Pyramid of Cestius site features

The Pyramid of Cestius is a startlingly steep white pyramid standing at a busy road junction in southern Rome, and the first thing to register is how sharp it is: nothing like the broad Egyptian pyramids most people picture, but a narrow, steep-sided spike, 36.40 metres high on a base of about 30 metres a side — taller than it is wide.

Its surface is marble, and it shows its age. The outer skin is made of slabs of Luna marble, laid in regular courses that step up the slope; close to, the stone is grey-white and streaked, with grass and small plants rooted in the open joints and dark staining where water has run.

A city wall runs straight into it. On two sides the brick-and-rubble mass of the Aurelian Walls abuts the marble directly — an abrupt collision of red-brown brick and white stone — and a few metres away stands the twin-towered brick gate of Porta San Paolo. The pyramid is not next to the walls; it is part of them.

What you cannot normally see is the inside. The burial chamber is small, barrel-vaulted, and painted white in a panel scheme, with refined frescoes of nymphs and winged Victories holding a crown and a ribbon — and it is largely empty, because a medieval tunnel on the north side took the cinerary urn and notable portions of the decoration with it.

The ground around it has been tidied recently. A restoration financed with PNRR funds made the access staircase safe, reordered the garden botanically, installed new lighting and added explanatory and welcome panels.

And the original enclosure is gone. The tomb once stood inside a precinct of tufa blocks with four columns at the four corners; what frames it now is a road, a tram line and a wall.

The two inscriptions

One names Caius Cestius as praetor, tribune of the plebs and member of the College of the Septemviri Epulones; the other sets the 330-day deadline on pain of the family losing the inheritance.

The marble facing

Slabs of Luna marble over a structure 36.40 metres high on a base of about 30 metres a side.

The painted burial chamber

Barrel-vaulted, painted white in a panel scheme, with nymphs and winged Victories holding a crown and a ribbon.

The Aurelian Walls

Four centuries after construction, the tomb was incorporated into the new circuit of walls on the initiative of Aurelian.

The lost enclosure

The tomb was surrounded by an enclosure of tufa blocks and by four columns at the four corners.

The medieval tunnel

Dug on the northern side; it cost the monument its cinerary urn and notable portions of the decoration.

The other pyramids

Two stood where the twin churches of piazza del Popolo now are, and the Meta Romuli on via della Conciliazione, demolished in 1499 by Alexander VI.

The PNRR restoration

It made the access staircase safe, reordered the garden, renewed the lighting and added explanatory and welcome panels.