Luxor Obelisks

The Luxor Obelisk rises from the Place de la Concorde as a single shaft of yellow granite, capped by a gold-leafed pyramidion that catches the morning sun. It arrived here in eighteen thirty-three, a gift from the Egyptian ruler Muhammad Ali Pasha to King Louis Philippe. Engineers spent years designing a massive barge to transport the three thousand year old stone down the Nile and across the Mediterranean. When they finally raised it upright, thousands of Parisians cheered as the heavy monolith reached its vertical position.