http://www.nysun.com/article/50597
The Dahesh Museum, at Madison Avenue and 56th Street, has extended the run of its outstanding exhibition Napoleon on the Nile to April 22. Napoleon's Egyptian venture was militarily disastrous. But the "savants" he sent along with his soldiers helped lay the foundation of modern Egyptology. Part of the Napoleonic booty was the Luxor obelisk (though it didn't go up in the Place de la Concorde in Paris until the time of Louis Philippe).
Egyptian obelisks have been swiped for centuries: They are rare and precious things. Only 22 remain in the world. Egypt still possesses five and Rome has 13. The Romans originally looted the obelisks, but the 16th-century Pope Sixtus V directed their present locations in the Eternal City. Istanbul, London, Paris, and New York each have one obelisk.
The obelisk behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in Central Park, is the only ancient Egyptian obelisk in the Americas. How many people are aware of how immensely more important it is than the Met's Temple of Dendur? At least most New Yorkers have stopped calling the obelisk 'Cleopatra's Needle,' in a silly attempt to "sex it up" by association with the actress Claudette Colbert."
The Dahesh Museum, at Madison Avenue and 56th Street, has extended the run of its outstanding exhibition Napoleon on the Nile to April 22. Napoleon's Egyptian venture was militarily disastrous. But the "savants" he sent along with his soldiers helped lay the foundation of modern Egyptology. Part of the Napoleonic booty was the Luxor obelisk (though it didn't go up in the Place de la Concorde in Paris until the time of Louis Philippe).
Egyptian obelisks have been swiped for centuries: They are rare and precious things. Only 22 remain in the world. Egypt still possesses five and Rome has 13. The Romans originally looted the obelisks, but the 16th-century Pope Sixtus V directed their present locations in the Eternal City. Istanbul, London, Paris, and New York each have one obelisk.
The obelisk behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in Central Park, is the only ancient Egyptian obelisk in the Americas. How many people are aware of how immensely more important it is than the Met's Temple of Dendur? At least most New Yorkers have stopped calling the obelisk 'Cleopatra's Needle,' in a silly attempt to "sex it up" by association with the actress Claudette Colbert."
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