The Philae obelisk is one of a pair of twin obelisks erected at Philae in Upper Egypt in the second century BC. It was discovered by William John Bankes in 1815, who had it brought to Kingston Lacy in Dorset, England, where it still stands today. The Greek and Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions on the obelisk played a role in the decipherment of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. Description The obelisk was originally one of a pair that stood at the east pylon of the temple of Isis at Philae. The other obelisk of the pair was broken into pieces in antiquity. The surviving obelisk consists of a long shaft, topped by a pyramidion and a rectangular base. The bottom of the shaft is a modern restoration. Including the modern base, it stands roughly seven metres tall. There are two inscriptions: a hieroglyphic text on the shaft and a Greek text on the base. An additional painted Greek text on the base was observed in 1815, but has now been lost due to weathering. The inscriptions are published in the Corpus of Ptolemaic Inscriptions as number 424. The inscriptions record a petition by the Egyptian priests at Philae and the favourable response by Ptolemy VIII Euergetes and queens Cleopatra II and Cleopatra III, who reigned together from 144-132 BC and again from 126-116 BC. The priests sought financial aid to help them deal with the large numbers of pilgrims visiting their sanctuary and the king and queens granted the sanctuary a tax exemption. The inscriptions deal with the same subject matter, but they are not a direct translation of one another. Acquisition Bankes noticed the obelisk in 1815, while travelling in Egypt and believed that the bilingual inscription would help with the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs. He accordingly acquired the obelisk and a single, large broken piece of its twin found at Philae and had them transported to his estate at Kingston Lacy in Dorset, England. The operation was carried out by the adventurer Giovanni Belzoni. The obelisk arrived in London in December 1821, making it the first Egyptian obelisk to be brought to the United Kingdom. Arthur Wellesley provided a gun carriage which transported the obelisk to Kingston Lacy in Dorset in 1829 and George IV provided Libyan granite which was used to repair the base of the obelisk's shaft. The obelisk was set up as a central feature of the gardens