2026
Points in Space: from Ripon to Rome and back again, by Chris Parr
A few months after my holiday in Ripon, I find myself in Rome on a research trip. A quick diversion from the Via del Corso brings me face-to-face with the Montecitorio obelisk (Figure 1), the monument at the centre of my last blog (see December 2025). The obelisk that had once proudly stood at the sanctuary of Ra in Heliopolis, then at the centre of Augustus’ meridian complex, now keeps watch over the Palazzo Montecitorio, the headquarters of the Chamber of Deputies. As I look at the obelisk in person, I notice just how fragmented it is. The hieroglyphs are interrupted by plain slabs of granite, which seem to make up more of the obelisk than its original stone. The cracks snaking across the obelisk’s once solid surface reveal a fragility in the imposing monument. The same obelisk that was once the symbol of Rome’s Campus Martius is now a shadow of its former self. So, what happened after its installation in the Horologium Augusti that led to its placement in front of the modern palazzo with a more rugged appearance? To understand this, we should trace the history of subsequent obelisks in Rome.
Figure 1: The Montecitorio obelisk in the Piazza di Montecitorio, Rome (photo by author).
After Augustus’s obelisks, the next obelisk brought to Rome was the Vatican obelisk in AD 37 under Caligula [Figure 2]. Without any hieroglyphic inscription, it is not possible to determine exactly when the obelisk was created, but a Latin inscription confirms that the obelisk was erected in the Forum Iulium in Alexandria, by order of Augustus, when Cornelius Gallus was procurator of Egypt between 30 and 26 BC. This obelisk’s association with Augustus was made obvious by Caligula’s decision to place it on the spina (a row of monuments in the centre of the track) of the new Vatican circus, clearly imitating Augustus’ placement of the Flaminio obelisk on the spina of the Circus Maximus, and a gilt-bronze globe at the tip of the obelisk matched the two Augustan obelisks in Rome. It seems that Caligula was not concerned with the Egyptian significance of obelisks, as suggested by his selection of an obelisk that had no inscription and could not be linked to a particular Egyptian king, and his decision to only bring one obelisk to Rome when they were usually encountered in pairs. Instead, it seems that Caligula’s aim was to imitate Augustus in bringing an obelisk to Rome and setting it up just like the obelisk at the centre of the Circus Maximus, making the association even more blatant by using an obelisk which Augustus had set up in Alexandria. Whilst Augustus’ obelisks built upon their association with Egypt, Caligula’s obelisk was intended to build upon the memories of Augustus and demonstrate Caligula’s legitimacy as emperor.
Figure 2: The Vatican obelisk in St Peter’s Square, Vatican City (photo by author).
Many other obelisks were either brought to Rome or commissioned by subsequent Roman emperors, including several set up in the Temple of Isis in Rome as a nod to the Egyptian roots of the goddess. The final Egyptian obelisk to arrive in Rome was transported by Constantius II in AD 357. Constantius claimed that his father, Constantine, had brought two obelisks from Karnak to Alexandria to be transported to Constantinople, but had died in AD 337 before being able to have them shipped across the Mediterranean. Instead, Constantius decided that only one of the obelisks would go to Constantinople and brought the other one with him to Rome in AD 357. The echoes of the history of Roman obelisks resounded once more: just as Augustus introduced obelisks to Rome after consolidating his power by defeating Antony, Constantius had recently defeated Magnentius to confirm his position as sole ruler when he brought the obelisk to Rome. This connection was clearly not lost on Constantius, who had the obelisk (the tallest and oldest in Rome at 32 metres tall and dating to around 1400 BC) set up on the spina of the Circus Maximus, opposite the Flaminio obelisk placed there by Augustus. In this way, Constantius used an obelisk to imitate Augustus and create an association between the two, just as Caligula had done over 300 years earlier.
