Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Pigeon and Obelisk


This pigeon took off just as I was snapping an IPhone picture of the obelisk of Rameses II in Piazza del Popolo.  

Augustus brought the obelisk to Rome from Heliopolis in 10 BC where it was erected at the center of Circus Maximus, but it was toppled when the Goths invaded Rome around 410 or so, and it was lost in the rubble for more than a 1,000 years.

Excavated and repaired, it was moved to Piazza del Popolo in 1589 by Pope Sixtus V who needed monuments on which to center his new street grid for the growing city.

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