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Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · Hover to magnify, click for fullscreen
Original fileKircher-obelisco jeroglífico a la memoria de honorato juan
A tall obelisk dominates a landscape of mountains, trees, and circular ruins, topped with a small globe and covered in registers of symbolic carvings. These symbols include celestial bodies, various animals like the lion and crocodile, and figures in Egyptian-style dress. The engraving uses a mix of classical memorial tradition and 17th-century fascination with ancient Egyptian scripts.
Athanasius Kircher was a central figure in the Baroque effort to decipher hieroglyphs, viewing them through a Hermetic and Neoplatonic lens as divine symbols of universal truths. This print demonstrates how these 'mystical' symbols were co-opted into the intellectual culture of the time to honor scholars as conduits of ancient wisdom.
LIBER SECUNDUS. 235 OBELISCUS HIEROGLY PHICUS. Immortalitati HONORATI JOANNIS ere - ctus. HONORATI JOANNII GLORIAE ERECTUS.
Translation
BOOK THE SECOND. 235 HIEROGLYPHIC OBELISK. Erected to the immortality of HONORATUS JOANNES. ERECTED TO THE GLORY OF HONORATUS JOANNES.
Athanasius Kircher
Kircher's theories on hieroglyphs as symbolic, non-phonetic scripts are fully realized in this visual tribute.
Oedipus Aegyptiacus
This text contains Kircher's most extensive analysis and 'translations' of the symbolic language used on this obelisk.
Object
Engraving
scientific
Digital Source
Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
https://www.jbc.bj.uj.edu.pl/dlibra/publication/555022/edition/528226
Public domain
1648 × 2149 px
f0d8222ef390046896e64bedd586b261577417d7
March 23, 2021
March 24, 2026
Linked Data
AI AI-cataloged fields generated by gemini-3-flash-preview on April 1, 2026. Getty identifiers are AI-inferred and may require verification.