The Eye of the Queen

When I had finished typing out the report I returned my attention to the metal object standing on the workbench. There was no mistaking the words etched around the bottom section of the object:

THE EYE OF THE QUEEN HOLDS THE KEY

“Well it's in English,” I thought. “It could be in code, it could be a riddle, or it could a literal statement of fact. If it were literal fact, then the queen would not be a human being, but some type of object. If the eye were conventionally shaped, then it would have to be a pretty strange key that would fit into an eye.”

I put the metal object back on the bench and looked at it from a distance. “The object itself could be some sort of key,” I reasoned. “It was circular and could fit into the iris of a very large eye.” Picking up a magnifying glass, I examined the object minutely. On its base I could make out some tiny writing, which was difficult to see with the naked human eye. The letters read: NORTHGATE HALL.

“Ah ha!” I shouted. “The chess piece is connected to Northgate Hall!” In a flash I remembered the eye, the eye on the obelisk! “But an obelisk is a slab of stone, not a queen,” I thought, a little miffed. So what’s the story with obelisks? -

Egyptian obelisks originated from the granite quarries of Aswan. The term “Obelisk” is derived from the Greek word “Obeliskos”. It is a stone that is frequently monolithic, has a quadrangular base, is mounted vertically and terminates with a pointed tip. Obelisks were positioned in the centre of large open spaces in the temples of the solar god Ra.

Many obelisks were taken from Egypt over the years by invaders and foreign powers. The Roman Emperors brought numerous of these structures to Rome, a city which now has 13 obelisks (including the Vatican). When the Roman Empire was in decline the obelisks gradually collapsed, and remained buried in the ground until the Renaissance, when they were restored to their former glory.

The two of the most famous obelisks were made by the pharaoh Thutmose III in 1468 B.C. and were originally sited in the Temple of the Sun in Heliopolis. Queen Cleopatra had the obelisks moved to her palace at the city of Alexandria, and as a result, they have come to be known as Cleopatra’s Needles. One of these obelisks now resides in New York and the other on the Victoria Embankment on the banks of the River Thames. It stands about 21 metres tall and weighs nearly 200 tons.

The words “Cleopatra’s Needle” are ringing in my brain. “This could be the connection that I'm looking for,” I thought. “Cleopatra was a queen. The obelisk replica at Northgate Hall could have been inspired by Cleopatra’s Needle in London. Such being the case, the obelisk would be the needle of the queen.”

Then the words ‘eye of the needle’ entered my mind. “The eye on the obelisk could be the eye mentioned in the inscription on the chess piece. Such being the case, it could be considered as the eye of the needle, Cleopatra’s Needle. It may well be that the inscription was referring to the eye on the Northgate Hall obelisk. If this were true, then the chess piece could be a key that slots into the eye on the obelisk at Northgate Hall!”