Written by David Caldwell · 9 June 2025

The Needle of Cybele: Rome's Lost Meteorite Relic

The Journey of the Sacred Stone: From the Second Punic War to 1730

During the Second Punic War, which ended in 201 BCE, Rome faced an existential threat. Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps with elephants struck terror into the heart of the Republic, and it seemed possible that the Carthaginian forces could reach the eternal city. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

In 204 BCE, after consulting the Sibylline Books, an embassy was sent to Pessinus in Asia Minor. Their mission was to retrieve a sacred meteoric stone, worshipped locally as the Great Mother of the Gods, or Cybele, to protect Rome. The stone, believed to have fallen from heaven, was said to be conical in shape, deep brown, and lava-like in texture.

Following it's arrival it is said that farms surrounding Rome were blessed with a bumper harvest.

The relic, known as the "acus Matris Deum" or the "needle of Cybele," was dispatched to Rome where it was first housed in the Temple of Victory on the Palatine Hill. By 191 BCE, it was permanently installed in a new temple built by censors Marcus Livius and Gaius Claudius Nero, known as the Temple of the Great Mother of the Gods.

The temple stood on the western corner of the Palatine Hill, near the Scalae Caci, the building was described as being a prostyle hexastyle building of the Corinthian order, measuring 33.18 metres in length and 17.10 metres in width.

The podium was built of thick blocks of tufa and peperino set in mortar, with a rear wall that was unusually thick and included an internal air space. This may have been intended to protect sacred objects. Excavators found an empty pedestal in the temple on which the stone needle probably once stood. The temple was approached by a wide staircase across the front. Inside, a colossal statue of Cybele sat on a throne, wearing a turreted crown, like the statue of liberty, and flanked by a pair of lions, her traditional companions.

The Claudian family, which included Empress Livia and Emperor Tiberius, held special patronage over the temple. This connection helped to reinforce the divine legitimacy of the family and further integrated the cult of the Magna Mater into the identity of the Roman state.

The stone became one of the seven pignora imperii, these were sacred relics that were believed to protect Rome from destruction. Think Ravens and the Tower of London.

Cybele was originally a Phrygian deity with a complex story. In early myths, she was a hermaphroditic being called Agdistis, later transformed into a female figure by the gods. Her worship focused on fertility, wild nature, and divine madness. Her priests, the Galli, were eunuchs who wore yellow robes and adopted female roles. They were tattooed with ivy leaves, fasted, and refrained from eating seeds or roots. Rituals in her honour could be intense, especially the spring ceremony known as the Sanguinella. During this rite, new initiates stood in a pit beneath a grate while a bull was sacrificed above, and they were drenched in its blood. This act symbolised rebirth and was thought to ensure fertility and good harvests.

One reason Roman initiates allowed themselves to be drenched in the blood of a sacrificial bull may have been the belief that blood contained divine essence. In the cult of Cybele, the bull was more than a ritual animal, it symbolised the dying god Attis himself. His death, by bleeding out beneath a pine tree, fertilised the earth and brought about rebirth. By covering themselves in the castrated bull's blood, initiates symbolically absorbed part of Attis’s divine life-force. This belief in the power of blood extended throughout Roman culture. One famous story concerns the mother of the future emperor Commodus, who is said to have washed in the blood of a dying gladiator so she could absorb his strength, an act later used to explain Commodus’s obsession with the arena and his desire to fight as a gladiator himself. In Christianity, this idea took on a new form: the symbolic drinking of Christ’s blood during the Eucharist offered believers spiritual renewal. Across all these practices, one idea remained: that blood was not just life, it was transformation.

Every year in spring, the statue of Cybele was carried in a grand procession. On the final day of the festival, it was taken down to the river and dipped in its flowing water, likely as a rain charm. The celebration, known as the Hilaria, ran from 15 to 25 March and included mourning, ecstatic rituals, and public joy. A secondary temple stood in the Vatican area, and the cult had a strong rural and local following. These rites and their symbols often blended into later Christian traditions.

The cymbal, used in these rites, was said to have been invented by Cybele herself. Derived from the Greek word “kymbos” meaning cup-shaped or hollow, the cymbal became a sacred instrument in both Greek and Roman rituals.

In the 3rd century CE, Emperor Elagabalus, who had been a high priest of the sun god of Emesa, tried to collect all of Rome’s most sacred relics in his new temple to Sol Invictus Elagabalus. He is believed to have taken the sacred needle of Cybele from her temple and installed it in his own chapel on the Palatine. Ancient sources such as Herodian and Arnobius describe the meteorite in similar terms to earlier accounts, a black, conical stone housed in a silver statue of the goddess.

As Christianity spread and pagan religions were banned, Cybele’s followers likely tried to protect their sacred objects. During 19th-century excavations by the Visconti family, objects including statues and inscriptions were found hidden in the substructure of the temple. Seven small marble bases and other items were carefully concealed, suggesting they had been hidden to keep them safe from destruction.

Over time, the maternal image of Cybele influenced the rise of the Virgin Mary in Christianity. Shrines, processions, and festivals that had once been dedicated to the Great Mother were often reused in Christian contexts. In Roman lands, Marian devotion absorbed many aspects of earlier goddess worship.

In 1730, Monsignor Francesco Bianchini wrote about a discovery made during excavations on the Palatine Hill, commissioned by Duke Francis of Parma. He described finding a conical stone, about three feet high, dark brown in colour and lava-like in texture, ending in a sharp point. Although it perfectly matched earlier descriptions of the sacred needle, it was not recognised for its importance and was eventually lost. Its fate remains unknown.

From its dramatic arrival in Rome during wartime to its last recorded sighting in the 18th century, the needle of Cybele was woven into Rome’s religious and imperial fabric. Whether destroyed, forgotten or still waiting to be rediscovered, its story remains one of the most intriguing mysteries of ancient Rome.

Timeline:

• 204 BCE – Sacred black stone of Cybele brought from Pessinus to Rome during Second Punic War.
• 191 BCE – Temple of Magna Mater completed on the Palatine.
• 3 CE – Temple restored by Tiberius after a fire.
• 218–222 CE – Elagabalus moves the stone to his temple on the Palatine.
• Late 4th century CE – Temple closed during pagan persecutions; artifacts hidden.
• 1730 – Conical black stone found in Palatine excavation; later lost.
• 1868 – Visconti reports sealed caches of Cybele’s cult objects hidden under the temple.

The ultimate fate of the mysterious black stone is unknown, was it the object excavated in 1730? Was it destroyed by Christian zealots? Was it transferred to the Eastern Empire and Constantinople?

The object may still be unearthed or rediscovered in an archive.