Secret Inscriptions from Egyptian Pharaoh Found on 3,300-Year-Old Obelisk in Paris : The Hearty Soul

The Luxor Obelisks are a pair of ancient Egyptian obelisks created for the portal of the Luxor Temple during Ramesses II’s reign. In 1830, the ruler of Ottoman Egypt, Muhammad Ali Pasha, gifted the Luxor obelisks to France. In return, France gifted the Ottomans with a mechanical clock in the 1840s, known as the Cairo Citadel Clock. The shorter obelisk was transported first and arrived in 1833. In 1836, it was erected at the Place de la Concorde by King Louis-Philippe.

Countless scholars have studied the obelisk in Paris over the centuries, so one would assume that there wouldn’t be much new to learn from it. Well, this recently turned out to be far from the truth! A cryptology and Egyptology expert from the Catholic University of Paris, Jean-Guillaume Olette-Pelletier, recently made an interesting discovery. He found seven messages carved into the obelisk in Paris that date back to Pharaoh Ramses II’s reign.

The Hidden Messages On the Egyptian Obelisk In Paris

It wasn’t until renovation work was being carried out in 2021 that Olette-Pelletier first noticed these mysterious messages on the obelisk in Paris. The obelisk was surrounded by scaffolding at the time, enabling the Egyptologist to reach the least accessible sections near the top, by the golden tip. When he decided to read the hieroglyphs horizontally, he noticed some strange inscriptions that had previously gone unnoticed. It’s hard to instantly see these messages, as they were created using a type of writing only used by the elite, known as crypto-hieroglyphics. This allowed them to code the usual symbols were hidden meanings.

*The Obelisk of Luxor, the center of Place de la Concorde, Paris. Image Credit: Craig Booth, CC BY 2.0*

The only issue is, there are only six people alive today who are qualified to actually read these hidden inscriptions. One of the mysterious messages was found underneath an illustration of the god Amun. Under the god, however, they found an offering table. This enabled them to find a complete sentence that involved an offering given to Amun by the king. The inscriptions are arranged on the obelisk in a way that creates ‘three-dimensional cryptography”. To get the full message, you would need to walk around the obelisk.

Every different side imparts a bigger message that reveals deeper meanings when viewed from different angles. Another intriguing aspect of the obelisk is that one of the messages would only have been visible to individuals arriving by boat. Only the elite approaching the temple from the Nile would have been in line with the inscription. Therefore, the hidden messages were solely meant for the eyes of the most powerful members of ancient Egyptian society. According to Olette-Pelletier, “These messages are a form of propaganda in favor of the builder of the site: Pharaoh Ramses II.” Ramses tried to prove his divine status to the elite who understood such wordplay.

The Bottom Line

*Place de la Concorde and the obelisk. Image taken from from the Eiffel Tower, Paris, France. Image Credit: Cristian Bortes, CC BY 2.0*

Many tourists today admire the obelisk in Paris for its impressive design and hieroglyphs. However, it’s far more than mere decoration, it’s a powerful political tool for the ruler of Egypt at that time. Ramses II is regarded as one of the most powerful pharaohs of ancient Egypt. The obelisk in Paris reveals that he not only intended to impart messages to the lower classes of Egyptian society, but to the ruling elite too. Using a complex language only understood by the upper classes, he could impart messages that confirmed his divine status. Who knows how many more fascinating layers of hidden messages still lie hidden between the lines? The more we uncover about ancient Egypt, the more impressive its systems of construction, communication, and governance seem to become.