They are always in pairs,
but often of unequal height. Some have professed to see in them the emblem
of Amen, the Generator; or a finger of the god; or a ray of the sun. In
sober truth, they are a more shapely form of the standing stone, or menhir,
which is raised by semi-civilised peoples in commemoration of their gods or
their dead. Small obelisks, about three feet in height, are found in tombs
as early as the Fourth Dynasty. They are placed to right and left of the
stela; that is to say, on either side of the door which leads to the
dwelling of the dead. Erected before the pylon-gates of temples, they are
made of granite, and their dimensions are considerable. The obelisk of
Heliopolis (fig. 108) measures sixty-eight feet in the shaft, and the
obelisks of Luxor stand seventy-seven and seventy-five and a half feet
high, respectively. The loftiest known is the obelisk of Queen Hatshepsut
at Karnak, which rises to a height of 109 feet. To convey such masses, and
to place them in equilibrium, was a sufficiently difficult task, and one is
at a loss to understand how the Egyptians succeeded in erecting them with
no other appliances than ropes and sacks of sand. Queen Hatshepsut boasts
that her obelisks were quarried, shaped, transported, and erected in seven
months; and we have no reason to doubt the truth of her statement.[23]

[Illustration: Fig. 109.--Obelisk of Usertesen I., Begig, Fayum.]

Obelisks were almost always square, with the faces slightly convex, and a
slight slope from top to bottom. The pedestal was formed of a single square
block adorned with inscriptions, or with cynocephali in high relief,
adoring the sun. The point was cut as a pyramidion, and sometimes covered
with bronze or gilt copper. Scenes of offerings to Ra Harmakhis, Hor, Tum,
or Amen are engraved on the sides of the pyramidion and on the upper part
of the prism. The four upright faces are generally decorated with only
vertical lines of inscription in praise of the king (Note 11). Such is the
usual type of obelisk; but we here and there meet with exceptions. That of
Begig in the Fayum (fig. 109) is in shape a rectangular oblong, with a
blunt top. A groove upon it shows that it was surmounted by some emblem in
metal, perhaps a hawk, like the obelisk represented on a funerary stela in
the Gizeh Museum. This form, which like the first is a survival of the
menhir, was in vogue till the last days of Egyptian art. It is even found
at Axum, in the mid