The New York Obelisk, "Cleopatra's Needle", From Egypt to Central Park

There are also about a dozen more in Egypt that we know of, but these are prostrate, including the one still in the quarry at Assuan. We are not sure if Obelisks were inscribed before or after erection, altho' due to the fact that some now standing are uninscribed, it would appear that they were erected before they were inscribed.

The height of the New York obelisk is 69 feet 6 inches, and the weight pounds. The highest one in Rome is 105 feet 6 inches, and weighs pounds, and from this they run down to only a few feet not much more than headstones.

Egyptians must have been possessed of a very high degree of engineering skill to quarry them out of the mountain side and place them many hundreds of miles away, exactly where they were wanted. We have no knowledge of how this was done, but there in Assuan prostrate in its quarry, -25 feet longer than ours in New York, lies an unfinished obelisk which may one day reveal the mystery.