For ‘Cleopatra’s Needle,’ a Cleaning to Last 500 Years

Read on here. NY Times, by LISA W. FODERARO

The Central Park Conservancy has begun conservation of Central Park’s 3,500-year-old Obelisk this week, cleaning and stabilizing the monument’s surface to promote its long term preservation and enhance the public’s understanding of the ancient artifact. Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times

In the course of history, what’s a few years?

Back in 2011, Zahi Hawass, the minister of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities at the time, threatened to take back the 193-ton granite obelisk known as Cleopatra’s Needle, which has stood in Central Park since 1881, because, he said, it was being neglected. “If the Central Park Conservancy and the City of New York cannot properly care for this obelisk,” he wrote in a letter to officials in New York, “I will take the necessary steps to bring this precious artifact home and save it from ruin.”

In order to ship the obelisk to New York, a large hole was cut in the hull of the iron steamer Dessoug. The obelisk was erected in Central Park on 22 January 1881, where it still stands. Credit SSPL/Getty Images

This week, after three years of planning, workers mounted the scaffolding surrounding the obelisk, which is 70 feet tall and 3,500 years old. They began to clean the surface with a laser, a method that was determined to be the safest for the monument. Soon, a special adhesive used in granite conservation will be applied to help stabilize the monument, which stands on a knoll just west of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The restoration, which will take several months, is being overseen by the conservancy, the nonprofit group that manages the park on behalf of the city’s parks department, in collaboration with the Met. It will cost $500,000, an amount that was raised privately by the conservancy.

“People always think of the conservancy’s work as mowing lawns, pruning trees and planting flowers, but this highlights the depth of our skills, particularly in conservation,” saidDouglas Blonsky, the conservancy’s president. “The obelisk is clearly not falling apart, but it definitely can use a good cleaning.”

The conservation effort prompted an exhibition, “Cleopatra’s Needle,” at the Met, running through June 8. It explains the symbolic power of the obelisk in ancient Egypt — “a dramatic monument, whose soaring form is visible for miles, connecting the earth to the heavens and the sun.”

The deterioration of the obelisk had less to do with conditions in New York City than the fact that, at some point in its history, it had toppled over and lay in desert sands for 500 years, according to the museum.