From Waterloo Bridge there is an excellent view of the Egyptian obelisk commonly referred to as "Cleopatra's Needle". It was given this nickname by the British public when it arrived in London because, with it coming from Cleopatra's royal city of Alexandria, it was reckoned to have had some connection with her.

In actual fact, this obelisk and two others (now in Paris and New York) were originally sited in the ancient Egyptian city of Heliopolis, where they where certainly known to Moses who was in Heliopolis at the time. The Romans were responsible for moving them to Alexandria in 12 BC.

By the time they were brought to Alexandria Cleopatra had been dead for about 18 years and Egypt was a Roman province governed by the emperor Augustus Caesar. The Romans erected the obelisks in Cleopatra's Caesarium, a temple she had commanded to be built in honour of Mark Anthony.

The obelisk doesn't look so big from up here, but this is due to the height of Waterloo Bridge above the river. It is in fact 68 feet (22 metres) high and weighs about 180 tons.

You can see a different perspective of the obelisk from here, which gives you a much better idea of its size.

The three obelisks were constructed on the orders of the Emperor Thutmose III some time around 1450 BC, and were cut from the red granite that was extracted from quarries of Aswan, near to the first cataract of the Nile.

The hieroglyphics that are on them do not date from this period, but are almost certainly from the period of Ramses II about 200 years later, and refer to his military victories.

Talking of military victories, in 1801 the British army under Lord Abercrombie defeated Napoleon's army at the Battle of Alexandria, and the British Navy under Nelson defeated the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile.

Patriotic fervour being what it was after the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, it was felt that some monument should be erected to honour the victories in Egypt. By now this obelisk at the Caesarium was no longer standing but had long since toppled over and was almost completely buried in the sand. The Albanian-born viceroy of Egypt Mehemet Ali accordingly presented it to the people of Britain in 1819 as a trophy.

Although the British government was grateful for the gift, it decided that it was not worth the expense of transporting the obelisk to the UK so it languished at Alexandria for many years.

Much later, an appeal for a public subscription of £15,000 was launched to defray the costs of transportation, but a gift of £10,000 from the famous dermatologist and promoter of the daily bath Sir Erasmus Wilson enabled plans to be made.

An engineer from Newcastle upon Tyne, John Dixon, had been in in Cairo constructing an iron bridge and had later set off the explore the pyramids of Egypt with his younger brother Waynman (these two brothers are the source of the "Dixon Relics" at the British Museum and the Marischal Museum in Aberdeen). John Dixon was engaged to construct a floating tube to encase the obelisk, and he certainly did his principals proud.

His tube, christened the "Cleopatra" was 92 feeet long and measured 15 feet in diameter. It even resembled a real ship, with a stem and stern, rudder, two keels, a mast, and a deck cabin to shelter the crew of 5. To ensure flotation, the cylinder was divided into a series of 10 watertight compartments. Once the obelisk was safely inside, the ship "Olga" took it in tow and set sail for London in October 1877.

All went well until a severe storm erupted in the Bay of Biscay and on 14 October 1877 it was clear that the "Olga" and "Cleopatra" were in severe difficulty. The master of the "Olga" took the decision to cut loose the "Cleopatra" in order to save his own ship, and sent a boat manned by six sailors to rescue the "Cleopatra's" crew. This capsized and all six were lost.

Eventually, the "Olga" was able to rescue the crew, and they watched helplessly as the "Cleopatra" disappeared over the horizon, presumed lost.

After 60 days, news reached London that the "Cleopatra" had not sunk at all, but had been sighted in the Bay of Biscay by the English ship "Fitzmaurice", which had taken it in tow to a Spanish port (some suggest Ferrol, others Vigo). Whichever port it was, the "Fitzmaurice" was granted salvage of £2,000.

Another British ship, the "Anglia", towed it back to the Gravesend in Kent in a journey of 6 days, where it arrived in Gravesend on 21 January 1878 to the accompaniment of a cannonade.

The obelisk was erected on the Embankment in August and September 1878 by Dixon, and there was an intriguing story published in 1925 by H. V. Morton suggesting that they buried what in modern terms we would know as a time capsule consisting of sealed jars with contents the nature of which vary according to whichever report you read.

Morton, in his book H V Morton's London suggests that these contents include a man's lounge suit, the complete dress and accessories of the kind that a fashionable woman of the day might wear, illustrated newspapers and magazines of the day, Bibles in many languages, childrens toys, a razor, cigars, several photographs of women considered to be the most beautiful of the day, and a complete set of currency of the realm ranging from a farthing to five pounds.

The erection of the obelisk was honoured by some unknown wit, who wrote
"This monument, as some supposes"
"was looked upon in old days by Moses"
"it passed in time to Greeks and Turks"
"And was stuck up here by the Board of Works"

The sphinxes that you can see around the obelisk are not ancient Egyptian, but are cast bronze with hieroglyphics which are claimed to state "the good god, Thuthmosis III given life". This is in keeping with the Egyptian theme along the Embankment around here. Many of the benches have armrests that resemble sphinxes with wings.

The hieroglyphics on the obelisk are very well-preserved, due mainly to it having been buried in the sand for so long. How long this is likely to continue is anyone's guess. The effects of air pollution have eroded away much of the hieroglyphics of the obelisk that was taken to New York

What had by now become known popularly as "Cleopatra's Needle" was to undergo further hardship. During World War I the capital had come under attack from Peter Strasser's fleet of Zeppelins, but once this was repulsed, the Germans launched a series of bomber attacks using "Gotha" and the aptly-named Staaken "Giant" aeroplanes. The "Giant" was an enormous four-engined bomber with a wingspan only three feet narrower than that of a Boeing B29 Superfortress. On 4 September 1917, a 110lb bomb from one of the air attacks landed on a tram travelling along the Embankment, killing three passengers and injuring another three. A giant crater was created (filled in so rapidly that five days later there was no trace of it) and the Embankment and the obelisk were splattered with shrapnel. You can clearly see the shrapnel damage on the base of the right-hand sphinx in the photo above.

Although the sphinx loudly proclaims that the attack on 4th September 1917 was the first aeroplane attack on London, there is ample evidence to suggest that there was a daylight raid on London on 13th June 1917 by a force of between 14 and 18 Gothas. This raid caused 162 deaths and 432 injured, almost 20% of the total of all British casualties caused by aeroplane raids in World War I.
 
With blatant "token-womanism" I can say with complete confidence that "many of the dead were women and children", as the Upper North Street School in Poplar was hit, killing 18 children and injuring 30. There is actually a photograph of a monument to the dead children (with grateful thanks to Wikimedia Commons), so I'm totally bewildered as to how come the authorities overlooked this raid when making the plaque for the plinth of the sphinx.
 
And not only that. H G Castle's weird book Fire Over England (in it, on page 4 he has the Wright Brothers making their first flight from Kitty Hawk, Ohio when everyone else puts Kitty Hawk in North Carolina and on page 20 he has Germany suffering a humiliating defeat in the Franco-Prussian War - hence his efforts should be treated with some scepticism) records an attack on London by a LuftverkehrsGesellschaft biplane on 28 November 1916, during which the LVG dropped 6 20lb bombs in the Belgravia-Brompton Road-Knightsbridge-Victoria Street area.

If you want to comment on these discrepancies, or if you merely want to exchange views, please . I like to interact with my readers and welcome all comments.

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