the.com/pylon
the skeletal giant holding civilization aloft on outstretched steel arms, humming with borrowed lightning
means A tall structure, especially a steel lattice tower carrying high-voltage electrical cables across the landscape, though the word also covers monumental gateway-towers and tall markers used to guide movement.
from From the Greek 'pylon,' meaning gateway, built from 'pyle,' a gate or entrance. The original pylons were the massive tapering towers that flanked the entrances of Egyptian temples — solemn stone bookends to a sacred doorway. The word kept its 'gateway' sense for centuries, then in the early 20th century was stretched to fit the new steel towers striding across countrysides with their power lines, as if each one were a doorway through which electricity, and the modern world, came marching in.
- voltage
- Largest carry over 750,000 volts each
- design contest
- Famous 1927 lattice won an industry competition
- the hum
- Buzzing comes from air ionizing around wires
- height
- Tallest tops 1,100 feet over Chinese rivers
- name origin
- Borrowed from Egyptian temple gateways
eiffel tower — iconic iron lattice tower in paris, france, built 1889
hoover dam pylons — concrete towers flanking the dam on colorado river between nevada and arizona
pylons at karnak temple — massive stone gateway structures at karnak, egypt, built by pharaohs around 1550 bce