OBELISK ODYSSEY

Ancient Egyptian obelisks show us deep connections between past and present, according to Ciccone’s winsome cultural meditation.

The author, a self-described “semi-retired world traveler,” recounts his quest to visit all the obelisks—slender, tall, four-sided monoliths tapering to a pyramidal cap—that 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’s Central Park, which visually rhymes with Manhattan’s ultra-thin skyscraper and, Ciccone contends, symbolizes the supersession of pharaonic absolutism by democracy. Also included is the monolith in Paris’ 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’s survey includes informative data on obelisks’ 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 (“in the growing dusk, with the help of another Scotch, it struck me that obelisks were mysterious—a still not entirely understood product built with a spiritual intent to satisfy ambitions for eternal life by bored and probably scared powerful men”). The result is a charming disquisition on a revealing facet of architectural history.

A wide-ranging survey of iconic landmarks featuring captivating lore and intriguing ruminations.