Obelisk: A History (Publications of the Burndy Library) [Paperback]

Benjamin Weiss (Author), Brian A. Curran (Author), Anthony Grafton (Author), Pamela O. Long (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 20, 2009 | ISBN-10: 026251270X | ISBN-13: 978-0262512701

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 special sort of power. 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. In each culture obelisks have taken on new meanings and associations. To the Egyptians, the obelisk was the symbol of a pharaoh's right to rule and connection to the divine. In ancient Rome, obelisks were the embodiment of Rome's coming of age as an empire. To nineteenth-century New Yorkers, the obelisk in Central Park stood for their country's rejection of the trappings of empire just as it was itself beginning to acquire imperial power. And to a twentieth-century reader of Freud, the obelisk had anatomical and psychological connotations. The history of obelisks is a story of technical achievement, imperial conquest, Christian piety and triumphalism, egotism, scholarly brilliance, political hubris, bigoted nationalism, democratic self-assurance, Modernist austerity, and Hollywood kitsch--in short, the story of Western civilization.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A fascinating account of the way a bizarre Egyptian luxury object became an essential symbol (of many and shifting meanings) for a bewildering variety of places, religions, cultures, and governmental systems, from the Rome of the Caesars to the Washington Mall. An erudite and witty tour by four expert guides, with illustrations as delightful as the story they have to tell, a story that leaves obelisks, like all great enigmas, with their aura of mystery intact."-- Ingrid D. Rowland, University of Notre Dame and author of Giordano Bruno: Philosopher/Heretic

About the Author

The many meanings of obelisks across nearly forty centuries, from Ancient Egypt (which invented them) to twentieth-century America (which put them in Hollywood epics).

Brian A. Curran is Associate Professor of Art History at the Pennsylvania State University. Anthony Grafton is Henry Putnam University Professor of History at Princeton University. Pamela O. Long is an independent historian. Benjamin Weiss is Manager of Adult Learning Resources at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Brian A. Curran is Associate Professor of Art History at the Pennsylvania State University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (March 20, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 026251270X
• ISBN-13: 978-0262512701
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #663,267 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #92 in Books > History > Ancient > Africa

More About the Author

Pamela O. Long is a historian of premodern European history and the history of science and technology. She is working on a cultural history of engineering in Rome between the great flood of 1557 and the death of pope Sixtus V in 1590.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Up to a Point, June 9, 2009

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R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Obelisk: A History (Publications of the Burndy Library) (Paperback)

The ancient Egyptians hardly knew how influential they would be when they put up obelisks. Pyramids are, of course, more impressive, but if you build a pyramid, it is going to stay where you put it no matter what. Obelisks may weigh hundreds of tons, but they are still to some extent portable, and they have been exported, to various world capitals for various reasons. In _Obelisk: A History_ (The MIT Press), historians Brian A. Curran, Anthony Grafton, Pamela O. Long, and Benjamin Weiss tell about the origins of the obelisks, their travels, and what different societies at different times have made of them. It is a comprehensive survey, with many fine illustrations, indicating the universal appeal of these objects. The appeal is also shown by people building new ones, like the Washington Monument, or using obelisks on a mantelpiece for interior design, or using them as part of a New Age healing process. While this book touches on those new uses, it is mostly a fascinating review of the original Egyptian obelisks, mysterious objects that have retained their power over the centuries.

The classic obelisk is made out of one single stone. Any ruler who could cause such massive objects to be carved out of stone, moved from the quarry, and set upright (usually at the entrances of temples) was someone formidable. There are pictures from tombs and temples showing how the Egyptians did this, but details of the process are still mysterious. Plenty of these obelisks wound up in Rome, and were capped with crosses, but the game of borrowing this sort of glory from the ancient stones was practiced before Christianity. That the stones came from pagan sources was a worry, so part of the ceremony of installing an obelisk was to exorcise the stone. The one in St. Peter's had a bishop solemnly climb a ladder, sprinkle it with holy water, and speak a modified baptismal proclamation to it "... that you may be an exorcised stone." The obelisk had been erected in the Vatican Circus around 37 CE by Emperor Nero, but its move in 1586 (and its baptism) were necessitated by the new layout of St. Peter's. The move was a huge engineering feat, a long-running street drama that throngs appreciated. The engineers could not use any hints from their Egyptian or Roman predecessors, for the ways the ancients had moved the obelisks were long since forgotten (similar to how the language carved upon the stones had been forgotten). Domenico Fontana was the engineer of the move, which required, among other things, lowering the stone by the use of forty capstans, each with three or four horses, and all exquisitely coordinated by a trumpet blasts and bells. By the 1870s when London and New York were contemplating setting up separated twin obelisks, "Cleopatra's Needles" (they weren't Cleopatra's) from Heliopolis, the engineering task of moving the needles was still huge, but the tools had changed. In the eighteenth century, the engineers were still using the wood, rope, and iron which would have been familiar to the ancient Egyptians. By the nineteenth century, there were steam engines, steel cable, and hydraulic jacks. In London, the needle produced an outpouring of Christian sentiment, since it was claimed that Moses himself and the toiling Israelites must have looked upon the monument. The needle in New York produced, unsurprisingly, a round of advertising, like the picture of Cleopatra improbably inserting a thread into her enormous needle, and hawking Imperial Diamond sewing needles. There was also the _Grand Obelisk March_, the _Obelisk Waltz_, and the _Obelisk Polka_.

The authors in respective chapters have covered the engineering of moving the obelisks at different times, as well as the role obelisks have played in Egyptology, nationalism, magic, and crankery. There is some repetition within the chapters, excusable in such a broad overview from different authors, but the big book with its many illustrations, is not a heavy academic tome. It is a clear meditation on the symbolic power of architecture, and the fact and fancy that through the centuries people have made of these imposing and intriguing objects.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Truly valuable and Illuminating account of the Obelisk, February 27, 2011

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R. Knapp (MT USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Obelisk: A History (Publications of the Burndy Library) (Paperback)

The obelisk drew my attention when I got wind of its utility as a scientific instrument and its use by Copernicus to chart the night skies and derive his astronomical theories. In particular, I learned of this by reading a book on Rheticus, who published Copernicus' treatise and who advocated for the obelisk. I am interested in ancient scientific instruments, so I was very interested in finding information. What I found was a lot on mysticism.

What I found in this book is a more academic accounting for the obelisk. First, the obelisk is pretty much mystic. Study of it, and man's fascination with it, is more of a psychological study than a study of scientific measurement. Even in his day, Rheticus was an embarrassing anachronism to those who pursued science. He promoted mysticism and the ways of the ancients, sort of a reminiscence of "the good old days, when things were better". In the Age of Enlightenment, Rheticus looked backward rather than forward. The rediscovery of ancient knowledge had become passe, and science was striving forward. Thus, Rheticus, in his wrong-thinking passion forced strongly worded discreditation by the Doyens of his day. Thus, while I read the biography of Rheticus to find understanding of his, seemingly paradoxical, obscurity; it was this book that explained it to me. (That Rheticus was a sexual pervert may have also been a factor.)

That quip is an obscure facet of this book. The obelisk is a complex expression of incredible human imagination, manual skill, and engineering accomplishment. It has been used to express religious passio, power, conquest, and (likely, relatedly) sexual potency. For instance, The State of Texas-- at San Jacinto, battle site of its independence-- constructed an obelisk, a (bigger) copy of the Washington monument-- to represent its republic.