File:Watts Towers of Simon Rodia -- "The Ankh Within.".jpg

English: I am sure Simon Rodia had no idea that the support and connecting rods between two of the tall towers he created were formed in the shape of an 'ankh.' The Ankh is a symbol that is also known as breath of life, the key of the Nile or crux ansata (Latin meaning "cross with a handle"). It is an ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic character that meant "life." It is often interpreted to mean eternal life.

You can see the ankh symbol clearly in many of the traditional photographs of the Towers, but this particular shadow effect and the human passing by at the same time, is indelibly inscribed on my mind's eye... an unexpected essence manifesting itself, unabashedly.

Egyptian gods were often portrayed carrying the ankh by its loop, or bearing one in each hand, arms crossed over their chest. The ankh appears in hand or in proximity of almost every deity in the Egyptian pantheon (including Pharaohs). It is also widely used as a symbol of early religious pluralism: all sects believed in a common story of eternal life, and this is the literal meaning of the symbol. The New Age mysticism movement in the 1960s utilized the Ankh to symbolize the same tolerance of diversity of belief and common ethics as it did in Ancient Egypt.