Luxor Obelisk in Paris | Historic Monument at Place de la Concorde

The Luxor Obelisk is an obelisk from the temple of Amon in Luxor, Egypt. It was erected at the Place de la Concorde in Paris in 1836 and was offered by Egypt. The obelisk is regarded as the oldest monument in Paris, predating the founding of the capital. In 1937, it was classified as a historic monument.

The history of the monument is linked to a transfer involving two obelisks from Méhémet Ali, vice-roy of Egypt, for France at the beginning of 1830. Jean-François Champollion was chosen by the king to select the first of the two obelisks, and only the right obelisk from the base in front of the Luxor temple was transported to France. The second obelisk remained in the Egyptian city of Luxor; later, France officially renounced ownership of it, and its ownership was restored to Egypt. As part of the exchange, a copper clock was given to Egypt in 1845 and now adorns the Cairo citadel.

Map showing the location of Luxor Obelisk in Paris — Location of **Luxor Obelisk** in Paris

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Origin and Placement in Paris

The Luxor Obelisk is an obelisk from the Amon temple of Luxor in Egypt. It was offered by Egypt and erected at the Place de la Concorde in Paris in 1836. In Paris, it is regarded as the oldest monument in the city, predating the founding of the capital. The obelisk was classified as a historic monument in 1937. A second obelisk of Luxor remains in the Egyptian city of Luxor.

Transfer of the Luxor Obelisks

At the beginning of 1830, France received two obelisks from Mehemet Ali, the vice-roy of Egypt. Histoire transported only the right obelisk from the base in front of the Luxor temple to France. The second obelisk remained in Egypt, and President Francois Mitterrand later officially announced that France renounced ownership of it, restoring its ownership to Egypt. In 1845, Histoire gave a copper clock to Egypt in exchange for the obelisks. The clock adorns the Cairo citadel, although Cairo residents reportedly considered that it did not work properly after delivery. It was finally repaired in 2021.

Transport of the Luxor Obelisk to Paris

The transport of the Luxor Obelisk to Paris was organized after the gift from Mehemet Ali was confirmed in 1830. Jean-Francois Champollion, chosen by the king to select the first of two obelisks to join France, made the selection. Plans for the felling were established by Armand Florimond Mimerel, a naval engineer.

The monolith was moved using the specially constructed ship Louxor, commanded by Raymond de Verninac Saint-Maur, which left Toulon in 1832. In August 1832, the ship went up the Nile River, and a flat-bottomed barge with five keels and a removable bow was used for the unique operation. The barge dimensions were studied in relation to the bridges on the Seine River. To bring the obelisk close enough for loading, three hundred fellahs dug a canal. The monolith was embarked on August 12, 1832.

The expedition then waited eight months until the flooded Nile floated the ship on April 3, 1833. The barge left Thebes on April 16, 1833, reached Rosette at the Nile mouth on April 26, and was blocked by sandbanks. It passed the Nile bar with the help of local winds moving the sand on May 16 and reached Alexandria on May 17, 1833. After waiting for the end of winter storms, the crew left port on December 17, 1833. The ship was towed from Alexandria to Rouen by the steam and sail corvette Sphinx, arrived at Toulon during the night of January 10 to January 11, 1834, and reached Paris on January 21, 1834, after rounding Spain and going up the Seine from Rouen, with a stop at Cherbourg.

Installation at Place de la Concorde

The Luxor Obelisk was transported from its base in Egypt to France and deposited lying down on the quay at the start of Cours-la-Reine before being erected at the center of Place de la Concorde in Paris. It replaced a monument honoring Louis XVI, whose first stone had been laid by Louis-Philippe on November 15, 1831, and whose royal statue at the center of the square had been destroyed in 1830. The obelisk was selected as a monument foreign to national history in order to avoid memory disputes and factional appropriation of the Revolution site.

Its erection was carried out with engineer Apollinaire Lebas using lifting machines and gigantic capstans. The obelisk was hauled, turned, and raised, and the king and his family appeared on a balcony as it was set on its pedestal. According to the record, they received ovations from a large crowd during the erection. The monument did not keep its original cardinal orientation and was rotated counterclockwise by about 90 degrees, so that the east face now faces north.

The transportation and erection methods were also described on the high pedestal, and the obelisk was later represented in images by François Dubois and by Ignace-Francois Bonhomme on October 25, 1836, including scenes at noon and at 3 o'clock. In a medallion sealed in 1939, the obelisk was described metaphorically as displaced.

