- Solé, Robert. Le grand voyage de
l'obélisque. Paris: Seuil, 2004. ISBN 2-02-039279-8.
- No, this is not an Astérix book—it's
“obélisque”, not “Obélix”! This is the story of how
an obelisk of Ramses II happened to end up in the middle of la Place de la Concorde in Paris. Moving a 22 metre,
220 metric ton chunk of granite from the banks of the Nile to the
banks of the Seine in the 1830s was not a simple task—it involved a
purpose-built ship, an expedition of more than two and a half years
with a crew of 121, twelve of whom died in Egypt from cholera and
dysentery, and the combined muscle power of 350 artillerymen in Paris
to erect the obelisk where it stands today. One has to be impressed
with the ancient Egyptians, who managed much the same more than thirty
centuries earlier. The book includes a complete transcription and
translation of the hieroglyphic inscriptions—Ramses II must have
set the all-time record for effort expended in publishing banal
text.
May 2004 