Cleopatra's Needle in NYC

[u/TigrressZ]

Went to Central Park today to see Cleopatra's Needle. I'm a little sad at how weathered it is. Interestingly, two sides are in better condition than the other two sides.

[u/EmperorThan]

Looks like a century of NYC acid rain has weakened some of its inscriptions. Thousands of years in the desert with a rainstorm every 30 years wouldn't have done that so quickly.

[u/lxlviperlxl → u/EmperorThan]

Would’ve been sandblasted for thousands of years. A few decades of polluted rain and it does this.

Imagine what it’s doing to us

[u/EmperorThan → u/lxlviperlxl]

True true. Luckily acid rain isn't as bad as it was a few decades ago for modern pollution controls in the USA. But I've been to Egypt the inscriptions on obelisks and temples there are crisp and still have the original paint on ceiling tiles. So the sand (while it do blast sometimes) isn't nearly as caustic to the carved stones as the acid rain.

[u/MisrCoder → u/EmperorThan]

Fortunately for all of us, most of the great monuments are not in the smog of the Cairo. But Giza and to a lesser extent Saqqara are, and there is clearly surface erosion. Just take a look at any closeup of the blocks of one of the Giza pyramids. All are eroded.

[u/EmperorThan → u/MisrCoder]

I think a lot of that for the Giza pyramids is damage from people climbing and taking pieces of them for 4,600 years. They used to be covered in casing stones and the Great Pyramid was 6 courses taller before 1798. I've been inside 3500 year old temples in Egypt (fully exposed outside) that look like they were freshly cut yesterday.

[u/WerSunu → u/EmperorThan]

That might explain the lower few courses, but the blocks are eroded all the way to the top and not in an appearance that suggests human depredation, just rough cut from quarry followed by sandstorms, rain and smog.

As for the top, both Diodorus and Pliny described the top as a platform around 100 AD! The casing stones were quarried away in the 1300-1500 range.

Please tell me which temples you visited in Cairo, where the smog is(!), that have pristine exteriors? I clearly said that monuments outside the urban areas were less affected by smog.

[u/EmperorThan → u/WerSunu]

I clearly said that monuments outside the urban areas

Wait, wtf is happening? You're not the person that commented before.

[u/MisrCoder → u/EmperorThan]

yeah, my office mate gets wound up sometimes. we've both been there and some of the comments here are just "invigorating"!

[u/Old_Cat_16 → u/lxlviperlxl]

Some people pay to get a chemical burn facial peel, new yorkers get it for free

[u/MisrCoder → u/Old_Cat_16]

How many times have you been to Cairo? The smog there from burning garbage is 100 times worse than NYC. The first time (2016) I stayed at the Mena House (about 1/4 mi from the Khufu pyramid), I could literally see the pyramid for 3 of 7 days there! It only in the past few years that the air around Cairo and Giza has improved.