At 32 m tall (not counting the base) and weight 455 tons, the Lateran Obelisk is the world's largest standing Egyptian obelisk. It is much taller than the 25 m one in St. Peter's Square.
Originally carved from a single piece of red granite from a quarry in Aswan during the reign of Tuthmosis III in 15th century BC, this large obelisk was completed by his grandson Tuthmosis IV and erected at the Temple of Amun in Karnak. In the 4th century, the Roman Emperor Constantine I ordered to move it to his new capital, Constantinople. But his son Constantine II moved it to Rome and erected it at the center of Circus Maximus. Sometime during the medieval period, it toppled and broke into 3 pieces. In the 16th century, Pope Sixtus V ordered a search and found it buried 23 feet down. In 1588, after a year’s work, it was restored and erected at its present location in Piazza San Giovanni in Laterano, in front of the pope's official residence, the Lateran Palace.