Yeah And We Think We're So Clever Today!!

[jones jones]

Aside from anything in museums, what would you say are the oldest works of Man still extant in Rome?

The oldest are neither Etruscan or archaic Roman, but Egyptian - the obelisks. The oldest is in the piazza at San Giovanni in Laterano and was ordered from Egypt by Constantine and re-erected by his son Constantius ll in AD 357 in the Circus Maximus. It carries the name of the 18th dynasty pharaoh Tuthmosis IV, about 1400 BC.

During the 19th century the transport of a single obelisk each to London, Paris and New York made headlines at the time and was the occasion for much self praise on the march of progress.

Yet believe it or not, Imperial Rome transported and set up no less than fifty obelisks!

Make you think, doesn't it?