3-008-382 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Cleopatra's Needle, Alexandria, 1862. Engraving from a sketch by Captain E. Ostley. 'Public attention has been directed to the Alexandrian obelisk, popularly known as Cleopatra's Needle, presented to this country by the late Mehemet Ali, in consequence of the suggestion recently made in the Times that it should be brought from Alexandria, where it lies prostrate, and erected in some part of the metropolis as a memorial to the late Prince Consort...The fellow-obelisk to the one shown in our Engraving is still standing...It would seem that both of these obelisks were brought from Heliopolis to Alexandria by one of the Caesars...The obelisks are of red granite, and between 65ft, and 70ft. in height'. Cleopatra's Needle was presented to the United Kingdom in 1819 by the ruler of Egypt and Sudan Muhammad Ali, in commemoration of the victories of Lord Nelson at the Battle of the Nile and Sir Ralph Abercromby at the Battle of Alexandria in 1801. Although the British government welcomed the gesture, it declined to pay to move the obelisk to London. It was subsequently erected on the Victoria Embankment in Westminster, in 1878. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.