Busacca Gallery

This is a very colorful beautifully banded red and white agate obelisk. This remarkable and extravagantly modeled stone has been used to make specialty objects de virtue for thousands of years. This pair of obleisk is nicely matched and gives the full range of the materials qualities. Often found in geode form this material is hard to get in large pieces Stone carving is an ancient activity where pieces of rough natural stone are shaped by the controlled removal of stone. Owing to the permanence of the material, evidence can be found that even the earliest societies indulged in some form of stone work. The oldest known works of representational art are stone carvings. Often marks carved into rock or petroglyphs will survive where painted work will not. Carving stone into sculpture is an activity older than civilization itself.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obelisk

Obelisks were a prominent part of the architecture of the ancient Egyptians, who placed them in pairs at the entrance of temples. The obelisk symbolized the sun god Ra, or Re as some know him, and during the brief religious reformation of Akhenaten was said to be a petrified ray of the Aten, the sundisk. It was also thought that the god existed within the structure. The Romans were infatuated with Obelisks, to the extent that there are now more than twice as many Obelisks standing in Rome as remain in Egypt. All fell after the Roman period except for the Vatican Obelisk and were re-erected in different locations. The tallest Egyptian Obelisk graces the square in front of the Lateran Basilica in Rome. Rome is the obelisk capital of the world. The most prominent is the 25.5 m obelisk at Saint Peter's Square in Rome.