122 Study of the Neiv York Obelisk as a Deco.yed Boulder. 



Temple of Ptah at Memphis, which has since lain buried in the 

 Nile-mud, face downward, for over twenty centuries, until its 

 recent exhumation near Cairo 



Even though we grant, in the absence of proof, that our Obelisk 

 was overturned in the destruction of the Temple at An, about 

 515 B. C, it seems impossible that five centuries of burial in the 

 soil could have effected the damage we now see upon its faces. 



(f ). The hurning of the stone by the Persians. This appears to 

 me the only satisfactory theory to account for the great injury to 

 the S.S.W. and W.N.W. sides of the shaft. The fiercest flames of 

 the Persian fires, naturally kindled at the most prominent W.S.W. 

 angle, seem to have licked up the adjacent faces, and were probably 

 aided by throwing water upon the heated stone. With the flaking 

 away and fall of the lowest of the hated cartouches of Thothmeses 

 and Rameses from those sides, and the blackening of the rest, the 

 Persian vengeance was sated. 



A consideration of all these facts has led me back to the old view, 

 which was thus readvanced, some years ago, by Dr. W. C. Prime: 

 " It is hardly to be questioned that this ancient destruction of the 

 surface was due to the fires of Cambyses, before the stone was 

 transferred to Alexandria. It is probable that, when so transferred 

 and erected in front of the Sebastion, the best preserved side was 

 placed in front, facing the sea. That the monolith was once sub- 

 jected to severe fire, especially affecting the lower part, and more 

 iotense on one side, seems very probable.'" If also overturned 

 and prostrate for five centuries, as some believe,^ it may have so 

 fallen as to have buried its present N.N.E. and E S E. sides, with 

 its summit under the sand, its heel exposed to mutilation, and its 

 present S.S.W. and W.N.W. sides mainly uncovered to the action 

 of the weather, down to the line now marked by the preserved 

 eastern column of hieroglyphs on its present S S.W. face. 



Our conclusion also confirms that of Denon, at his examination 

 of the two obelisks in 1801: "Inspection of the actual condition 

 of these obelisks, and the fractures which existed at the very time 

 when they were erected on this site, prove that they were already 

 fragments at that period, and transported from Memphis or Upper 

 Egypt."' 



J N. Y. Journal of Commerce, Dec. 16, 1889. 



* Gorringe, idem, 72. ^ Denon, idem, I, 33. 



