The extraordinary story of how an obelisk from the banks of Luxor was
transferred to the Place de la Concorde in Paris in the early 19th
century
Transporting the Luxor obelisk from Egypt to Paris was one of the great
engineering triumphs of the early nineteenth century. No obelisk this
size (two hundred and fifty tons) had left Egypt in nearly two thousand
years, and the task of bringing it fell to a young engineer, Apollinaire
Lebas, a man of extraordinary resolve and ability. His is a tale of
adventure, excitement, and drama, but one hardly known to the
English-speaking world.
Lebas' team was struck by the plague; they ran out of wood; they had to
wait four months for the Nile to rise to free their beached ship. But in
the end, The Luxor, with its precious cargo on board, sailed down the
Nile. On October 25, 1836 before two hundred thousand cheering
Parisians, Lebas raised his obelisk. He was rewarded handsomely by his
king, a medal with his name on it was struck, and his body lies in the
famous Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris along with French luminaries. Now
this first-ever translation of Lebas's account, including digitally
enhanced copies of his beautiful drawings, makes his remarkable story
available to a wide audience.