Egyptian Obelisks - Rome
Our itinerary in search of
ancient obelisks, often arranged by the popes
in the centre of squares and crossroads as
visual reference points,
starts from
piazza Navona. Here, in the centre of
the area that recalls, with its perimeter,
its original use for athletic games (see
Itinerary 8),
rises the famous Fountain of
the Four Rivers,
designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini to support a
magnificent obelisk.
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 obelìskos,
which means, perhaps
with a hint of not-so-involuntary irony,
skewer.
To extract the huge monoliths from the
quarries, the Egyptians allegedly
used a
tool similar to our drill, equipped with a
sort of stone or bronze milling-cutter,
whose abrasive action was greatly increased
by the use of sand.
Once it was detached
from the rock, the obelisk was made to
slide towards the river and hoisted up onto
a large flatboat to be carried to its
destination.
The erection took place using
an embankment: the progressive elimination
of the sand on which it rested made it
possible to bring the monolith
down onto
its base. The obelisks often broke during
these long, delicate operations, as proven
by the fragments found in the quarries or
on riverbeds.
Discovering Rome:
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