No walk on Wednesday because we went to see a dance performance by Alban Elved, which collaborates with dance programs at area high schools. The performance was at the Reynolds Auditorium, and this gave us an opportunity to re-visit one of last summer's discoveries, the Winston-Salem obelisk. Obelisks were first used as monuments in ancient Egypt. The oldest surviving Egyptian obelisk is found at the site of the ancient city of Heliopolis, and was erected around 1900 BCE. The world's tallest obelisk is the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., erected in 1884. We suspect that there are other obelisks in Winston-Salem (most likely in cemetaries or hidden in gardens) but haven't yet found any. What is an obelisk? It is simply a tall stone pillar having a rectangular cross section that tapers towards a pyramidal top, although some definitions specify that a true obelisk must be monolithic (which this one seems to be). Jon took this photo the evening of July 17, 2008. The origin of the Winston-Salem obelisk will be revealed in a later post.
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