An ancient Egyptian obelisk is revealing its long-lost secrets—all thanks to the keen eye of a local Egyptologist. After noticing something unusual about the 3,000-year-old Luxor Obelisk in central Paris, Jean-Guillaume Olette-Pelletier, a lecturer at Sorbonne University, identified and deciphered an ancient hidden message.
Paris Egyptologist Spots Encoded Inscriptions on Luxor Obelisk
The Luxor Obelisk in Paris is one of two ancient Egyptian obelisks, carved from red granite, that once stood at the entrance to Luxor Temple. The obelisks were erected in the 13th century BCE during the reign of Ramesses II. The right-side obelisk was gifted by Ottoman Egypt to France in the 1830s and now stands at the center of the Place de la Concorde in Paris. The left-side obelisk remains at its original location in Egypt.
Like many Parisians during the COVID-19 pandemic, Olette-Pelletier began taking daily walks around his neighborhood, passing the Luxor Obelisk on his usual route. On one such walk, Olette-Pelletier noticed that hieroglyphs on the monument seemed to gesture toward the portico of Luxor Temple, in front of which it once stood. Suspecting the inscription contained a hidden message, he returned to the obelisk with binoculars and a notebook.
Olette-Pelletier soon realized he would need to actually climb the Luxor Obelisk to uncover its secrets. Fortunately, when Paris began renovating the monument ahead of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Olette-Pelletier received permission to ascend the scaffolding and study it up close. His research—soon to be published in ENiM, a French Egyptology journal—identified seven previously unrecorded crypto-hieroglyphs hiding in plain sight.
Crypto-Hieroglyphs Could Only Be Read by Elites
The term “crypto-hieroglyphs” refers to the ancient Egyptian practice of concealing messages within hieroglyphic inscriptions. Typically applied in religious or royal contexts, these inscriptions involved puzzles and wordplay that only ancient Egypt’s elite could understand. Today, only a small number of Egyptologists can decipher crypto-hieroglyphs. Olette-Pelletier is one of them.
High up on the side of the obelisk that once faced the Nile River, an inscription depicts Ramesses II making an offering to Amun, the Egyptian god of creation and king of the gods. The crown on Ramesses II’s head, which represents the union of Lower and Upper Egypt, differs from those he wears on the other three sides of the obelisk.
Olette-Pelletier determined that only nobles, who traveled to Luxor Temple by boat, would have seen and understood the message. “Given the angle of approach, the nobility would have seen the hidden message and reflected: ‘the king confirms himself as god incarnate, who cannot be dethroned,'” explained Olette-Pelletier. “It was propaganda aimed at the very high intellectual elite.”
In Ancient Egypt, Text and Image “Were One”
Another hidden message appears on the side of the obelisk that once faced the desert. It depicts Ramesses II wearing a bull horn headdress, further emphasizing his divine power. The image is paired with a reference to an offering table, instructing viewers to make offerings to the gods. Olette-Pelletier explained, “In our written language, we can now clearly distinguish the text from the image. These new discoveries remind us that among the Egyptians, they were one.”
These crypto-hieroglyphs reminded ancient Egypt’s nobility that Ramesses II was chosen by the gods to be pharaoh. Ramesses II ascended the throne relatively late, at age 25, after the death of his father, Seti. He commissioned the Luxor Obelisks early in his reign to reinforce his divine right to rule over Egypt. Today, Ramesses II is remembered as Ramesses the Great, one of the most powerful pharaohs of Egypt’s New Kingdom.
