Luxor Obelisks

The right-hand (western) stone, 23 metres (75 ft) high, was moved in the 1830s to the Place de la Concorde in Paris, France, while the left-hand (eastern) obelisk remains in its location in Egypt.

The obelisks were each carved from a single piece of red granite, quarried about 100 miles (160 km) south of Luxor in Aswan, transported on a specially designed barge, and lowered into place with ropes and sand.

In the 19th century, François Chabas produced a full translation of the western (Paris) obelisk, which is about Ramesses II, Amun-Ra, and Horus, and can be read here.

On 21 March 1799 General Louis-Charles-Antoine Desaix wrote a letter to Napoleon informing him of the existence of two obelisks in Thebes which would constitute an extraordinary sight once brought to Paris.

[7] Finally, on 8 October 1800, Jean-Marie-Joseph Coutelle presented before the Institut d'Égypte in Cairo the first technical considerations on the transport and erection of one of the obelisks to the Place de la Concorde.

Under Napoleon's successor, Louis XVIII, the French acquired rights to Cleopatra's Needle in Alexandria, though this obelisk was never moved to France and ended up in New York City in 1881.

[10] Also, French diplomat Baron Isidore Justin Séverin Taylor, Mimault's senior, finalized the terms of the gift despite having been mandated to do so by Charles X, who had been overthrown in the meantime by the July Revolution.

It won over alternative options including the Cour Carrée of the Louvre, which had been recommended by such luminaries as Edme-François Jomard and Vivant Denon, but would have been technically more difficult.

[19] France added a gold-leafed pyramid cap to the top of the obelisk in 1998,[20] with the costs covered by sponsorship from Yves Saint Laurent.