When I began this journey I never realized how long it would take me to get back to Istanbul. It has been a revelation to me to find how many obelisks were brought to Rome. It is consequently as surprising that the New Rome, Constantinople, has only a single Egyptian Obelisk.
I have already written a post about the Walled Obelisk which mentioned the Obelisk of Theodosius, but this post is dedicated to the Egyptian pillar. There may only be one Egyptian Obelisk in ancient Constantinople, but it is without doubt a very fine specimen.
The original quarry work on this obelisk may have been started in the reign of Hatshepsut, with whom I began the Obelisk thread. But by the time it came to dedicate the stone and erect it Thutmose III, also Thutmose the Great, was on the throne in Egypt. He ruled in the 18th Dynasty from 1479 to 1425 BC. This was the first dynasty of the New Kingdom after the expulsion of the Hyksos rulers.
Thutmose erected the obelisk south of the seventh pylon at the great Temple to Amon-Re at Karnak.
Almost 1,800 years later the Roman Emperor Constantius II celebrated twenty years of his rule in 357 AD. He had two great obelisks moved from Karnak to Alexandria. The Lateran obelisk was shipped to Rome and mounted on the spina of the Circus Maximus. The other obelisk remained in Alexandria until 390 AD.
Theodosius I who is also known as Theodosius the Great was deemed great by the Christian Church for his delivery of the Nicene Creed. He was the last Roman Emperor to rule before the formal split between the Eastern (Byzantine) and Western Empires. Born in Spain he rose to power following the disastrous defeat by the Goths of Valens at Adrianople. He was a capable military commander, negotiating successfully through two civil wars and negotiating settlements with the Goths and the Sassanids that delivered stability to the Empire.
His court needed to move from place to place depending on circumstances. At times he had his capital in modern Lyon in France, or in Milan in Italy, or in Istanbul in Turkey. While in Istanbul, then known as Constantinople, he improved the Hippodrome, the main centre for public entertainment in the City. Regular chariot races between the Demes, known by their colours as the Reds, Whites, Blues and Greens were the sporting lifes blood of the city. The chariot fan clubs known as Demes were more than sports ultras. They peformed important public service in the city. They helped rebuild the walls after earthquakes, and operated a labour organizers, enforcers and as a form of mafia. Keeping the Demes happy was a political necessity in Constantinople, as Justinian learned during the Nika riots.
Theodosius shipped the obelisk from Alexandria in 390 AD for a renovation of the Hippodrome and his name is the one that stuck to the monument. During transport either from Karnak to Alex or from Alex to Constantinople, or during erection in the Hippodrome, the obelisk was damaged, losing 12 metres of its height. Erection on a Marble base, which commemmorates Theodosius’ victories and deeds, helped re-elevate it somewhat.
Today it sits in Sultan Ahmet Square beside the Blue Mosque of Istanbul. Turkish attention is firmly directed towards the Mosque and the ancient hippodrome is a ghost of its former glory. Many of the treasures that adorned the Spina and the Hippodrome were stripped of their wealth in the years before, during and in the 100 years of Latin rule after the sack of the city by the 4th crusade in 1204 AD.
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