Cleopatra’s Needle

Cleopatra’s Needle

There are three Cleopatra's Needles in the world. One in Central Park, NYC and one at the Place de la Concorde in Paris and one in London on the Victoria embankment...

The Cleopatra's Needles are are ancient Egyptian obelisks. An Obelisks is a tall, four sided tapering monument which ends in a pyramid top and is made from a single piece of stone!
The London Cleopatra's Needle is an original Egyptian obelisk made in Egypt for the Pharaoh Thotmes III in 1460 BC and was brought to London from Alexandria, the royal city of Cleopatra as a gift.

Two large bronze Sphinxes are on each side of the Cleopatra's Needle. These are Victorian versions of the traditional Egyptian original.

I was walking on the Queen's Walk on the South side of the Thames and took a picture of the obelisk. You can see from the picture that there are some repairs being done to the lower part. I walked over the Golden Jubilee bridge to cross the other side to take a closer look.

As I approached I could see the lower part of obelisk was getting some kinda repairs...The faux Sphinxes were on either side of the obelisk and one seemed to be damaged with holes and the block it was sitting on was damaged too...A plaque there says that on September 4, 1917 during World War I German bombs landed near the needle so they left the shrapnel there to commemorate the event..