Why is there an obelisk in Rome? There is more than one and the Romans took them from Egypt as a show of power.
During the Roman Empire, 50 obelisks were taken from Egypt and 13 of those survive today. 8 of those 13 were made in Ancient Egypt and the other 5 were commissioned by the Romans. The city of Rome has more obelisks than any other city, including all of the cities in Egypt.
What is an obelisk? An obelisk is a four-sided, tapered monument, which has a pyramid shape on top. The Egyptians called them “tekhenu”, but the Greeks called them “obeliskos”, which means “nail” or “pointed pillar”. The word went from Greek into Latin, from Latin to French, and from French into English. The Egyptians built them as Religious monuments and there were usually a pair of them outside temples. If there are single obelisks, then it meant that the Egyptians either hadn’t been able to plant the second one, or one of them had collapsed. The obelisk represented a sun beam from the sun god Ra. The obelisks were made of granite and were hewn directly out of the bedrock. The largest ones weighed several hundred tons and there are several theories about how they were built and moved. Modern experiments have shown that it is possible to cut and move them without using any modern tools. And, the fact that these monuments exist is obviously proof that it is possible to cut and move them without modern tools.
The first obelisks were built in the 24th century BC, but they were not so common. The building of obelisks really took off in the 16th century BC. Thutmose I put up a pair of obelisks at Thebes and successive pharaohs tried to outdo him. Most of the obelisks were built at the Egyptian city of Heliopolis, which was the site where the sun god Ra was first supposed to have appeared. It is just outside of Cairo, and it was the point where Ra created the Earth. Most of the Ancient Egyptian temples were built there and the first temples date back 4,600 years. Because there were so many temples, there were also a lot of obelisks, and most of the obelisks that ended up in Rome came from here.
So, why are there so many obelisks in Rome? The main reason is that they were a symbol of the power of the Roman Empire and of the emperor. Egypt became part of the Roman Empire in 30 BC, but Egypt had been reliant on Rome for a while before that. Egypt had been conquered by Alexander the Great in 332 BC and the pharaohs that came after him were more Greek than Egyptian. By the time they came into contact with Rome, the Ptolemaic pharaohs had controlled Egypt for 300 years and they were a wealthy state, but they didn’t have the power to stand up to the Romans. Caesar arrived in 49 BC during the Roman Civil War while he was chasing Pompey. He ended up living there for a while and becoming involved with Cleopatra, the last Ptolemaic pharaoh. After Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March, Cleopatra made a pact with Mark Anthony, but they were both defeated by Octavian, who became the Emperor Augustus. He conquered Egypt and made it part of the Roman Emperor.
Augustus wanted some monuments in Rome to celebrate his conquest of Egypt and he hit on the idea of the obelisks. He started with a pair of obelisks that Thutmose III, pharaoh in 1450 BC, commissioned at Heliopolis. It wasn’t easy to get them to Rome, but that made them even more important to him. His army used specially adapted boats that were much wider and stronger. They dug a canal from the Nile to the location of the obelisks and lowered them onto the boat. This was no easy feat because the obelisks weighed over 200 tons. The largest obelisk that was transported to Rome, weighed over 550 tons. These obelisks were then transferred to ships that would carry them across the Mediterranean. The obelisk was slung beneath three ships and was transported underwater. Once in Italy, they were raised using iron pulleys.
Augustus wanted the obelisks to show his power over Egypt, but he also wanted them for their religious significance. The obelisks were meant to honor the sun god Ra, and Rome had a sun god called Sol that Augustus wished to honor. To that end, one of the obelisks was placed in the Circus Maximus, which was a stadium first dedicated to Sol. Augustus had many other obelisks shipped to Rome as well. Emperors after Augustus carried on the tradition and 50 obelisks were transported all together. However, as Rome transitioned to Christianity, crosses were added to the tops of the obelisks. A lot of them have fallen down or been relocated to other places. The Romans also commissioned some obelisks themselves to be made in Egypt. The largest obelisk brought to Rome was transported in the 4th century, towards the end of the Roman Empire, and it was 32 m tall, weighing over 550 tons. And this is what I learned today.
Photo by Justine Lauzon: https://www.pexels.com/photo/fountain-of-the-four-rivers-and-sant-agnese-in-agone-church-in-piazza-navona-in-rome-17182356/
Sources
https://www.thebyzantinelegacy.com/roman-obelisks
https://www.carpediemtours.com/blog/why-is-the-egyptian-obelisk-in-rome
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_obelisks_in_Rome
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obelisk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Egyptian_obelisks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra%27s_Needles
https://pharaoh.se/ancient-egypt/obelisks
https://www.archaeology.org/issues/331-1903/features/7371-egypt-heliopolis-excavations