In the late 16th century, however, obelisks would take on a new significance thanks to Pope Sixtus V. By this time, the only obelisk left standing in Rome was the Vatican obelisk, brought to Rome by Caligula in AD 37, as discussed above. This obelisk, set up at the centre of the Vatican circus, the venue for the execution of many early Christians, had witnessed the martyrdom of Saint Peter – apostle of Jesus and first Bishop of Rome. As a result, the Vatican obelisk, as a relic of this most famous of martyrdoms, became a Christian monument. After years of planning, Pope Sixtus V moved the obelisk directly in front of the new site of St Peter’s Basilica, a painstaking project finally completed in 1586 with the help of the architect Domenico Fontana [Figure 3]. The obelisk was exorcised and adorned with a gilt bronze crucifix at its peak, cleansing the monument of its pagan past and making it suitable for its life as a Christian monument.
To emphasise the new Christian nature of obelisks, Sixtus V decided to re-erect three other obelisks in front of significant churches in Rome: the obelisk now known as the Esquiline obelisk was moved to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in 1587; the Flaminio obelisk was relocated to the Piazza del Popolo opposite the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in 1589 (after unsuccessful attempts to have it moved to the Basilica of St Paul’s Outside the Walls and the Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme); and the other obelisk in the Circus Maximus, the one brought to Rome by Constantius II, was set up in the piazza outside the Archbasilica of San Giovanni in Laterano in 1588. These obelisks were placed outside the key churches of Rome to create an association with St Peter’s Basilica and the martyrdom of the first Bishop of Rome.
Figure 3: Depiction of the structure used to transport the Vatican obelisk. From Fontana (1590) 12r. (Image: public domain, online at https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.18675400).
Subsequent Popes followed suit and had obelisks installed outside other key Christian buildings in Rome, but the Montecitorio obelisk would have to wait another two centuries to be relocated. Although the 4th-century AD Regionary Catalogue and the 8th-century AD Einsiedeln Itinerary both recorded that the obelisk was in situ in the Campus Martius at the time of writing, the obelisk had fallen at some point in the 12th century and suffered significant damage in a fire, breaking into several pieces. Fragments of the Montecitorio obelisk were found and partially excavated in 1511-12 under Pope Julius II (1503-1513), when a barber was digging a latrine 70m southwest of the church of San Lorenzo, but they were reburied. The polymath Athanasius Kircher rediscovered fragments of the obelisk in the basements of two different buildings in the 1660s, but the remnants could not be dug up until 1748, when the buildings above were knocked down. The obelisk was in a poor state, and new fragments of the obelisk are still being found today (as recently as 2021). The fragments of the obelisk were patched together with the nearest source of Aswan rose granite, the remnants of the Column of Antoninus Pius. In a moment of circularity, the base of the Column of Antoninus Pius had borne a representation of the obelisk (as discussed in Part 1) before the column was eventually damaged beyond repair in 1759. Finally, in 1792, the obelisk was re-erected in front of the Palazzo Montecitorio, then the seat of the papal law courts known as the Curia Apostolica, but now the headquarters of the lower house of the Italian Parliament.
Figure 4: The obelisk of Domitian at the centre of the Piazza Navona, now atop the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi, designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (photo by author).
Nowadays, at precisely 12 noon every day, a sunbeam strikes the earth through a hole in the globe of the Montecitorio obelisk, reminding us of its previous function. I think back to Ripon, where I had started thinking about obelisks because of the time-centric ritual there. The connection I had made between Ripon’s obelisk and those in Rome was not, it seems, an original one. Nicholas Hawksmoor, the Ripon obelisk’s architect, had wanted to create a public square like the Piazza Navona in Rome, at the centre of which stood the obelisk commissioned by Domitian [Figure 4]. This Roman inspiration may have also been linked to the belief that Ripon was originally a Roman town, and so the obelisk highlighted the connection between Rome and Ripon. And so, the originally Egyptian monumental form of the obelisk found itself reproduced over 2300 miles away to symbolise a Yorkshire town’s connection with Rome. Perhaps I can start to forgive the Montecitorio obelisk for looking a little tired now…
Bibliography:
Primary Sources
Ammianus Marcellinus, History, Vol. I: Books 14-19, ed. and trans. J.C. Rolfe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950).
Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Vol. X: Books 36-37, ed. and trans. D.E. Eichholz (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962).
Tacitus, P. Cornelii Taciti Libri qui supersunt. Tom. I: Ab excessu divi Augusti, ed. H. Heubner (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1994, 2nd edition).
Secondary Sources
Akehurst, A.-M. (2011) ‘Hawksmoor, Obelisk Language and the Yorkshire Campagna’, The Georgian Group Journal 19: 1-16.
Brier, B. (2016) Cleopatra’s Needles: The Lost Obelisks of Egypt (London: Bloomsbury).
Claridge, A. (2010, 2nd edn) Rome: An Archaeological Guide (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Curran, B. A.; Grafton, A.; Long, P. O.; Weiss, B. (2009) Obelisk: A History (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
Fontana, D. (1590) Della Trasportatione dell'Obelisco Vaticano et delle Fabriche di Nostro Signore Papa Sisto V fatte dal Cavallier Domenico Fontana Architetto di sua Santita Libro Primo (Rome: Domenico Basa).
Hewlings, R. (1981) ‘Ripon’s Forum Populi’, Architectural History 24: 39-52, 150-2.
Jordan, H. (1871) Topographie der Stadt Rom im Alterthum, Vol. 2 (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung).
Larcan, L. (2021) ‘Montecitorio, l'Obelisco ritrova il "pezzo mancante" dopo mille anni: l'indagine dei carabinieri’ Il Messaggero, Sunday 30th May 2021 (online: https://www.ilmessaggero.it/roma/news/montecitorio_obelisco_carabinieri_trovato_pezzo_dopo_mille_anni-5992282.html?refresh_ce).
Osborne, J. (2013) ‘Plus Caesare Petrus: The Vatican obelisk and the approach to Saint Peter’s’ in Old Saint Peter’s, Rome, eds. R. McKitterick, J. Osborne, C. M. Richardson, J. Story (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 274-286.
Richardson, L. (1992) A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (London: The Johns Hopkins University Press).
Roullet, A. (1972) The Egyptian and Egyptianizing Monuments of Imperial Rome (Leiden: Brill).
Rutledge, S. H. (2012) Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and the Culture of Collecting (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Sorek, S. (2010) The Emperors’ Needles: Egyptian Obelisks and Rome (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press).
Swetnam-Burland, M. (2010). ‘Aegyptus Redacta: The Egyptian Obelisk in the Augustan Campus Martius’, The Art Bulletin 92(3), 135-153.
(2015) Egypt in Italy: Visions of Egypt in Roman Imperial Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Vogel, L. (1973) The Column of Antoninus Pius (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
Walser, G. (1987) Die Einsiedler Inschriftensammlung und der Pilgerführer durch Rom [Codex Einsiedlensis 326] (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag).
This article was written by Chris Parr, a second-year PhD student in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Warwick, funded by Midlands4Cities. Chris’ research interests are the ancient built environment of the city of Rome, particularly Rome’s fora, and the experiences of different social groups in these spaces.
From Frontier to Flowerbed: Five Roman Stylobates in Filey, by Noah Fenwick
Visitors to the Yorkshire town of Filey are likely to remember its sandy beaches, framed by dramatically jagged cliffs and punctuated with ice-cream parlours, souvenir shops, and coffee shacks. They might also remember the clifftop Crescent Gardens, which separate the town’s high street from its esplanade. However, tourists pay little attention to the Roman archaeology these gardens conserve.
Figure 1: Frontal view of the Crescent Gardens flowerbed containing 5 Roman stylobate blocks (fifth hidden in top left). Author’s own image.
Figure 2: Three of the five stones within the Crescent Gardens flowerbed, Filey. Author’s own image.
