Obelisco Agonale

The Agonal Obelisk is a 16.55 m high Roman obelisk. It rises above Bernini's Fountain of Four Rivers in the center of Piazza Navona.

One of the inscriptions on the base of the obelisk reads: OBELISCUM AB IMP ANT CARACALLA ROMAM ADVECTUM, meaning the obelisk brought to Rome by Caracalla was moved from the ruins of the Circus Castrensis to Piazza Navona. In fact, it originally came from Emperor Domitian's Temple of Isis (Iseum Campense), which was located on the site of the present-day church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. It was probably erected by Emperor Maxentius at the beginning of the 4th century in Maxentius' Circus on the Via Appia. This obelisk was also not, as the inscription claims, brought to Rome by Caracalla as spoils from Egypt, but was specifically made for the Temple of Isis. It was erected at its current location in 1649 under the reign of Pope Innocent X, who, contrary to tradition, had not a cross but the dove with the olive branch, the heraldic symbol of the Pamphilj family, placed on top of the obelisk. The old Pamphilj family palace (now the Brazilian embassy) also stands on Piazza Navona next to the church of Sant' Agnese in Agone.

Elsewhere on the base, there is mention of NILOTICIS AENIGMATIBUS EXARATUM LAPIDEM, which can be translated as "the stone inscribed with Nilotic riddles"; this refers to the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Athanasius Kircher, commissioned by Pope Innocent X in 1650, attempted a first translation of the inscription of the Obeliscus Pamphilius, which he published in a book of the same name. However, this translation was more a product of imagination, as a correct translation was not yet possible at that time without the Rosetta Stone, found in 1799, and the work of Jean-François Champollion.