The ancient Romans seem to have been quite interesting in ancient Egyptian culture, as there are Egyptian artifacts scattered around the city. There are 13 Egpyptian obelisks located in different piazze around the city, which are often times resting on statues crafted by sculptors such as Bernini. My personal favorite is located in Piazza Sopra Minerva, where the obelisk is resting on an elephant sculpture.
In the Vatican Musuem I was excited to find a wing dedicated to housing ancient acqusitions from Egypt. Here I saw a real mummy, tourquoise scarab jewelry, as well as a very iconic Egyptian cat sculpture. There were also very well preserved hieroglyphics on large chunks of sandstone, as well as many genuine Egyptian sculptures of people.
It seem to me that the rich history of Rome is accentuated by the fact that they recognized and cherished the artifacts of a culture even more ancient than their own.
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