Obelisk making technology in ancient Egypt is an archaeological matter that is quite well understood today.
Ancient EgyptAncient Egypt was an ancient civilization of eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. The civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh, and...
ian
ObeliskAn obelisk is a tall, narrow, four-sided, tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape at the top...
s are tapering stone pillars which have a square cross-section, were used for ornamental purposes in temples and had religious connotations. They were generally made from
graniteGranite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite has a medium to coarse texture, occasionally with some individual crystals larger than the groundmass forming a rock known as porphyry. Granites can be pink to dark gray or even black, depending on their...
coming from well-known
quarriesThe Stone quarries of ancient Egypt once produced quality stone for the construction of decorative monuments such as sculptures and obelisks...
located near the banks of the
NileThe Nile is a major north-flowing river in Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world....
, mainly in the region of
AswanAswan, formerly spelled Assuan, is a city in the south of Egypt, the capital of the Aswan Governorate....
. In a quarry in this area, the northern quarry which is now an open-air museum, there is the famous
unfinished obeliskThe unfinished obelisk is the largest known ancient obelisk, located in the northern region of the stone quarries of ancient Egypt in Aswan , Egypt. It was ordered by Queen Hatshepsut conmemorating her 16th anniversary on the throne. It is nearly one third larger than any ancient Egyptian obelisk...
of huge proportions.
Obelisk making technology in ancient Egypt is an archaeological matter that is quite well understood today.
Ancient EgyptAncient Egypt was an ancient civilization of eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. The civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh, and...
ian
ObeliskAn obelisk is a tall, narrow, four-sided, tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape at the top...
s are tapering stone pillars which have a square cross-section, were used for ornamental purposes in temples and had religious connotations. They were generally made from
graniteGranite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite has a medium to coarse texture, occasionally with some individual crystals larger than the groundmass forming a rock known as porphyry. Granites can be pink to dark gray or even black, depending on their...
coming from well-known
quarriesThe Stone quarries of ancient Egypt once produced quality stone for the construction of decorative monuments such as sculptures and obelisks...
located near the banks of the
NileThe Nile is a major north-flowing river in Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world....
, mainly in the region of
AswanAswan, formerly spelled Assuan, is a city in the south of Egypt, the capital of the Aswan Governorate....
. In a quarry in this area, the northern quarry which is now an open-air museum, there is the famous
unfinished obeliskThe unfinished obelisk is the largest known ancient obelisk, located in the northern region of the stone quarries of ancient Egypt in Aswan , Egypt. It was ordered by Queen Hatshepsut conmemorating her 16th anniversary on the throne. It is nearly one third larger than any ancient Egyptian obelisk...
of huge proportions. It has been partially carved out of the rock, but its bottom face is still attached to the ground. When it cracked, unsuccessful attempts were made to salvage some of the effort by carving a smaller obelisk from it. It is only crudely carved, marks are left which hint to the technology employed in its extraction.
The carving procedure
The carving was done on granite directly on the surface of the stone at the ground, by cutting four sides. It is now known that the tools employed for carving the granite were small balls of
DioriteDiorite is a grey to dark grey intermediate intrusive igneous rock composed principally of plagioclase feldspar , biotite, hornblende, and/or pyroxene. It may contain small amounts of quartz, microcline and olivine. Zircon, apatite, sphene, magnetite, ilmenite and sulfides occur as accessory...
that is a mineral harder than granite. Once the sides were cut off, the process of separating the stone piece from the ground was a bit more complicated but very trivial. A series of perforations were made, again using Diorite-made tools. Obelisks made out of softer rock other than granite (i.e. sandstone) were carved with wooden spikes. These perforations were then filled with wood and these wood pieces were water saturated. The small pieces of wood expanded with the humidity breaking the separations between successive perforations and then effectively separating the carved piece from its bed. Many residues left at the rock beds and measuring nearly the size of many of the famous obelisks (for example the
Cleopatra's NeedleCleopatra's Needle is the popular name for each of three Ancient Egyptian obelisks re-erected in London, Paris, and New York City during the nineteenth century. The London and New York ones are a pair, while the Paris one comes from a different original site where its twin remains...
s) are now known to exist at the Unfinished Obelisk open air museum.
The transportation
The obelisks were conveniently made at quarries situated in the banks of the
NileThe Nile is a major north-flowing river in Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world....
so that the heavy weight structures were easily transported by navigating the river in specially built ships that cruised at the flooding days when the river was deeper. This seems to be a very difficult task to perform but the engineers at the time managed perfectly well without modern machinery or steel cranes.
Raising obelisks
Large obelisks such as the ones erected by
Thutmose IIIThutmose III was the sixth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty. During the first twenty-two years of Thutmose's reign he was co-regent with his aunt, Hatshepsut, who was named the pharaoh...
were usually lifted by teams of workers, probably laborers or retired farmers. These structures were lifted with thick ropes attached around the pyramid top and base.
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