The year is 1857. Sydney had been founded a mere 69 years earlier. Napoleon's adventures in Egypt only 50 or so years earlier still caused great interest in all things Egyptian.

The City Council, under the mayorship of George Thornton (whose name appears on the front of the obelisk, though you won't be able to read it when reduced to web size) erected an Egyptian style artefact complete with sphinxes. (Again, hard to make out in the web size image but that's what those things lying on the platform just above the base are.)

It may seem somewhat out of place or at least incongruous in an antipodean colonial town as Sydney then was, but it's been there now for a century and a half and chances are that most people pass it and don't even register its presence these days.

Oh, and why was it called "Thornton's Scent Bottle"? It's not purely decorative. In fact, it houses a sewer system vent. Sorry to spoil the magic for you there...

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