The unfinished obelisk is one of the largest known ancient obelisks. Creation is believed to have begun at the behest of female pharaoh Hatshepsut, the fifth pharaoh of the Ancient Egyptian Eighteenth Dynasty.
There are about 30 ancient Egyptian obelisks in the world, the tallest of which is the Lateran (about 45.7 meters high). But there is another rather large one that few have heard of. This is probably because the structure failed to survive. IFLScience writes that the Unfinished Obelisk at Aswan today is one of the most important archaeological finds from ancient Egypt.
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The unfinished obelisk is the most difficult monument the ancient Egyptians began to build (at least as far as we know). If completed, it would have reached 41.8 meters in height and 1200 tons in weight.
In a quarry in Aswan, an ancient site up the Nile from Cairo and Luxor. The unfinished obelisk looks as if it had been forgotten in the rock, it is a massive granite carved into stone and is about 3.5 thousand years old.
Its construction is known to have been ordered as an additional obelisk to the Lateran by the fifth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, Hatshepsut. She is considered the most successful of Egypt’s female pharaohs, who enjoyed economic and architectural prosperity during her 22-year reign.
However, something did not go according to plan. Large cracks visible in the stone are not suitable for use as monuments. A partially carved base of the obelisk lies in a quarry nearby and could probably hold it upright.
A gigantic piece of granite weighing 1,168 tons would be a great engineering marvel even if it were just lifted off the ground, let alone standing upright. This causes many to wonder how an ancient civilization managed to do this.
It is believed that the Egyptians rolled the obelisk into moving wagons along the banks of the Nile and then into boats that carried the monuments to large settlements downriver. When they got to the right place, the workers used a large hill with a steady slope and hauled the obelisk up with ropes and pulleys until they reached the ridge. There they slowly lowered it so that the obelisk took a vertical position.
Such techniques are described in papyri, and the Egyptians moved incredibly heavy stones to build the pyramids, so this was certainly possible.
Although the obelisk was never removed, its unfinished appearance can tell a lot about the handling of the stone by the ancient Egyptians. The granite has nick marks on its edges, and ocher lines guide workers where to cut, much like a modern craftsman would make marks with a pencil.
Today the Unfinished Obelisk can be easily visited to see its scale and to see the technologies of ancient people with your own eyes. Now there is an open-air museum.
Previously Focus He talked about the image of the zodiac in the temple of Khnum. Researchers agree that this was a rather unusual and even unique phenomenon for the ancient Egyptians.
Source: Focus
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