Inside the gardens, nestled within an easily overlooked flowerbed, sit five large, roughly cuboidal blocks of dressed masonry, each with a stepped profile on all four sides, such that a subtly tapered upper tier rises from a broader base (Figs. 1-2). The heavily weathered blocks are still highly uniform, ranging from 38 to 56 cm in height, with an average base of approximately 83 cm². All that distinguishes one block from the others is a faint relief carving on its front face depicting a hound and a stag (Fig. 3).
Figure 3: Relief carving of a hound chasing a stag on one of the five stylobates in the Crescent Gardens, Filey. Author’s own image.
Beyond their general size and shape, the five stones share one highly distinctive feature: neatly carved into the top face of each is a centrally positioned square socket, measuring approximately 18 x 19 cm and cut roughly 6 cm deep. These sockets identify the blocks as stylobates, architectual elements designed to stabilise large, weight-bearing timbers that would have been set upright within them. Therefore, although careful curation has seamlessly integrated the stones into the garden’s decoration, the question arises as to how the five stylobates, originally functional rather than ornamental, came to rest in a flowerbed. As it happens, their modern arrangement is the result of a chance discovery in the mid nineteenth century made at Carr Naze, just north of the present-day town. The discovery was made in 1857, when heavy rainfall caused a landslip on the cliffs of Carr Naze that exposed Roman remains in the soil below. This accidental reveal prompted an excavation of the site on 12–13 October 1857, the results of which were published by Dr William Cortis one year later (Fig. 4).
Figure 4: Plan of the 1857 discoveries at Carr Naze, Filey, first published by Cortis in 1858. Image from: Birckstock et al, 2000, Illustration 65, p.84.
Cortis’ excavation report describes the five stones in situ, set into a floor of “puddled clay”. They were found arranged in a quincunx formation (four at the corners of a square and one in the centre, as on the fifth face of a standard modern dice), and enclosed on three sides by a surrounding wall. Whilst the 1857 excavation succeeded in bringing scholarly attention to Carr Naze, it was a product of nineteenth century archaeological practice, and much of the archaeology was displaced with significant gaps left in its interpretation. The five stones were relocated to Filey, and few of the small finds recorded at the time (coinage, pottery, bones, and shells) survive today.
However, Carr Naze has since been subject to two further archaeological investigations. The first, overseen by Simpson in 1923, was only partially recorded and never published. Nevertheless, it facilitated two important observations. Firstly, although doubt was cast on the reliability of multiple aspects of Cortis’ excavation report, the original quincunx arrangement of the stones within a central structure was confirmed. Additionally, Simpson highlighted similarities between features of the Carr Naze site and that of another Roman era clifftop complex (also excavated by Simpson) on the grounds of Scarborough Castle.
Then, in 1993–1994, a more comprehensive and thoroughly recorded excavation was undertaken by York Archaeological Trust in response to concerns over the risk posed to the site by coastal erosion. The resultant excavation report included a significantly amended site plan, providing much firmer grounds on which to interpret the nature and function of the site. (Fig. 5).
Figure 5: Site plan of York Archaeological Trust excavation of Carr Naze, 1993-1994. Image from: Birckstock, R. et al, 2000, Illustration 3, p.82.
This refined site plan reveals a small, rectilinear building at the centre of a walled enclosure. The quincunx arrangement of the stylobates within this relatively compact structure suggests that it took the form of a tower, thus requiring substantial structural support from its base. Additionally, excavation within the external enclosure revealed a cobbled pathway, likely linking the gated entrance to the tower itself, and a ditch running along the western side of the complex was found, separating the site’s single entrance from the mainland.
Figure 6: Plans of the Roman era clifftop sites of Huntcliff, Goldsborough, Scarborough, and Filey. Image from: White, 2022, Figure 5, p.60.
