The city of Rome harbours thirteen ancient obelisks, the most in the world. There are eight ancient Egyptian and five ancient Romanobelisks in Rome, together with a number of more modern obelisks; there was also until 2005 an ancient Ethiopian obelisk in Rome.
At least eight obelisks created in antiquity by the Egyptians were taken from Egypt after the Roman conquest and brought to Rome.
Ancient Roman obelisks
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At least five obelisks were manufactured in Egypt in the Roman period at the request of the wealthy Romans, or made in Rome as copies of ancient Egyptian originals.
Marconi, 1959, 45 m, in the centre of the EUR district, dedicated to Guglielmo Marconi, built for the 1960 Summer Olympics. 92 panels in white marble contain illustrations of Marconi's career and allegorical scenes.
^Lateranense at Circus Maximus in Rome: 41°53′6.31″N 12°29′14.45″E / 41.8850861°N 12.4873472°E / 41.8850861; 12.4873472 (Lateranense_Circus_Maximus)
^Vaticano at Forum Iulium in Alexandria, Egypt: 31°11′52.8″N 29°55′9.12″E / 31.198000°N 29.9192000°E / 31.198000; 29.9192000 (Vaticano_Alexandria)
^Vaticano at Vatican Circus in Rome: 41°54′5.82″N 12°27′14.94″E / 41.9016167°N 12.4541500°E / 41.9016167; 12.4541500 (Vaticano_Circus_of_Nero)
^Supported on bronze lions and surmounted by the Chigi arms in bronze, in all 41 m to the cross on its top
References
^"NOVA Online | Mysteries of the Nile | A World of Obelisks: Rome". PBS.
^ a b"Menhir's, Obelisks and Standing stones".
^Touring Club Italiano, Roma e Dintorni.
^ a bTravels and Adventures, Chapter 3, Pero Tafur, digitized from The Broadway Travellers series, edited by Sir E. Denison Ross and Eileen Power, translated and edited with an introduction by Malcolm Letts (New York, London: Harper & brothers 1926):
On the other side of it is a high tower made of one piece of stone, like a three-cornered diamond raised upon three brazen feet; and many, taking it for a holy thing, creep between the ground and the base of that tower. This was a work undertaken in honour of Julius Caesar and assigned for his burial, and on the top of it are three large gilt apples in which is the dust of the Emperor [sic] Julius Caesar, and certainly it is a noble edifice and marvellously ordered and very strange. It is called Caesar's needle, and in the middle and at the base, and even at the top, are a few ancient letters carved in the stone which now cannot well be read, but in fact they record that the body of Julius Caesar was buried there.
^L'Italia. Roma (guida rossa), Touring Club Italiano, Milano 2004
^Edward Chaney, "Roma Britannica and the Cultural Memory of Egypt: Lord Arundel and the Obelisk of Domitian", in Roma Britannica: Art Patronage and Cultural Exchange in Eighteenth-Century Rome, eds. D. Marshall, K. Wolfe and S. Russell, British School at Rome, 2011, pp. 147-70.
Wirsching, Armin (2003), "Supplementary Remarks on the Roman Obelisk-Ships", The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, 32 (1): 121–123, doi:10.1111/j.1095-9270.2003.tb01438.x, S2CID 233246649
Wirsching, Armin (2013), Obelisken transportieren und aufrichten in Aegypten und in Rom (3rd ed.), BoD – Books on Demand, ISBN 978-3-8334-8513-8
External links
A Google map showing the location of all the obelisks in Rome
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Obelisks in Rome (Andrea Pollett)
Obelisks of Rome (series of articles in Platner's Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome)
Obelischi di Roma
Obelisk of Psametik II and Augustus, erected by Pope Pius VI in Piazza Montecitorio