Carlitos Lunghi Site

The obelisk, called TEJEN in the sacred language of the ancient Egyptians, was a term which was synonymous with "protection" or "defense."  The needle of stone had the function of perforating the clouds and dispersing negative forces that always threaten to accumulate, in the form of visible storms  or invisible ones, and was placed over the temple as a symbol of a petrified ray.  The word "Obelisk" comes from the Greek obeliskos, meaning a prong for roasting.  It is a stone that is frequently monolithic, of a quadrangular base, placed upright and ending with a  pointed top. It was placed in the center of large open spaces in the temples of the solar god RA.   They arose, by the time of the predynastic period cults, to a great sacred stone which was raised in the Temple of Heliopolis, the "City of the Sun."  As with the pyramids, this monument had a primitive  relation with the solar cult. As a general rule, obelisks were erected in pairs and served to magically protect the temple. The obelisk is composed of two parts:the body and the pyramidon.  The body is a long block of a conic trunk section and the pyramidon symbolizes the rays of the sun.  The top is the point of a pyramid formation which crowns the monolith and rested on a base.  It was plated in gold, a metal which the Egyptians affirmed was the "flesh of the gods."  The obelisks originated from the granite quarries of Aswan.  In this place an unextracted obelisk still remains within the layer of rock.  To 1.200 tons., it would have been the tallest, 41,70 meters, but was abandoned for the workman due to the appearance of fissures in the stone.  It may have been the match for the Lateranense obelisk, a possible reason why there is only one in Karnak.                                                    Actuals views to the Aswan´s obelisk , Egypt. Generally, obelisks have inscriptions on all four sides and also parts of  the pyramidon are sometimes carved with bas-relief.  These monumente symbolize the stability and the creative force held by the solar god RA.  The Egyptians believed that the solar rays brought a great vivifying power even into the grave which would have an effect on the subsequent resurrection of the deceased.

               Champollion's  notes  of  his  study  of the  cartdrige  of  Cleopatra, inscribed on an
                obelisk found at Philae by Belzoni, The names of Cleopatra and Ptolemy  were  the
                first words deciphered by Champollion. By analysing the  texts of the Rosetta Stone
                and comparing them with  those  on  the  obelisk  of   Philae, Champollion  had  the
                brilliant intuition that the names of the pharaohs in cartdrige were in hieroglyphs with
                a phonetic  value, and that  it  was  therefore  possible  to  establish  an  equivalence
                between hieroglyphic and alphabetic signs.

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The History of the Egyptian Obelisk

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