Xanten flew over an area where an antiquarian had di- rected excavations, revealing a plaza flagged with white stone, a broken obelisk, a tumbled statue.

The broken obelisk of Aššur-bêl-kala relates that the Assyrians raided Babylonia, early in his reign:

I recalled the rings I had bought in the shadow of the broken obelisk, and shuddered, though I do not believe Ardis observed it.

But an hour before sunset, on the second day, they followed the far-thrown shadows of broken obelisks and crum-bling watch-towers into the olden streets.

The same site yielded a broken obelisk that now crowns the graceful fountain in front of the Pantheon; its hieroglyphics are another tribute to Ramses II.

If you must know," said the old man, "it is beyond that broken obelisk.

He strode past the broken obelisk, into a wide court -the Place of Whispers.

The broken obelisk was left at its quarrying site in Aswan, where it still remains.

Temples, ziggurats, and broken obelisks lay strewn amid what had been-could be-a tropical paradise.

"I'll add a broken obelisk or two, and perhaps a headless colossus."