Obelisk

“A single stone, and it will outlive us all.”

Unique building of Egypt — replaces the Temple.

The Obelisk is a monolithic spire of granite, quarried in one piece, carved with the deeds of gods and pharaohs, and raised point-first at the gate of a temple district. It is devotion expressed as engineering — and the workforce that raises an obelisk can raise anything.

Stats

Effects

• +2 culture per turn in the city.
• +1 production per turn in the city.

The Obelisk counts as a Temple for all purposes: it satisfies the Cathedral’s prerequisite, and Egypt cannot build an ordinary Temple.

Strategy

Mysticism costs 15 research — it can be Egypt’s first technology — and the Obelisk turns that early pick into a hammer in every city for the rest of the game. For the wonder-building civilisation that production is exactly where you want it: an Obelisk city finishes its discounted wonders sooner still. Culture output is unchanged from the Temple, so nothing is lost; the production is simply a gift. Open with Mysticism, raise Obelisks, then let Monuments of Eternity do the rest.

Historical Background

Ancient Egypt raised obelisks in pairs at temple entrances for over two thousand years, each cut as a single piece of Aswan granite — the unfinished obelisk still lying in its quarry would have weighed over a thousand tonnes. So potent was their symbolism that later empires carried them off wholesale: more ancient Egyptian obelisks now stand in Rome than in Egypt, and others mark the centres of Paris, London, and New York.