Lying like a giant sleeping in a bed of granite, an unfinished obelisk in Aswan, Egypt, provides an incredible look at the methods of building monolithic monuments in Ancient Egypt. If the Egyptians had completed the obelisk, it would have risen 42 meters above the ground and, according to experts, reached a mass of 1200 tons.
It is believed that the reigning female pharaoh Hatshepsut commissioned the work during the 18th Dynasty, over 3,500 years ago. Typically, these four-sided conical monuments were installed at the entrances to temples, and are a hallmark of ancient Egyptian ingenuity and engineering. They fell in love with subsequent civilizations, and more than half of the remaining ancient obelisks actually live outside Egypt, especially appreciated by the Romans.
So what happened to the Aswan Obelisk, why did it remain forever frozen in stone? Perhaps the Egyptians got a little carried away and were greedy in their desires, since the obelisk is 1/3 larger than any previously installed. When the giant was freed from the bedrock, a huge crack appeared here, as a result of which it was abandoned.
Now the place of work of ancient craftsmen functions as an open-air museum, giving a visual representation of the construction methods of Ancient Egypt. Carving monuments directly into the rock was a common technique, and people come to see the work of masons of millennia past.
One of the more interesting aspects of the unfinished obelisk is that it allows us to see how they could have freed the giant structure from the bedrock if it hadn't shattered. It sounds incredible, but wet wood is the answer and is the tool of the greatest work.
First, workers carved small indentations in the stone, creating a line like a perforated sheet of paper, and filled them with sun-dried wooden wedges. The wedges were then repeatedly soaked in water, and believe it or not, the expansion of this tree caused the strong rock to burst in the places the masons wanted. Although, as we see, sometimes there were unfortunate failures.
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The history of ancient Egypt cannot be dormant for a long time, it must definitely discover the unique data of its past. After all, as soon as we think that we have learned everything about the ancient Egyptians, another archaeological discovery comes and sheds new light on a powerful civilization.