The Obelisk and Tomb of Antinous

This article is from Ancient Egypt issue 151

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The Obelisk of Antinous, also known as the Pincian Obelisk, was found in the 16th century in Rome near the Porta Maggiore, on the ruins of the Circus Varianus. It had been placed there by the Emperor Elagabalus (AD 218-222) as an ornament for his chariot-racing arena within the palace estate known as the Horti Spei Veteris, on the Esquiline Hill.

The obelisk had originally been commissioned by Hadrian (AD 117-138) after the death of his favourite, Antinous. It was long thought that the obelisk was originally erected at Antinoöpolis in Egypt, but evidence now suggests that Hadrian erected it at his villa near Tivoli, and it may be part of the now missing tomb complex of Antinous. Inscriptions on the obelisk represent the only contemporary texts from the cult of Antinous, and may point to where Antinous was actually buried.

History

The obelisk is a monolith made of pink granite from Aswan. It now measures 9.25m in height, but reaches 17.26m on its modern base and pedestal. The pyramidal apex, or pyramidion, of an Egyptian obelisk was usually covered with a leaf made of an alloy of gold and silver (electrum) that reflected the sun’s rays. Egyptian obelisks were sometimes inscribed with small cartouches bearing the name of the sovereign, and depictions of deities. However, the Antinous obelisk and the Egyptian obelisks brought to Rome were given a decorative bronze element of various shapes and sizes.

The obelisk was discovered in three pieces in 1570, having been toppled during the sack of Rome by the Ostrogoths in AD 547. In 1527, the Italian humanist Andrea Fulvio had described the vineyards and orchards that stood on the site of the Circus Varianus, and the remains of the obelisk that lay broken, already in three parts.

Following its rediscovery, the broken obelisk was purchased by Cardinal Francesco Barberini in 1632, whose family donated it to Pope Clement XIV in 1773, and subsequently restored and moved to its current position on the Pincian Hill by Pope Pius VII in 1822. On the white marble pedestal, a Latin inscription is carved that reads:

Pius VII, Pope and Pontiff, in the 23rd year of his pontificate [1823], the Aurelian Obelisk [which here means coming from the vicinity of the Aurelian Walls] that alone had remained, broken by the injury of time and long forgotten, wanted it to be restored to its ancient appearance and erected in this place, to adorn as an extraordinary monument the pleasant promenade of the Pincio open to the public.

It is possible the Pincian Obelisk is, in fact, one of a pair. A fragment of a pink granite obelisk is held in the collection of the Capitoline Hill. Only part of two sides is preserved, with hieroglyphic inscriptions delimited by parallel vertical lines typical of the Roman age. The only legible part consists of ‘Osiris A…’, an inscription that can plausibly be extrapolated to ‘Osiris A[ntinous]’. As the Pincian Obelisk is the only other obelisk in Rome with an association between Osiris and a name whose initial is ‘A’, this suggests that these fragments are from a second Antinous obelisk that formed a pair with the Pincian Obelisk.

Hieroglyphic inscriptions

The obelisk inscriptions were first studied and translated in 1896. This proved to be quite difficult, as the text inscribed on the four sides of the obelisk was carved in Rome by local artisans who, although possessing the elements of the grammar of the Egyptian language, were not very familiar with the methods of hieroglyphic writing. For this reason, the hieroglyphs they inscribed appear uncertain and imprecise.

The inscriptions engraved on the obelisk of Antinous differ from the customary formulas and conventional phraseology that characterise most other obelisks. Instead, they give a contemporary account of the funerary honours bestowed on Antinous, the process that led to his deification, and the institution of the cult of Osiris-Antinous. It also announces the foundation of Antinoöpolis, the city in Egypt dedicated to Antinous, and the construction of a temple for Osiris-Antinous before Ptah-Tatenen.

Immediately below the pyramidion, the four faces of the obelisk are decorated with scenes of worship, with three sides depicting Osiris-Antinous facing Thoth, Amun, and Ptah-Tatenen, and a fourth side depicting Hadrian in the presence of Ra-Horakhty. Along the remaining part of each shaft there are two columns of text to be read from right to left, and orientated according to the cardinal directions (north, south, east, and west). Among scholars there is no consensus regarding the order that the inscriptions should be read; indeed, it has been suggested that, as each face has a stand-alone text, no particular order is implied.

