Paris has been celebrating an anniversary—the centenary of the erection of the Luxor obelisk in the centre of the Place de Concorde. In the days when it was fashionable to plunder Eastern antiquities, the . French were offered one of a pair of obelisks which then stood in Alexandria. But they preferred one of another pair which stood outside the temple of Rameses 11. at Luxor, and they secured it. After five years’ work transporting it, the Luxor obelisk was mounted on its pedestal of Breton granite in the centre of one of the finest and largest squares in the world just 100 years ago. 'Nearly half a century later the two Alexandria obelisks were given to Now York and London. The New York one stands in Central Park, the London one on the Victoria Embankment, where it is known as Cleopatra’s Needle, although it had nothing whatever to do with Cleopatra.. In the war a German bomb hit the. Embankment only 100 yeards away, and the marks it left on the pedestal of the obelisk can be seen,
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Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22004, 30 January 1937, Page 4
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178Untitled Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22004, 30 January 1937, Page 4
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