Obelisk

Description

Nearly every empire worthy of the name–from ancient Rome to the United States–has sought an Egyptian obelisk to place in the center of a ceremonial space. Obelisks–giant standing stones, invented in Ancient Egypt as sacred objects–serve no practical purpose. This beautifully illustrated book traces the fate and many meanings of obelisks across nearly forty centuries–what they meant to the Egyptians, and how other cultures have borrowed, interpreted, understood, and misunderstood them through the years.