Note 11 — Chapter V
Reading edition
For the information of such readers as have not access to large works, I will take the liberty of inserting an account of the dimensions of these celebrated and ancient monuments, from Sir R. Wilson's history.
"Pompey's Pillar is of the Corinthian order, and eighty-eight feet six inches in height; the shaft formed of a single block of granite, retaining the finest polish, except where the wind on the north-east front has chafed the surface a little; it is sixty-four feet in height, and eight feet four inches in diameter.
"About thirty yards in the rear of the French intrenchments, stands Cleopatra's Needle, and one of equal magnitude is lying close by, horizontally. The form of these obelisks is of considerable elegance, and their magnitude is enormous, considering that each is only one piece of granite; their height is sixty-eight feet three inches, and their base seven feet seven inches by seven feet square; their sides are covered with hieroglyphics, which, on the eastern front of the one that is upright, are much effaced by the wind.
"Tradition affirms that they ornamented the gate of Cleopatra's palace. From the quantity of marble, &c. &c. found near the spot, probably the residence of the sovereigns of Egypt was placed there."—History of the Expedition, 2d vol. pp. 156, 158, 159.
Dr. E. D. Clark, the traveller, who has paid great attention to the study of the age and design of ancient monuments, thinks that the shaft of Pompey's Pillar "is of much earlier antiquity than either the capital or the pedestal." He gives probable reasons to believe that the shaft was made in the time of Alexander the Great, the founder of Alexandria, and who was buried there, to be a sepulchral pillar to the memory of that monarch; but that Julius Caesar had set it upon a pedestal, and had put a capital upon it in honour of Pompey, whose head he caused to be burnt with funeral honours, and the ashes put into an urn, and placed on the top of the pillar: but that the pillar had likely fallen afterwards, and had been restored by the emperor Hadrian.—Clarke's Travels, 4th Edit. 8vo. vol. v. ch. vii. p. 361, &c.