Obelisk at Slottsbacken

In 2017, the original obelisk was dismantled due to age- and weather-related damage and was rebuilt, using newly quarried stone, in spring 2020.

The neo-Egyptian design of the obelisk was made by the artist Louis Jean Desprez and it was erected by the inventor and colonel-mecanicus Jonas Lidströmer in 1800.

The construction was at the time considered to be complicated, since the obelisk is made of many heavy stone boulders, and not cut from one piece as was typically done in classical antiquity.

[1] By 2012, the obelisk was showing signs of significant deterioration and the area around the monument was fenced off to protect the public from possible falling stones.

It was decided to quarry new Bohus granite stones with similar technical and aesthetic properties from an area near Hunnebostrand.

The Obelisk at Slottsbacken, as seen in July 2020, after its reconstruction.
The original obelisk, as seen in 2006.