These details substantiate Simpson’s earlier assertion that the Carr Naze site shares key features with the Roman complex later incorporated into Scarborough Castle. As at Carr Naze, excavations at Scarborough revealed a compact clifftop complex defined by a surrounding walled enclosure and organised around a centrally positioned structure, most commonly interpreted as a tower. This comparison has since been extended to include two additional, similarly organised Roman era sites at Goldsborough and Huntcliff. Although these sites vary in their state of preservation, they share several of the same defining features (Fig. 6). Epigraphic evidence alludes to yet another similar site in Ravenscar (Fig. 7). The Ravenscar Inscription refers to a “tower and fort [having been built] from the ground up” and has conventionally been linked with Roman era earthworks discovered but displaced during the construction of Raven Hall in 1774. Although its modern habitation precludes excavation, the site’s topographical similarity to the other known sites supports the theorising of a fifth clifftop complex in Ravenscar. Thus, Carr Naze can be contextualised within a series of five clifftop installations along the Yorkshire coast (Fig. 8).
Figure 7: The earliest drawing of the Ravenscar Inscription (RIB 721) by Lionel Charlton. Image from White, 2022, Figure 2, p.47.
Figure 8: Map showing the Roman era sites of Huntcliff, Goldsborough, Ravenscar, Scarborough and Filey (Carr Naze) on the Yorkshire coast. Image from: White, 2022, Figure 1, p.46.
This contextualisation gave rise to the first theory of the site’s function. Shared architectural features have been used to suggest the sites’ derivation from a common plan, implemented with local variation. This inference, combined with their coastal topography, has led to the sites’ collective interpretation as a coordinated system of signal stations intended to monitor maritime movement, relay information along the shoreline, and provide early warning against seaborne threats. Within this model, centrally positioned, tower-like structures—such as that indicated by the stylobates arranged at Carr Naze—would have provided highly visible platforms from which to signal between neighbouring installations.
This interpretation is seemingly supported by the generally accepted dating of the clifftop sites to the late fourth and early fifth centuries AD, based primarily on stratified coinage from Carr Naze and corroborated by finds from the other excavated complexes. In this period, Britannia became increasingly vulnerable to seaborne attacks from Pictish raiders travelling south from beyond Hadrian’s Wall, and the development of coastal defences seems a plausible response to this vulnerability.
However, whilst the signal-station theory offers a superficially attractive explanation for the shared form and placement of these sites, it rests heavily on architectural analogy and topographical inference rather than on direct archaeological evidence for signalling activity. Thus, problems with this interpretation must not be overlooked.
One such problem becomes apparent upon closer consideration of the practical limitations of Roman signalling, derived from its inherent dependence upon visibility between stations, favourable weather conditions, and sustained human oversight. Even in optimal conditions, the vast stretches of irregularly indented coastline between the five supposed signal stations would have precluded direct visual contact between several neighbouring installations. Moreover, the frequent mist, fog, and heavy rain characteristic of the East Coast – today as in antiquity – constitute far from favourable conditions for signalling, further diminishing the feasibility of such a network.
It is, however, possible that the surviving sites do not represent the full extent of the original network. Coastal erosion has been particularly severe along this stretch of coastline, and Roman archaeology has not escaped the wrath of the sea. Since its excavation, the Huntcliff site has completely collapsed into the sea, and it has been speculated that a Roman installation which may have occupied the headland at Whitby has met the same fate, although no archaeological evidence survives to confirm this. The former existence of such a site would have bridged the gap between the two most widely separated installations in the sequence, Ravenscar and Goldsborough, improving the feasibility of visual communication along this stretch of coast. Nevertheless, this entirely speculative theory provides a dangerously tentative premise upon which to ignore such a substantial lack of evidence. Whilst it must be acknowledged that the loss of key evidence to coastal erosion may have warped the archaeological record, unsubstantiated assumptions should not be employed in compensation.
