Mr. Dajnowski could be found more than halfway up the Obelisk, cleaning a hieroglyph for the “s” sound in a cartouche reading: “User-Maat-Re, beloved of Amun.” A few levels down, Robert Zarycki was passing a laser beam over a bowl-shaped hieroglyph representing a basket and the sound “nb,” or Lord. Together with a cartouche below, it read: “Lord of the two lands, User-Maat-Re, chosen of Re.”

User-Maat-Re is known today as Ramses II. He followed Thutmose III by about 200 years and added his own inscriptions to each face of the Obelisk, flanking those of his predecessor. A later pharaoh, Osorkon I, squeezed in short tributes to himself. (“Cleopatra’s Needle” is a misnomer for the Obelisk. She had nothing to do with it.)

Though the conservators wore bulky respirators and greenish goggles, the scene around the Obelisk did not look like something out of science fiction. The laser did not produce a ruby-red beam, but a white pinpoint. It did not hum eerily. It crackled.

The cleaning is to be finished in a week or so. After that, loose surfaces will be stabilized with a consolidating agent that binds stone particles at a molecular level. All the work should be finished in the fall, when the scaffolding will come down.

The $500,000 project is paid for by the private, nonprofit Central Park Conservancy, which manages the park under contract with the City of New York.

More at source: NY TIMES

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