In the inscription, the protocol follows the Egyptian tradition, with the personal name of the emperor in a cartouche: ‘Lord of the Crowns, Caesar Hadrian’. His imperial consort Sabina is mentioned as well, her name – also within a cartouche – is preceded by the title ‘Mistress of the Two Lands’. Although he was deified, Antinous was not granted royal connotations, and his name never appears inscribed within a cartouche. An interesting aspect of this inscription is that the name of the city of Rome is written in the Egyptian language, namely ‘homre’.

The hieroglyphic inscriptions

EAST: The east side of the obelisk (which faces the rising sun) depicts Hadrian offering to Ra-Horakhty. In the text below, Antinous implores Ra Horakhty to reward Hadrian for all that he had done on his behalf, asking him to give Hadrian and his wife Sabina a long and prosperous reign:

 the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, establisher of the doctrine [concerning me] in the temples of all men and whose heart the gods rejoiced [the Beloved of] Hâpy and all the gods, the Crowned [Hadrian Caesar], may he live, prosper, and be in good health, and may he live eternally [like Rê]! 

NORTH: On the north face, Antinous is before Amun, who holds a palm branch ending in a frog (symbol of ‘100,000 years’). The text below describes Games held at Antinoöpolis in his honour and refers to his birth – the outcome of a union between a god and mortal woman – and his cult:

He goes from the place dedicated to him to many sanctuaries all over the earth because he hears the prayer of the one who calls upon him…

WEST: On the west side (the direction of the setting sun), Antinous is shown before the ibis-headed god Thoth. Antinous asks Thoth to grant him the salvation of his soul, and the god says these words to him: ‘I give you festivals for thousands of years’. The text recalls Antinous’ personality during his earthly life, his death as decreed by the gods and the subsequent funerary rites, the establishment of a cult destined to become universal, the place assigned to him in the afterlife, and the faculty granted to him to manifest himself to human beings at his own discretion.

All the rites of the ‘Hours of Osiris’ were renewed for him, and all the operations of his mummification were done in secret…

SOUTH: At the top of the south face, Antinous faces the erased image of a god who is no longer identifiable. The text below describes the founding of Antinoöpolis and the building of a temple to him in the city: 

 There is a temple of this god, whose name is ‘the Osiris Antinous’, justified, built of beautiful white stone; sphinxes are around it and statues and many columns… 

Where is Antinous buried?

The exact location of Antinous’ burial is unknown but has been the subject of much debate. Some scholars believe Hadrian buried his favourite in Egypt in the city built for him, at a sacred site associated with the funerary temples and tombs there. However, no shrine or tomb for Antinous has been identified at Antinoöpolis as yet.

If the Pincian Obelisk was part of a mortuary complex, then its original position may indicate the location of the tomb. However, the place where it was found, in the area of the Circus Varianus, is unlikely to be its original location, unless new archaeological and literary evidence emerges to prove that this area was an imperial possession at the time of Hadrian.

Burial in Egypt?

Plausible clues that might suggest the original location of both the obelisk and Antinous’ tomb appear to come from the French Egyptologist Jean-Claude Grenier’s re-reading of part of the obelisk’s hieroglyphic inscription in 2008. A phrase inscribed on the south face (Column I) of the obelisk has a gap where the preposition is missing. Determining this missing word is essential for a correct interpretation of the text:

The god [Antinous] who is there [deceased] rests in this consecrated place that is hidden in the fields of the lands of the ‘Lord of Prosperity’ (princeps) […] Rome [Hadrian]…

Previous translations read this as ‘princeps [of] Rome’. So this interpretation suggests Antinous was buried on property belonging to the emperor of Rome – which could be lands owned by Hadrian in Egypt (Antinoöpolis). By contrast, Grenier’s translation: ‘princeps [in] Rome’ could suggest that Antinous rests in Hadrian’s property in Rome.

This claim has been countered by G H Renberg. He believes that, according to the Greek tradition, a founding hero had to be buried in the city dedicated to him. In this regard, the testimony of Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis in Cyprus (AD 310-403), is illuminating. In his work Ancoratus, or ‘the human being who is firmly anchored’ (in faith), the saint attacks the deification of loved ones by princes and tyrants. He leads with the example of Hadrian and Antinous: ‘in the same way, Antinous was deified, buried by Hadrian in Antinoöpolis in a model of a boat’.

