Unfinished Obelisk
The Unfinished Obelisk is a giant obelisk still lying in the granite quarry at Aswan where it cracked. It shows how ancient masons worked the stone, because the job was left exactly where it stopped.
A monument that never left the quarry
Had it been finished, this would have been the largest known obelisk of ancient Egypt, at about 42 meters in length. Cracks appeared in the granite while it was being cut, and the masons abandoned the work. It still lies attached to the bedrock on its underside.
Reading the marks of the masons
Aswan’s red granite supplied obelisks and statues for temples far down the Nile, including Karnak. The marks of the work are still visible in the rock: workers are thought to have pounded the granite away with balls of hard dolerite. Because the obelisk was never lifted, it offers a rare look at the first stages of a process otherwise known from finished monuments.
Its flaw made it useless to a pharaoh and priceless to anyone who wants to know how obelisks were made.
- Stone
- Aswan granite
- Length
- About 42 m
- Site
- Northern quarry
