OBELISK OF ON.

 

 

THIS Obelisk, and some mounds of earth, are all that now remain to mark the site of Heliopolis, the On of Scripture; once famous for its schools of philosophy and astronomy, but even in the days of Strabo a deserted city, its teachers and students having removed to the schools of Alexandria. The Temple of the Sun, however, still existed at Heliopolis, and the priests administered its rites. But though deserted, the houses in which the mentally great had lived and studied were pointed out and reverenced, and those of Plato and Eudoxus, who pursued their studies there thirteen years under the priests, were shewn as interesting objects to travellers from Greece.

    It was at On that Joseph, when he went into Egypt, about 1740 B.C., married Asenath, the daughter of Poti-pherah, the priest,*  in the reign of Osirtasen I., the Pharaoh whose name is borne on this the only Obelisk which now exists in situ on the  ruins of this ancient city. It is probable that it was often looked upon by the patriarch Joseph, and might have been erected under his superintendence. It is rather more than six feet square at its base, and sixty-eight feet high, but the accumulated soil about it has left only sixty-two feet of apparent height.

 

                     *Genesis, xli. 45.