Amazing unfinished obelisk , 1 of the great places in Egypt

History of unfinished obelisk

The unfinished obelisk is one of the rare monuments in Luxor, so we provide you with the opportunity to visit it.  When you go to the unfinished obelisk, which is also known as the unfinished obelisk, you will see an obelisk carved from beautiful pink granite, and it is considered the tallest Egyptian obelisk, as it reaches a length of 42 meters, and it weighs about 1000 tons.  Completion of its construction, due to the presence of a large crack in its surface

Aswan was the place where many of the monuments that have come down to us today from ancient Egypt were created. It is considered A piece of stone 41 meters long and four meters wide that was probably abandoned due to a crack in the rock (doh!) and now lies abandoned in the same quarry where it was left thousands of years ago.

You can easily walk to the area where the obelisk is located, Northern Quarry, from the city center of Aswan. It is just east of the Fatimid cemetery and the Nubian Museum. where you can take lots of photos.

The Unfinished Obelisk

An obelisk is traditionally defined as a tall, slender monument with four sides that form a mini pyramidal shape at the top. Though it is technically Greek architecture, Egypt has few obelisks, with the unfinished Aswan obelisk being one of the largest. Hatshepsut, the queen of Thutmose II, who also ruled Egypt as a Pharaoh from 1478 to 1458 B.C., collaborated on its construction with Thutmose III, who was still a child at the time. This obelisk was possibly built following the example of the Lateran Obelisk, which was originally built at the Karnak Temple Complex in Egypt and was later shifted to the Lateran square of Rome, near the end of the Roman Empire.

The unfinished-obelisk

The Unfinished Obelisk remains in its original location, a granite quarry in Aswan. It measures 42 metres in length and is thought to have been abandoned during construction when cracks appeared in the rock. If this obelisk had been completed, it would have been the heaviest obelisk ever cut in Ancient Egypt, weighing almost 1100 tons! It is believed to have begun and then been abandoned during Queen Hatshepsut’s reign in the 18th dynasty.

The Technology Used to Build This Obelisk

This obelisk provides a wealth of information about ancient Egyptian stone-carving techniques, as the scratches from their instruments can still be seen on the rock surface. Also, some ochre-colored lines were probably drawn to indicate where the workers were supposed to carve the granite. The ancient Egyptians used small balls of dolerite, a harder mineral than granite, as ball bearings to cut through rocks. To separate the granite from the bedrock, they used a special technique that involved creating very small cavities in the rock’s body along the desired detachment line. These cavities were then filled with wood chips, which were soaked thoroughly with water. This soaking made the wood expand in volume, causing the rock to crack along the drawn lines and finally get detached from its base. But until recently, nothing could be found out about their other technological instruments, which were used in architecture or sculpting out hard granite.

A sea of unknowns.

The obelisks built by the Ancient Egyptians are the subject of much debate among historians. The historic process of their manufacture is shrouded in mystery: how were they carved in a single block? How were the 1,000-ton monuments transported hundreds of miles? And how were these massive columns lifted into place once they arrived at their destination?

Several theories have been proposed over the years that the obelisks were sailed up the Nile by boat… but this does not explain how they were transported to the boats, nor how the boats supported their weight! Of course, there’s always someone who comes up with the simple answer: the obelisks, like the pyramids, were not actually created by human hands but by extra-terrestrials. you can make your own mind up about that!

Aswan's Ancient Marvel: The Tale of the Unfinished Obelisk

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