" The stone, like the North African redware, the bronze saucepan from Italy, the ivory from India, the pottery water containers, the glass bottle in the shape of a West African head, made in Germany, the curator said, or Egypt — it was all a picture, a sculpture — an incidental passage of time, there upon a shelf on the wall. A line of stones that over time had no sure beginning or end to its construction. It was evidence of the other, that it had once been a bustling sort of city in the middle of nowhere, where different cultures came together. "

― Tara June Winch , The Yield