Piece Of Art

I just received my copy of Obelisk: A History (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009), written by Brian A. Curran, Anthony Grafton, Pamela O. Long, and Benjamin Weiss, who are four art historians and historians. Let me give you an overview of this wonderful book. Publications of the Burndy Library shares this publication information: 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. For much of their history their inscriptions, in Egyptian hieroglyphics, were completely inscrutable. Yet over the centuries dozens of obelisks have made the voyage from Egypt to Rome, Constantinople, and Florence; to Paris, London, and New York. New obelisks and even obelisk-shaped buildings rose as well—the Washington Monument being a noted example. Obelisks, everyone seems to sense, connote some very specia...