In 1830, Muhammad Ali Pasha, the governor of Egypt, issued a decree gifting the twin obelisks of the Luxor Temple to France.
This gesture was intended to solidify the strategic alliance between the two nations—a partnership Ali deemed essential for his ambitious vision of propelling Egypt from its medieval roots into the modern era of industrialization and mass education.
Curiously, it was the young French scholar Jean-François Champollion—famed for deciphering the Rosetta Stone—who handpicked the gift. Thanks to his breakthrough, the silent monuments of the Pharaohs had finally found their voice, unveiling the long-guarded secrets of a glorious past.
France accepted the gift, agreeing to the Pasha’s pragmatic condition: the French government would bear the full cost of transportation.
Consequently, a team of France’s most elite engineers was dispatched to devise a transport plan, only to find themselves facing a challenge of monumental proportions.
Each obelisk, hewn from a single monolith of rose granite, weighed approximately 220 tons—colossal structures originally erected by the master builders of Ramses II to flank the newly expanded entrance of the Luxor Temple.
Following meticulous calculations, the engineers realized that the logistics of moving both monoliths would be prohibitively expensive, threatening to bankrupt the project and force the rejection of Egypt’s invaluable gift.
Ultimately, they proposed a compromise: to transport only one obelisk to Paris, leaving its twin in situ, supposedly to be reclaimed at a later date.
To facilitate this monumental task, a custom-built, flat-bottomed vessel named the Luxor was commissioned to navigate both the shallow waters of the Nile and the open Mediterranean.
A canal was excavated from the riverbank to the foot of the obelisk to reach the monument, which had stood undisturbed for over three millennia.
Once lowered from its ancient pedestal, the granite monolith was loaded onto the ship to await the seasonal inundation of the Nile. Only then could the vessel be floated and steered northward toward the sea.
It was an arduous odyssey, requiring the ship to circumnavigate the Spanish peninsula before ascending the Seine toward Paris. From the initial lowering in Egypt to the arrival in France, the entire operation spanned two grueling years, from 1831 to 1833.
King Louis Philippe chose the Place de la Concorde as the obelisk’s final resting place, a decision steeped in political symbolism. His aim was to cleanse the square of its grim associations with the French Revolution, for it was here that the guillotine had claimed many lives, most notably that of Queen Marie Antoinette.
October 25, 1836, remains a landmark date in modern French history; it was the day the obelisk was successfully raised in the heart of the square.
The event was met with jubilant celebrations that lasted for days, marking a triumphant chapter in the cultural history of both nations.
Remarkably, the French government retained the legal right to claim the second obelisk from the Luxor Temple for over a century and a half, pursuant to the original decree signed by Ali Pasha. This standing entitlement remained in effect until 1981, when the Egyptian government formally requested that France waive its claim to the remaining half of the gift.
In a gesture of diplomatic goodwill, President François Mitterrand officially renounced the right, ensuring that one of Ramses II’s twin monoliths would remain in its ancestral home before the Luxor Temple.
In more recent years, the Paris obelisk has undergone significant aesthetic and functional enhancements. Most notably, in 1998, France adorned the monument’s apex with a gold-leafed pyramidion (a small capstone), restoring the traditional solar brilliance intended by its ancient creators. Furthermore, a sophisticated sundial was integrated into the pavement of the Place de la Concorde; today, the obelisk itself serves as the gnomon, with its sweeping shadow marking the passage of time across the historic square.
In recognition of his lavish generosity, the French government reciprocated by gifting Muhammad Ali a monumental mechanical clock. This timepiece was installed within the Saladin Citadel, where it remains to this day.
Of course, the Luxor obelisk was not the only Pharaonic treasure to leave Egypt during this era; under the reign of Muhammad Ali and his successors, thousands of artifacts were dispatched abroad—either as diplomatic gifts or through commercial sales.
Notably, these included twenty massive crates overflowing with antiquities presented to Champollion himself.
I am often haunted by a recurring question: Had Ramses II—the sovereign who commissioned those very obelisks—foreseen that one would be transported thousands of miles from its home, would he have ever ordered its extraction from the Aswan quarries? I suspect the Pharaoh would have hesitated a thousand times over.
Perhaps it is a blessing that our ancestors could not divine the future; otherwise, they might have reconsidered the immense toil they invested in building such a lasting civilization. Today, the only way to truly honor the legacy of the Great Pharaohs is to remain steadfast in our commitment to heritage: we must never surrender our claim to any artifact that was plundered or illicitly taken from our soil.
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