Obélisque de Louxor

Standing before you is the oldest monument in Paris, a three-thousand-year-old traveler from the banks of the Nile. This red granite monolith was originally carved during the reign of the pharaoh Ramesses the Second to guard the entrance of the Luxor Temple in Egypt. It arrived here in the nineteenth century as a diplomatic gift from the Egyptian ruler Muhammad Ali Pasha to the French king. The stone remains a silent witness to a history far older than the city around it.