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informaciones tursticas -
Discovering Rome
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Discovering Rome
Egyptian Obelisks in Rome ( 3 hours)
Rome has been nicknamed the city of obelisks, since it is the city with by far the largest number. At present there are thirteen, although there are legends of a fourteenth obelisk buried near the church of San Luigi dei Francesi. The Emperor Augustus was the first to raise them, bringing two from Egypt; Caligula followed his example by raising one in the Circus Vaticanus and building in the Campus Martius the large temple dedicated to Isis and Serapis, in the vicinity of which 5 obelisks were later found; many Roman emperors continued to erect obelisks down through the 4th century, including Constantius II, who in 352 erected in the Circus Maximus the obelisk that now stands in front of St. John Lateran, the tallest and oldest obelisk in the world. In fact, it is 32.18 metres tall and dates from the 15th century B.C.
For the ancient Egyptians the obelisks were the simulacra of the sun god Atum-Ra. The apex represented the starting point of the ray, i.e. the centre of the sun's power, while the base represented the formless matter that the divine light of the sun transforms into cosmos. The first obelisks were erected at Heliopolis, a city dedicated to the sun, and were usually erected in the centre of the sanctuaries and next to temples. They are the relicts of an extremely remote age, when even stones were objects of worship! In Rome they completely lost their original meaning, and took on another: that of a sign of the greatness of the Roman Empire first, and the papacy later.
The term we use today to refer to obelisks, different from that used by the ancient Egyptians, is of Greek origin: it derives from obel |
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