Cleopatra's NeedlesIn the half century between 1831 and 1881, three massive obelisks left Egypt for new lands. Prior to these journeys, the last large obelisk moved was the Vatican obelisk in 1586 one of the great engineering achievements of the Renaissance. Roman emperors moved more than a dozen but left no records of how they did it. The nineteenth century engineers entrusted with transporting the obelisks across oceans had to invent new methods, and they were far