Only in Paris by Duncan J.D. Smith

25 2 nd Arrondissement column, with palm leaves on top. The four sphinxes around the base were added in 1858 by Napo- leon III (1852–1870). More than a hundred sphinxes watch over Paris today. The taste for things Egyptian long outlived Na- poleon. In 1829 a 23 metre- high granite obelisk taken from a temple at Luxor was presented by Muham- mad Ali Pasha, Viceroy of Egypt, to Charles X (1824– 1830), together with a dozen mummies. The obe- lisk was erected in 1836 in Place de la Concorde (8 th ), where it now acts as a gno- mon for the world’s larg- est sundial. The mummies meanwhile were re-buried in the Louvre gardens, where they were joined by the bodies of victims of the July 1830 Revolution. Louis-Philippe I (1830–1848) then removed the bodies to a vault beneath the Colonne de Juillet at Place de la Bastille (4 th ), although it wasn’t until later that the inclusion of the mummies was noticed! A more modest obelisk marks the grave of Jean-François Champol- lion (1790–1832) in the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise (20 th ). He estab- lished the Egyptian collection in the Louvre, and in 1822 unlocked the mystery of Egyptian hieroglyphics using the Rosetta Stone. His is one of a dozen Egyptian-inspired tombs in the cemetery, Ancient Egypt having long been associated with eternity. Other places of interest nearby: 8, 9, 10 Egyptian-style busts adorn the outside of the Passage du Caire