The author, a self-described \u201csemi-retired world traveler,\u201d recounts his quest to visit all the obelisks\u2014slender, tall, four-sided monoliths tapering to a pyramidal cap\u2014that were quarried from Aswan granite in Upper Egypt, commissioned by pharaohs in the second millennium BCE, among them Queen Hatshepsut and Ramesses II. Ciccone saw 11 such monoliths in Egypt, but he focuses on those that now reside in other countries. They include the obelisk in New York City\u2019s Central Park, which visually rhymes with Manhattan\u2019s ultra-thin skyscraper and, Ciccone contends, symbolizes the supersession of pharaonic absolutism by democracy. Also included is the monolith in Paris\u2019 Place de la Concorde, which, the author asserts, rhymes with the Eiffel Tower and evokes the darkest elements of the French Revolution, and the one in Dorset, England, which has a Greek inscription that helped scholars decipher hieroglyphics and, the author says, bears witness to the need to unite people instead of dividing them. He also looks at eight obelisks brought to ancient Rome, whose people adored everything Egyptian; these monoliths were later topped with crosses and sited at churches. Ciccone\u2019s survey includes informative data on obelisks\u2019 heights, weights, representations of the sun god Ra, and migrations through the world, along with piquant sketches of the sites and colorful anecdotes; one tells of a 19th-century Italian architect who remounted an obelisk got his hand caught between the monolith and its new pedestal, he reports; his hand had to be amputated and remains under the obelisk to this day. Along the way, the author supplies a breezy travelogue and keeps up a perceptive, atmospheric commentary on human nature as revealed in the monuments (\u201cin the growing dusk, with the help of another Scotch, it struck me that obelisks were mysterious\u2014a still not entirely understood product built with a spiritual intent to satisfy ambitions for eternal life by bored and probably scared powerful men\u201d). The result is a charming disquisition on a revealing facet of architectural history.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The author, a self-described \u201csemi-retired world traveler,\u201d recounts his quest to visit all the obelisks\u2014slender, tall, four-sided monoliths tapering to a pyramidal cap\u2014that were quarried from Aswan granite in Upper Egypt, commissioned by pharaohs in the second millennium BCE, among them Queen Hatshepsut and Ramesses II. Ciccone saw 11 such monoliths in Egypt, but he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}