Obelisco Macuteo, Rome

Obelisco Macuteo rises from the fountain in Piazza della Rotonda, directly before the Pantheon. It is an Egyptian obelisk, among Rome’s thirteen ancient examples. The slim monolith measures six point three four metres by itself, and reaches fourteen point five two metres with its base.

At its tip, the carved royal frames name Pharaoh Ramses the Second. The stone began its life at the sanctuary of Amun-Re in Heliopolis, alongside the granite fragment now known as the Obelisco Matteiano. In antiquity, it stood within Emperor Domitian’s sanctuary of Isis, close to the Pantheon.

Pope Clement the Eleventh placed it on this late Baroque fountain in seventeen eleven; the inscription around the base commemorates that act. Here, Egyptian sacred imagery, an imperial Roman cult precinct, papal Rome, and the Pantheon share a remarkably small patch of pavement.