NO. 6 



GREAT STONE MONUMENTS FEWKES 



25 



and thus the stone was cracked off. 1 Having been quarried the 

 obelisk was dressed and inscribed, after which it was moved to its 

 future home. The means by which it was transported on rafts are 

 known, but how the great weight was set on end after the obelisk had 

 been brought to its future site is as yet not clear. 



It would seem that the 

 meaning of the Egyptian 

 obelisks would be revealed by 

 the inscriptions they bear on 

 their sides. While this might 

 be expected, unfortunately 

 there is some lack of uniform- 

 ity in the translation of those 

 inscriptions, although all 

 aeree thev contain arravs of 

 grandiloquent titles and ex- 

 alted references to attributes 

 of the Pharaohs, indicating 

 that they serve as memorials 

 and were erected in com- 

 memoration ' of rulers or 

 events. 



It is instructive for com- 

 parisons to pass to a considera- 

 tion of commemorative objects 

 like Alaskan totem-poles made 

 of wood and those of New 

 Zealand, where the same idea 

 has been executed in both 

 wood and stone. Lieutenant 

 Meade, in an interesting work 

 entitled " A Ride through 



New Zealand," describes a trilithon consisting of two per- 

 pendicular blocks of stone about 25-30 feet high supporting a 

 horizontal one about half as Ions: asrain. In the center of the latter 



Fig. 15. 



-Monolith, Abyssinia, from 

 Bent. 



J The great Seringapatam obelisk erected by Hindoos in memory of Josiah 

 Webbe, in 1805 was split off with iron wedges as described by Col. Wilks 

 (Edin. Philos. Trans., Vol. 9). 



2 Pompey's Pillar, a shaft 88 feet 6 inches, according to an inscription was 

 erected at Alexandria in Egypt in honor of the Emperor Diocletian. Its mono- 

 lith measures 69 feet. 



