Obelisk of Thutmosis III (Obelisk of Theodosius)

Obelisk of Thutmosis III
The Obelisk of Theodosius is the Ancient Egyptian obelisk of Pharaoh Thutmose III re-erected in the Hippodrome of Constantinople by the Roman emperor Theodosius I in the 4th century AD.

The obelisk was set up during the 18th dynasty by Pharaoh Thutmose III (1479-1425 BC), to the southeastern of the seventh pylon of the serious temple of Karnak. Constantius II (337-361 AD) had it and another obelisk transmitted along the Nile to Alexandria to remember his ventennalia or 20 years on the throne in 357. The other obelisk was put up on the spina of the Circus Maximus in Rome in the fall of that year, and is today known as the Lateran Obelisk, patch the obelisk that would gone the obelisk of Theodosius staid on in Alexandria until 390, when Theodosius I (379-395 AD) had it delighted to Constantinople and raised on the spina of the Hippodrome there.

The Obelisk of Theodosius is of red granite from Aswan and was primitively 30m tall, like the Lateran Obelisk. The lower part was bent in antiquity, probably during its transportation or re-erection, and so the obelisk is today only 18.54 m (or 19.6 m) high, or 25.6m if the base is taken. Between the four niches of the obelisk and the pedestal are four bronze cubes, used in its transfer and re-erection.

Each of its four looks has a single central column of inscription, celebrating Thutmose III's triumph over the Mitanni which took place on the trusts of the Euphrates in about 1450 BC.



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