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Location: Temple of Luxor, Thebes, Egypt Height: 25.03 meters Weight: 254 tons Red granite At the Luxor Temple, Ramesses II, king of the Nineteenth Dynasty, placed six colossal statues of himself and a pair of obelisks around 1300 B.C. The obelisk on the left of a huge pylon still remains, and the other was taken to Paris in 1831. These were the largest of all obelisks that Ramesses II erected to commemorate his victory at the battle of Qadesh, which ia now Syria. Thebes flourished as a center of the civilized world during the New Kingdom era (1570-1085 B.C.). The fame of the city is even described in the ninth book of the Iliad. "Thebes in Egypt, where the houses are piled high with treasures, and the city has a hundred gates, and through each gate two hundred men drive out with horses and chariots (The Iliad, Book Nine)."
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