Right in the heart of Paris, a 3,000-year-old Egyptian obelisk has been keeping a few secrets of its own — until now. Standing tall in Place de la Concorde, the Luxor Obelisk has long drawn admiration for its grandeur. But now, thanks to a French Egyptologist with a knack for cracking codes, we’re seeing it in a whole new light. Jean-Guillaume Olette-Pelletier, a specialist in hieroglyphic cryptology at Sorbonne University, says he’s uncovered seven hidden messages buried within the carvings on the red granite monument. These aren’t just ordinary inscriptions. According to him, they’re cleverly disguised pieces of propaganda from the time of Ramses II, meant only for the elite of ancient Egypt. Uncovering ancient secrets in the heart of Paris The idea came to him during lockdown, when his daily walks often brought him to the obelisk. With renovation scaffolding set up ahead of the 2024 Olympics, he was able to get closer than ever to the top of the 22.5-metre column — and that’s where he noticed things others had missed. Instead of reading the hieroglyphs the traditional vertical way, he began experimenting by reading them horizontally. Suddenly, subtle puns and patterns started to appear, as if the monument was whispering its secrets across time. One message on the west-facing side — the one that would have been visible to passing noblemen sailing down the Nile — glorifies Ramses II’s divine authority. It wasn’t meant for the common people. It was a carefully placed piece of messaging to remind the powerful of who was really in charge. Decoding Ramses’ secret hieroglyphs for modern readers “I realised there were cryptograms embedded in the stone,” Olette-Pelletier told Sciences et Avenir. “They were intended for the intellectual elite — it was their way of speaking in the language of the gods.” One cryptic line urges people to make constant offerings to the gods to appease their volatile energy, with a bull’s horn cleverly used to represent divine anger. These weren’t just decorative carvings — they were carefully constructed symbols, meant to carry multiple layers of meaning. Olette-Pelletier believes Ramses wanted to remind those in the know that his power came directly from the gods — particularly Amun-Re and Maat — reinforcing the idea that the pharaoh wasn’t just chosen by the gods, but descended from them. Ancient Egyptian secrets revealed on Paris landmark The Luxor Obelisk was one of a pair originally erected at the entrance of the Luxor Temple in ancient Egypt. In the 1830s, Egypt’s then-ruler Muhammad Ali gifted both obelisks to France — although only one made the journey. The other still stands in Egypt today. Since arriving in Paris and being raised in Place de la Concorde in 1836, the obelisk has been a silent witness to French history — standing on the very ground where the guillotine once stood during the Revolution. And while the inscriptions were first translated in the 1820s, Olette-Pelletier’s work shows there’s still much to uncover. His research will be published in detail in the journal ENiM (Egypt of the Nile and Mediterranean), adding yet another layer to the story of a monument we thought we knew. As it turns out, even in the age of smartphones and satellites, some of the best stories are still hiding in plain sight — waiting for someone curious enough to look a little closer. Find more french news