"Cleopatra's Needle" Central Park - Cleopatra's Needle Tip by MM212

Standing in a quiet section of Central Park is the oldest manmade object in New York City, Cleopatra's Needle. This Ancient Egyptian obelisk, whose twin stands in London by the River Thames, was gifted to the USA by the Khedive of Egypt in 1877 and subsequently erected in Central Park in 1881. Pharaoh Thutmosis III would never have imagined that the obelisks he created for Heliopolis in 1450 BC would be standing some thousands of kilometres away, some thousands of years later, in two different continents. Neither did Ramses the Great who added the Hieroglyphic inscriptions 200 years later, nor did the Romans who moved the obelisk in 12 BC from Heliopolis to Alexandria to decorate a temple built by Cleopatra for her beloved Marc Antony (Perhaps this is why the obelisks got nicknamed "Cleopatra's Needles").

Address: Central Park