Design, Setting, and Later Interpretation

The Luxor Obelisk measures twenty-three meters in height and is made of syenite from Syene, now Aswan. It stands on a pedestal made of five blocks of pink granite from the Aber-Ildut quarries in Brittany. The pedestal was designed as part of the general redevelopment of Place de la Concorde by Jacques Hittorff, and a one-tenth scale replica of it was later installed at the port of Aber-Ildut. Two faces of the pedestal show the removal, transport, and reassembly of the obelisk, while the other two carry inscriptions recalling Louis Philippe's patronage and France's Egyptian engagement since an unspecified date. The whole monument is surrounded by a metal grille composed of gilded metal.

Originally, the obelisk rested on a square base decorated with sixteen baboons standing on their hind legs. A fragment of this base was brought from Egypt with the obelisk, but it was not installed at Place de la Concorde in order to avoid shocking 19th century French society. The fragment is now displayed in the Egyptian antiquities section of the Louvre Museum, and it was temporarily exhibited at the Louvre-Lens museum in the Galerie du temps before returning to the Louvre by the end of 2024.

The site is served by the Concorde metro station. A medallion about ten meters north of the monument on the noon time line marks the position of the shadow tip at noon on the summer solstice, when the shadow is shortest. The monument was restored in 2022. Hieroglyphs on the obelisk include the cartouche of Ramesses II, where the king offers to the god Amon-Re, and a translation of the hieroglyphs was proposed in 1868 by French Egyptologist Francois Chabas. In 2025, cryptographic hieroglyphics were identified in inscriptions and scenes on the obelisk summit, underlining the monument's importance in royal propaganda to affirm divine legitimacy to rule Egypt.

Summit Restoration and Later Uses

The Luxor Obelisk's summit has undergone several changes and restorations. A 2 meter high pyramidion, made of laminated bronze sheet and gilded with gold leaf by the Gohard workshops, was installed in 1998 during the France-Egypt year, with financial support from the BergE-Saint Laurent foundation. Its coating was intended to mimic the electrum shade used in ancient Egypt. This replacement was made after the insistence of Egyptologist Christiane Desroches Noblecourt, to take the place of a previous summit ornament lost during invasions in Egypt in antiquity. According to chief architect Etienne Poncelet, the obelisk's summit had deteriorated significantly while stored for months in a boat hold on the Seine, and he also stated that a secret symbolic element was installed under the pyramidion. Over time, the 1998 pyramidion was not perfectly pointed and was damaged by birds, which led to a new restoration in 2022. On 13 October 2022, a gold leaf covered steel point was installed on the summit by Ateliers d'art Saint-Jacques and Fonderie de Coubertin under the Ministry of Culture. The obelisk was also considered for a different function in the 20th century: in 1913 astronomer Camille Flammarion proposed using it as a gnomon, but the project was blocked by World War I. It was later revived by Daniel Roguet during the 1937 universal exposition, with the support of Flammarion's widow, and work began in 1939 before being interrupted by World War II.

The Obelisk as a Sundial and Public Symbol

The Luxor Obelisk plays a functional role as part of a horizontal sundial initiated on the summer solstice. Its shadow indicates the time by means of nails and thermoadhered lines placed on pedestrian islands and on the roadway. These lines cross the northern part of Place de la Concorde and begin or end with Roman numerals. Only the lines for certain times are shown, and the equinox line is drawn on the central forecourt. The hourly lines converge at a point on the obelisk's meridian, twenty-nine meters south of it. A line joining this convergence point and the top of the obelisk forms a 49 degree angle with the horizontal plane, equal to Paris's latitude, and is parallel to the Earth's rotation axis. The shadow cast by the top of the monolith indicates true solar time. To obtain legal time in metropolitan France, 51 minutes must be added in winter and 1 hour 51 minutes in summer, while the equation of time, which varies by up to about fifteen minutes annually, must also be taken into account. The main source of inaccuracy is the blurriness of the shadow, caused by the Sun's non-point surface.

The obelisk has also attracted public attention through several notable events. In 2000, French urban climber Alain Robert climbed it without warning or safety equipment. In 2021, Egyptologist Jean-Guillaume Olette-Pelletier reached the top using restoration scaffolding to analyze scenes and inscriptions. The site was also the focus of an exhibition titled Le Voyage de l'obelisque at the National Maritime Museum at the Trocadero in Paris. On December 12, 1993, the obelisk was covered with a giant pink condom as part of an Act Up-Paris action led by Cleews Vellay with Benetton to raise AIDS awareness.

Features of the Luxor Obelisk

The Luxor Obelisk is located at Place de la Concorde in Paris. According to Galerie, the west face of the obelisk bears a fissure extending to about one third of its height. This damage was consolidated in Antiquity with two dovetails. The west face also carries hieroglyphs engraved into the stone. On the pedestal, one face includes a Latin inscription. These elements highlight both the object's ancient origin and the later additions associated with its setting in Paris.