Instead, renewed attention to the stylobates themselves might offer an alternative perspective on the function of the Carr Naze site. Traditionally, the square sockets cut into the upper faces of the stones have been assumed to have received the full base of the wooden posts they supported; thus, each timber could only have measured approx. 19 x 18 cm2. More recently, however, it has been suggested that these sockets may instead have received only a tenon-like projection from the base of each post, rather than the full timber. Thus, each post could theoretically have been substantially broader, approaching the dimensions of the stylobate blocks themselves (Fig. 9). This would have allowed the central structure to bear considerably greater weight, increasing the height to which the tower could plausibly have been raised. A taller tower would, in turn, have significantly extended the visible horizon from the site. Although not facilitating communication between neighbouring installations, such height would have supported sustained observation of the surrounding seascape.
Figure 9: Visual demonstration of the potential difference between two methods of securing timbers within stylobate blocks. Image produced using ChatGPT 5.2 by author to demonstrate the suggestion of White, 2022, p.58.
It is thus conceivable that, rather than signal stations used to raise a local alarm against small-scale raiding parties, the tall towers may have been longer-range maritime watchtowers constructed to provide early warning of hostile vessels approaching Britannia from across the North Sea. Large seafaring fleets travelling from northern Europe would have relied upon prominent coastal landmarks such as Yorkshire’s high cliffs to navigate south towards more valuable targets. Elevated headlands such as Carr Naze would therefore have offered ideal vantage points from which to observe such movements well before landfall.
Crucially, the transmission of this information need not have depended upon a fixed system of visual signals. Although unlikely to outpace small raiding vessels, it is conceivable that a mounted messenger could travel fast enough to deliver a sufficiently early warning to suspected targets of larger, and thus slower, seafaring vessels – especially if they were spotted early enough by the taller lookout towers. Within this framework, the clifftop towers function not as signalling relays, but as points of detection, integrated into broader systems of communication that relied upon human mobility rather than continuous intervisibility.
Ultimately, the true function of the Carr Naze complex — and of the wider group of Yorkshire clifftop sites to which it belongs — remains elusive. In the absence of direct archaeological or literary evidence, any interpretation must remain provisional. Whether understood as elements of a signalling network, maritime watchtowers, or perhaps more likely, installations that fulfilled multiple roles over time, these sites resist definitive classification. Yet, despite this resistance to interpretation, the Carr Naze stylobates are themselves evidence of the value assigned by the Romans to the Yorkshire coast – a value which warranted investment in defensive infrastructure and a dedication of manpower.
Upon reflection then, whatever their original function, perhaps the five Roman stylobates are not devoid of modern purpose in the Crescent Gardens. From their flowerbed, the stones act as quiet reminders of the rich history and enduring value of the small stretch of coastline they once guarded.
Bibliography:
RIB = Roman Inscriptions of Britain.
Primary Sources:
Ammianus Marcellinus, History, Vol. III: Books 27–31, ed. and trans. J.C. Rolfe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950).
Secondary Sources:
Birks, S.; Evans, J.; Lankester, P. (2000) Roman Filey: Excavations at Carr Naze (York: York Archaeological Trust).
Brickstock, R. et al. (2000) ‘Excavations on the Site of the Roman Signal Station at Carr Naze, Filey, 1993–94’, Archaeological Journal 157, 79–199.
Cortis, W. (1858) ‘Account of Roman Remains at Carr Naze, Filey’, Proceedings of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society 1, 29–36.
Donaldson, G. (1988) ‘Signalling Communications and the Roman Imperial Army’, Britannia 19, 1–29.
White, A. (2022) ‘“Turrem et Castrum”: Some Fresh Thoughts on the Roman Fortlets of the Yorkshire Coast’, Britannia 53, 41–68.
Southern, P. (1990) ‘Signals versus Illumination on Roman Frontiers’, Britannia 21, 233–42.
This post was written by Noah Fenwick, who recently graduated with a Taught Masters at Warwick on the Material Culture of Ancient Rome. Noah's interests include numismatics, iconography, and how the Romans engaged with collective memory through these mediums. He is also keenly interested in popularising classics in the modern world, and the curation of Roman material culture.