Special Places On Earth
Cleopatra's Needle
Elizabeth Taylor - Queen of the Nile
Cleopatra's Needles are a trio of obelisks in London, Paris (Place de la Concorde) and New York City. Each is made of red granite, stands about 21 metres (68 feet) high, weighs about 180 tons and is inscribed with hieroglyphs. Although the needles are genuine Ancient Egyptian obelisks, they are somewhat misnamed as neither has any connection with queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt. They were originally erected in the Egyptian city of Heliopolis on the orders of Thutmose III, around 1450 BC.
The London needle is in the City of Westminster, on the Victoria Embankment near the Golden Jubilee Bridges. It was presented to the United Kingdom in 1819 by Mehemet Ali, the Albanian-born viceroy of Egypt, in commemoration of the victories of Lord Nelson at the Battle of the Nile and Sir Ralph Abercromby at the Battle of Alexandria in 1801.
The New York location is in Central Park (40°46′59″N, 73°58′20″W) a large public, urban park (843 acres or 3.41 km²; a rectangle 2.5 miles by one-half mile, or 4 km × 800 m) in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, USA.
Cleopatra's Needles are mentioned in, National Treasure 2, by the Gates, when they begin their search for clues that will lead them to an ancient treasure, believed to be near Mount Rushmore.
The Cumaean Sibyl
For centuries the Cumaean Sibyl of Rome when was a kingdom, then a republic, and then an empire, was considered legendary only. Modern archeologists pursued the history of Rome, so that the Cumaean Sibyl was recognized as the High-priestess of Rome, and as a member, one priestess after another, of a priesthood venerated for centuries by Romans.
Giuseppe Consoli-Fiego believed that a line of priestesses, each called the "Cumaean Sibyl," had ministered at Cuma [the old Cumae] on the Bay of Naples. The following legend, quoted from Napoleon and Josephine's BOOK OF FATE, prompted Consoli-Fiego to excavate alongside the Bay of Naples. The date of this story is concurrent with the Fiftieth Olympiad.
THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS
The official book by the Vatican Press identifies Michelangelo's painting of Cumaea as: The "Cumaean Sibyl, face lined with age, absorbed in meditation." The Sistine paintings were unveiled on October 13, 1512, which was All Saints' Day.
A strange old woman came once to Tarquinius Superbus, king of Rome, with nine books, copies of the following work, which she said were the ORACLES OF THE SIBYLS, and proffered to sell them. But the king making some scruple about the price, she went away and burnt three of them; and returning with the six, asked the same sum as before. Tarquin only laughed at the humour; upon which the old woman left him once more; and after she had burnt three others, came again with those that were left, but still kept to her old terms. The king now began to wonder at her obstinacy, and thinking there might be something more than ordinary in the business, sent for the Augurs to consult what was to be done. They, when their divinations were performed, soon acquainted him what a piece of impiety he had been guilty of, by refusing a treasure sent to him from heaven, and commanded him to give whatever she demanded for the books that remained. The woman received her money, and delivered the writings, and only charging them by all means to keep them sacred, immediately vanished. Two of the nobility were presently after chosen to be the keepers of these oracles, which were laid up with all imaginable care in the capitol, in a chest under ground. They could not be consulted without a special order of the senate, which was never granted, unless upon the receiving some notable defeat, upon the rising of any considerable mutiny or sedition in the state, or upon some other extraordinary occasion.
The number of priests, in this, as in most other orders, was several times altered. The Duumviri continued till about the year of the city 388, when the tribunes of the people proferred a law, that there should be ten men elected for this service, part out of the nobility, and part out of the commons. We meet with the Decemviri all along from hence, till about the time of Sylla the dictator, when the Quindecemviri occur. It were needless to give any farther account of the Sibyls, than that they are generally agreed to have been ten in number; for which we have the authority of Varro; though some make them nine, some four, some three, and some only one. They all lived in different ages and countries, were all prophetesses; and, according to common opinion, foretold the coming of our Savior. As to the writing, Dempster tells us, it was on linen.
Solinus acquaints us, that the books which Tarquin bought, were burnt in the conflagration of the capitol, the year before Sylla's dictatorship. Yet there were others of their inspired writings, or at least copies or extracts of them, gathered up in Greece and other parts, upon a special search made by order of the senate; which were kept with the same care as the former, till about the time of Theodosius the Great, when, the greatest part of the senate having embraced the Christian faith, they began to grow out of fashion; till at last Stilicho burnt them all, under Honorius, for which he is severely censured by the poet Rutilius.
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The Delphic Oracle
The Priestesses at Delphi
Three stories offer three rare accounts, which either seem to speak, or pretend to speak, of a Delphic Pythia: The Story of Phemonoe; The Story of Theoclea, or Themistoclea; and The Story of Psyche.
The first story takes its priestess's name from Pausanias (VIII), who placed her in the earliest century of the oracle, i.e., in "Pytho's day."
The second story, by Schure, is also based upon some piece of written evidence, and refers to Pythagoras-Pythia; the link was perhaps Pythia-Pythagoras, and demonstrates origin of that Pythagorean doctrine which many believe reappeared in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Gaul as Druidism. See Sacred Oracle
The third story, written by the famous African author Apuleius (Appuleius, who was born around 130 A.D. tells the story of Apollo and Psyche. The marvelous book, The Golden Ass, recounts his initiation into a Mystery Religion of the ancient world. Such rites were secret and never revealed; they were also conducted and adopted entirely or preponderantly by women. The story Apuleius tells could very well treat, it seems, the installation of a Pythia at Delphia.
Olympic Games: Pausanias says, "Later on Iphitus, ... arranged the games at Olympia and reestablished afresh the Olympic festival and truce, after an interruption of uncertain length. ... At this time Greece was grievously worn by internal strife and plague, and it occurred to Iphitus to ask the god at Delphi for deliverance from these evils. The story goes that the Pythian priestess ordained that Iphitus himself and the Eleans must renew the Olympic games." (Pausanias 5.4.5-6) [Most historians date Iphitus to some time in the ninth century]
Praesepe, the "Beehive Cluster"
Ephesus
[Turkey] disappeared, despite the fact that it
was often placed first among the Wonders of the World, and then reappeared. Her
priestesses reappeared with her.
