Cleopatra's Needle

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Through June 8

New York

Uprooted from Egypt and desanctified as a cult object glorifying the sun god, an ancient obelisk stretches skyward from a knoll in Central Park just behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art. To help park visitors better understand this mysterious monolithic heirloom, Cecil B. DeMille, the flamboyant Hollywood showman who directed such screen epics as "Cleopatra" and "The Ten Commandments," in 1956 donated a set of bronze plaques elucidating the obelisk's hieroglyphic inscriptions.

The obelisk and its setting are sufficiently dramatic, but even if today's passersby were equipped to decode the tapering granite shaft, its cartouches and hieroglyphs are increasingly illegible and the stone itself begrimed by polluted air. Chips are falling off the 3,500-year-old monument at an accelerating rate. To focus attention on its history and plight, the Metropolitan Museum has an exhibit about the obelisk just as the artifact is about to undergo its most thorough preservation since arriving in 1880 as a gift of the Egyptian government.

The Central Park Conservancy is readying a half-million-dollar project to clean and stabilize the landmark this spring. Using a boom lift, conservators photographed every inch of the obelisk in March, and tested a laser device they expect to use in coming months to remove soot from its surface.