tes for this optical illusion. The hieroglyphical inscriptions
are in a perpendicular line, sometimes there is but one in the middle
of the breadth of the face, and often there are three. The inscription
was a commemoration by the king who had the temple or palace built
before which the obelisk was placed. It contained a record stating the
houses and titles which the king who erected, enlarged, or gave rich
presents to a temple, had received in return from the priesthood, and
setting forth, for instance, that Rameses was the lord of an obedient
people, and the beloved of Ammon. Such is the subject of the
inscription which is in the middle of each face of the obelisks; and
though the name of the same king and the same events are repeated on
the four sides, there exists in the four texts, when compared, some
difference, either in the invocation to the particular divinities or
in the titles of the king. Every obelisk had, in its original form,
but a single inscription on each face, and of the same period of the
king who had erected it; but a king who came after him, adding a
court, a portico, or colonnade to the temple or palace, had another
inscription relative to his addition, with his name engraved on the
original obelisk; thus, every obelisk adorned with many inscriptions
is of several periods. The pyramidion which terminates them generally
represents in its sculptures the king who erected the obelisk making
different offerings to the principal deity of the temple, and to other
divinities. Sometimes also the offering is of the obelisk itself. The
short inscriptions of the pyramidion bear the oval of the king and the
name of the divinity. By these ovals can be known the names of the
kings who erected the obelisks still existing, whether in Egypt or
elsewhere. The largest obelisk known is that of St. John Lateran,
Rome. It was brought from Heliopolis to Alexandria by the emperor
Constantine, and was conveyed to Rome by Constantius, who erected it
in the Circus Maximus. The height of the shaft is 105 feet, 7 inches.
The sides are of unequal breadth at the base, two measure nine feet,
eight and one-half inches, the other two only nine feet. It bears the
name of Thohtmes III. in the central, and that of Thohtmes IV. in the
lateral lines, kings of the eighteenth dynasty, in the fifteenth
century B.C. The two obelisks at Luxor were erected by the king
Rameses II., of the nineteenth dynasty, 1311 B.C. (Wilkinson). One of
these