Just about every tourist finds themselves at the Spanish Steps at some point. What’s surprising, is finding an Egyptian obelisk at the top. It’s strange thing but there are more Egyptian obelisks in Rome than in Egypt. After the conquest of Egypt, the ancient Roman emperors helped themselves. Despite the enormous logistical difficulties involved with transporting these giant granite stones, they shipped around 50 of the things off to Rome anyway, and used them to decorate stadiums and mausoleums. Later, popes re-purposed them to decorate piazzas and palaces. This one was most likely brought to Rome by Aureliano and decorated the Gardens of Sallust until it was torn down by the invading Visigoths in the 5th century. Broken and abandoned, it lay forgotten for centuries until Pope Pius VI had the obelisk installed here in 1789. As far as obelisks go, it’s rather small, standing at just under 14m tall (30m with pedestal). With four tapered sides and made from a giant single piece of red granite, it looks like a traditional Egyptian obelisk but it’s a bit of a fake. Although it was made in Egypt from the Aswan quarries, it was made during Roman times (not Egyptian times). The hieroglyphs are not authentic and were only added after the monument arrived in Rome. They were copied (rather badly) from the obelisk at the Piazza del Popolo. Whether the bloke on the job got bored or was just sloppy, it’s hard to know but he managed to copy some symbols back-to-front and others, upside down. There are also some distinctly non-Egyptian, Christian symbols, the most obvious being the cross and the lily and star which form Pope Pius VI’s coat of arms.

This is a rather lovely (yet not too impressive) obelisk, located at the top end of the Spanish Steps. The location of the obelisk provides a nice photo-op with the church at its background.