Made of red granite from the quarries of Aswan, it is the tallest and most ancient obelisk in Rome. It was built by pharaohs Tuthmosis III (1504-1450 BC) and his grandson Tuthmosis IV (1425-1417 BC), and originally stood before the Temple of Amun at Karnak. Transported from Thebes to Rome in 357 by Emperor Constantius II, son of Constantine, and placed in the Circus Maximus, where it was toppled down in 549 by the Goths under Totila. Pope Sixtus V found it, in fragments, in a swamp.