DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42499#0014
2
The Egyptian Obelisks.
[BOOK II.
of Thotlimes III. ; and there is a notice on its lower part that it
remained in the hands of the sculptors thirty-six years, from a date
near the end of the reign of Thothmes III. to another near the
end of that of his grandson. It was set up too at Heliopolis, from
the neighbourhood of which the Hebrews set forth ; so that it was
having the central lines of its hieroglyphics cut a little before the
Exodus, and it had the lateral lines cut, and was set up before the
temple of the Sun, five or six years before the death of Moses and
the entry of the Hebrews under Joshua into Canaan.
IV. The obelisk at the Porta del Popolo, and that at the Trinita
de’ Monti, that before the Pantheon, and that in the Villa Mattei on
the Coelian, all four bear the names of Rameses II., the king who
was the greatest of all Egyptian conquerors and builders, who has
left the most numerous monuments, and whose historical reign is
the principal of those which are blended and confused together in
the fabulous accounts of Sesostris. But the obelisk at the Porta del
Popolo bears also the name of Seti, the father of Rameses II., who
seems to have made at the opening of his reign two campaigns
in Mesopotamia with such brilliant success as to have gained a re-
nown equal to that of any other Egyptian conqueror, though he
was wounded in his second year, and lost his sight, so that his reign
is marked as having lasted less than two years, while his son
Rameses II. reigned sixty-six years and some months. But the
magnificent tomb of Seti, discovered by Belzoni, proves that though
he may have been incapacitated from reigning, he really lived on
after the apparent accession of his son, who seems to have put his
father’s name on no fresh monuments, but only on those which were
already commenced when he lost his sight, and to have been too
selfish to allow any other compensation for the loss of actual power,
than that of continuing to increase the magnificence of his tomb,
a monument hidden from the eyes of all contemporaries in the bowels
of the rock. The inscription of the name of Seti on the obelisk at
the Porta del Popolo must have been cut in b.c. 1487.
V. , VI., VII. The other three obelisks mentioned above as belong-
ing to the reign of Rameses II. after the blindness of his father,
must have been erected at dates lying between the years i486 and
1420 B.c. During this period it was that Ehud and Shamgar judged
Israel; and during the same period, near its beginning, after
Rameses II. had in nine years overrun Western and Central Asia,
certain colonists from Egypt, especially Danaus, the father of a line
of Argive kings, settled in Greece.
Rameses II. is the historical source of the fabulous king called
The Egyptian Obelisks.
[BOOK II.
of Thotlimes III. ; and there is a notice on its lower part that it
remained in the hands of the sculptors thirty-six years, from a date
near the end of the reign of Thothmes III. to another near the
end of that of his grandson. It was set up too at Heliopolis, from
the neighbourhood of which the Hebrews set forth ; so that it was
having the central lines of its hieroglyphics cut a little before the
Exodus, and it had the lateral lines cut, and was set up before the
temple of the Sun, five or six years before the death of Moses and
the entry of the Hebrews under Joshua into Canaan.
IV. The obelisk at the Porta del Popolo, and that at the Trinita
de’ Monti, that before the Pantheon, and that in the Villa Mattei on
the Coelian, all four bear the names of Rameses II., the king who
was the greatest of all Egyptian conquerors and builders, who has
left the most numerous monuments, and whose historical reign is
the principal of those which are blended and confused together in
the fabulous accounts of Sesostris. But the obelisk at the Porta del
Popolo bears also the name of Seti, the father of Rameses II., who
seems to have made at the opening of his reign two campaigns
in Mesopotamia with such brilliant success as to have gained a re-
nown equal to that of any other Egyptian conqueror, though he
was wounded in his second year, and lost his sight, so that his reign
is marked as having lasted less than two years, while his son
Rameses II. reigned sixty-six years and some months. But the
magnificent tomb of Seti, discovered by Belzoni, proves that though
he may have been incapacitated from reigning, he really lived on
after the apparent accession of his son, who seems to have put his
father’s name on no fresh monuments, but only on those which were
already commenced when he lost his sight, and to have been too
selfish to allow any other compensation for the loss of actual power,
than that of continuing to increase the magnificence of his tomb,
a monument hidden from the eyes of all contemporaries in the bowels
of the rock. The inscription of the name of Seti on the obelisk at
the Porta del Popolo must have been cut in b.c. 1487.
V. , VI., VII. The other three obelisks mentioned above as belong-
ing to the reign of Rameses II. after the blindness of his father,
must have been erected at dates lying between the years i486 and
1420 B.c. During this period it was that Ehud and Shamgar judged
Israel; and during the same period, near its beginning, after
Rameses II. had in nine years overrun Western and Central Asia,
certain colonists from Egypt, especially Danaus, the father of a line
of Argive kings, settled in Greece.
Rameses II. is the historical source of the fabulous king called