If Antinous was buried in Egypt, then it is possible his body was transferred to Rome in a later era. Grenier believed this was the case. After the end of Hadrian’s reign, the Romans would have wanted to ‘get rid of the cumbersome relic’ in an era when the cult of Antinous had faded – perhaps under Antoninus Pius (AD 138-161). The operation of transferring the body of would not have presented any difficulty, as Antinous’ body was most likely mummified and, in Roman times, the transport of mummies was widely practised. But this hypothesis is generally dismissed: the text would have explicitly named Egypt or Antinoöpolis, as it does elsewhere, and if the tomb had been in Antinoöpolis, the later transfer of the obelisk to Rome would be difficult to explain.

Burial in Rome?

If Antinous’ original burial was in Rome, where is the tomb? Clues may be found in the reading of the same south-face text regarding Hadrian’s property: ‘in the fields of the lands of the “Lord of Prosperity” [princeps] […] Rome [Hadrian]’. The Egyptian word here translated as ‘fields’ can also be translated as ‘marshland’ or ‘countryside’, and has been translated by Grenier as ‘gardens’, referring to the Latin horti. In imperial Rome, the horti were large gardens in majestic villa complexes, surrounded by vegetation. If Antinous’ tomb had been in Egypt, it would not have been found in a garden or green area, but rather in a necropolis in a deserted place. So does the phrase ‘fields of the lands’ refer to burial in one of the Roman horti?

Grenier highlighted the two most likely imperial properties: the Horti Sallustiani in the north-east of Rome (originally owned by Caesar and later the historian Sallust) and the Horti Domitiae (to the north-west, on the banks of the Tiber). There has been some debate about the identity of ‘Domitia’: she may have been the aunt of Nero, or Domitia Longina, the wife of Domitian, but some scholars have argued the gardens belonged to Hadrian’s mother Domitia Paulina Major. Hadrian’s mausoleum was built in these gardens, so it is possible that he wished for the cenotaph – and/or tomb – of Antinous to be nearby.

Further clues were revealed in 1998, when the exavations at Hadrian’s Villa near Tivoli uncovered the remains of a complex structure thought to be a nymphaeum (a monument dedicated to a local water nymph). Further work in 2002 revealed the ruins of a funerary temple dedicated to Antinous as Osiris: the Antinoeion. The temple complex, believed to be the Cenotaph of Antinous, was built in the exotic style that became popular in Roman art after the Battle of Actium in 31 BC.

The structure consisted of a garden exedra (a curved structure with stone seating), with a 30-metre-wide semicircular colonnade, a pair of small temples facing each other, and flanked by the nymphaeum with niches and fountains. Faint traces of a square masonry base were found between the two small temples and it has been suggested that this was the original location of the Antinous obelisk, although some scholars argue that an obelisk would require a much stronger foundation. Was this centre for the cult of Antinous also his tomb?

Continuing mystery

Recent discoveries in Rome and more in-depth studies of the hieroglyphs of the Pincian Obelisk have revealed tantalising clues as to the location of Antinous’ tomb, but still we cannot be sure where Hadrian’s favourite was buried. Cenotaphs and temples were erected to him in Egypt and Rome, but where the body rests is still a mystery.

Acknowledgements: With thanks to Carole Raddato for use of her photographs. She explores the lives of Hadrian and Antinous in two online blogs: https://followinghadrian.com and https://antigonejournal.com.

Barbara Gai is a regular contributor to Ancient Egypt magazine, with articles on the pomegranate (AE 132), Tutankhamun’s embalming cache (AE 133), and cooking (AE 143). She graduated from the Faculty of Literature and Philosophy at the University of Firenze (Italy), specialising in Egyptology.

Further reading:
• M Z Sgalambro and S Sgalambro (2007) ‘The Antinoeion of Hadrian’s Villa: interpretation and architectural reconstruction’, American Journal of Archaeology 111: 83-104.
• J-C Grenier (2008) L’Osiris Antinoos (Montpellier: CENiM – Les Cahiers ‘Égypte nilotique et méditerranéenne).
• G H Renberg (2010) ‘Hadrian and the oracles of Antinous’, Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 55: 159-198.
• M T Boatwright (2018) Hadrian and the Cities of the Roman Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press).

All images: courtesy of Carole Raddato via Flickr, unless otherwise stated