everything that exists. Solar symbols or an image of the reigning pharaoh protected by Ra were also carved on it. Sometimes baboons were depicted on the base of the obelisk, animals associated with the sun because of the disturbing cries they make at dawn and dusk. On the shaft, which supported the pyramidion and raised it toward the heavens, hieroglyphs were generally inscribed in honor of the god to whom the obelisk was dedicated and the sovereign who had ordered its construction. These typical monuments of ancient Egypt first appeared at the beginning of the third millennium BCE in a city in northern Egypt, the center of the worship of Ra. This city would later be known as Heliopolis, the "city of the sun" in Greek. The Egyptians called it Iunu, the "city of columns," a reference to the obelisks that symbolized petrified rays of the sun. Unfortunately, nothing remains of Heliopolis today, a place once praised for its beauty. Its ruins lie beneath a district of the modern city of Cairo, and almost all of its ancient obelisks have disappeared. In the area of Abousir, only a few miles south of Cairo, the sovereigns of the fifth dynasty of the Old Kingdom (2575-2150 BCE) built solar temples. Each of them had an open-air courtyard in the center of which stood an obelisk with a wide altar at its base for offerings. These obelisks were constructed from stone blocks but did not yet have their canonical slender form. Although the construction of solar temples ceased after the fifth dynasty, the tradition of erecting obelisks spread throughout Egypt from the Middle Kingdom (approximately 1975-1640 BCE). It was not until the New Kingdom (1539-1075 BCE) that obelisks reached the size for which they are now famous. The obelisks of the New Kingdom, also monolithic, were larger and thinner than previous versions, which further complicated their extraction and erection. The obelisks of the New Kingdom were almost systematically placed in pairs in front of the monumental entrances of temples, called pylons, giving them a certain symmetry. According to the Italian Egyptologist Maurizio Damiano-Appia, this pairing may have symbolized the Sun and the Moon. There is not a single pair of Egyptian obelisks that remains intact on its original site. The last pair was ordered by Ramses II (reigned 1279-1213 BCE) and stood in front of the pylons of the temple of Luxor. But in 1830, the Egyptian wali Muhammad Ali offered one of the two obelisks to the King of France. The monument now stands majestically in the Place de la Concorde in Paris, where it was erected in 1836. During the New Kingdom, Thebes became the capital of Egypt and the center of worship for Amun-Ra, a deity born from the union of the Theban god Amun and the solar god Ra. The affinity between these two deities was so strong that Thebes was also called Iunu Shema’u, "Heliopolis of Upper Egypt." In the Theban sanctuaries of Karnak and Luxor, many obelisks were erected, but only three remain today: two in the temple of Karnak and one at Luxor. All the others were removed and transported to Europe, either during the Roman imperial period or in modern times. After the New Kingdom, the construction of obelisks continued, although on a smaller scale. The last one dates from the reign of Ptolemy IX Soter II (reigned 116-107, 88-81 BCE), who ordered the construction of these monuments for a temple dedicated to the goddess Isis on the island of Philae. This marked the end of the construction of obelisks on their native soil, but after the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 BCE, these monoliths became popular elsewhere. The emperor Augustus (reigned 27 BCE-14 CE) initiated a tradition of importing obelisks to Rome that continued throughout the imperial period. The obelisks were first considered war booty, a symbol of Roman dominance over Egypt. Later, when Egyptian cults gained popularity in Rome, they were appreciated for their symbolic and religious significance. The large obelisks were generally placed in Roman circuses where they adorned the spina, the central barrier around which chariot races took place. In this context, the obelisks retained their characteristic link with the sun, because for the Romans, such races represented the trajectory of Apollo, the sun god, in the sky. Smaller obelisks were generally placed in temples dedicated to Isis or Serapis, a Greek-Egyptian deity. Today, Rome has thirteen Egyptian obelisks, more than any other city or country in the world. In the year 10 BCE, Augustus imported the first obelisk from Egypt to Rome. It was placed on the spina of the Circus Maximus. This column, whose construction began under the reign of Sethi I and was completed under the reign of Ramses II and his son Merenptah, came from Heliopolis and was made of red granite. Despite its height of 23.3 meters and weight of 235 tonnes, it was transported from Egypt on a ship thirty meters long and was displayed at the naval yard of Puteoli (now Pozzuoli in the Bay of Naples), where the public could admire it. In 357 CE, to commemorate his twentieth year on the throne, the emperor Constantius II (reigned 337-361) had two obelisks moved from the religious complex of Karnak in Thebes. Originally ordered by Pharaoh Thutmose III (reigned 1479-1425 BCE), these columns were the tallest in the world; they measured nearly 30 meters in height. Constantius first had the two obelisks transported to Alexandria and from there moved one to Rome to be placed in the Circus Maximus; the second obelisk remained in Egypt until 390, the year when Theodosius I decided to move it to Constantinople to decorate its hippodrome. Nothing or almost nothing of the Circus Maximus survived the passage of centuries; its two obelisks were broken into three parts and buried under seven meters of earth. They were unearthed in 1587 on the order of Pope Sixtus V. After their restoration, the Augustus obelisk was installed on the Piazza del Popolo, while the Constantius obelisk was placed on the square in front of the Basilica of Saint John Lateran. In the first century CE, the Circus of Nero stood on the hill of the Vatican, where the Vatican now stands. There, the emperor had thousands of Christians, including the apostle Peter, executed after accusing them of having set Rome on fire. On the spina of the Circus of Nero stood an obelisk without significant inscriptions, imported into the city by Caligula (reigned 37-41 CE) during the first year of his reign. According to Pliny the Elder, a Roman scholar of the first century, this obelisk dates from the Middle Kingdom and was ordered by a son of Pharaoh Sesostris I. After the abandonment of the Circus of Nero, the obelisk remained standing, but next to the first basilica that Emperor Constantine had built on the tomb of Peter in the fourth century CE. In 1585, Pope Sixtus V decided to move the obelisk in front of the new Basilica of Saint Peter. The architect Domenico Fontana orchestrated the removal, an operation that took place in 1586 and required 900 workers. A cross was placed on top of the newly positioned monument. The obelisk, present during the martyrdom of Saint Peter, is now in front of the basilica that bears his name and symbolizes the victory of the Church over the pagan world. In the 19th century, the Roman tradition of transporting obelisks from Egypt was revived. But this time, the monuments served as gifts. The Egyptian government separated a pair of obelisks known as the "Cleopatra's needles" and sent them to New York and London from Alexandria. One of the Luxor obelisks was given to France and installed in the Place de la Concorde in Paris. New obelisks were also constructed, such as the Washington Monument, using modern techniques and materials. Five times taller than those of the pharaohs' Egypt, this obelisk in the American capital symbolizes the respect of a nation for its Founding Fathers. The continued desire to acquire obelisks around the world testifies to their fascination and the multithousand-year influence of Egypt.