Unfinished Obelisk of Aswan

Hatshepsut ordered the obelisk to be created to complete what would later be known as the Lateran Obelisk which was in Karnak in the first place before being brought to the Lateran Palace in Rome.

Explore Unfinished Obelisk of Aswan

Hatshepsut ordered the obelisk to be created to complete what would later be known as the Lateran Obelisk which was in Karnak in the first place before being brought to the Lateran Palace in Rome.

Even today, it is located exactly where it was once semi-hewn from solid rock, in the granite quarries near the city of Aswan. This huge block of stone was intended to become an obelisk nearly 40 meters high, weighing over 1,000 tons.

Unfortunately, this was never finished, probably because during the process of separating the stone block from the bedrock, a huge crack opened up, rendering it unusable and of no value to those who had worked through it. hard to create it.

It would have been the tallest in the world, also believed that it was part of a pair of obelisks with the Lateran Obelisk, once located in the temple of Karnak, and which can be found today at the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome.

Subsequently, the holds were repeatedly submerged in water, which increased their size. The expansion of these wedges caused a crack in the rock along the line of the holes, separating the obelisk from the rock below. And this is how the obelisk had to be separated from the bedrock.

Today, the Unfinished Obelisk of Aswan is an open-air museum in the granite quarries where the ancient Egyptian kings cut and transported all the necessary stone blocks that were to be used to build the huge pyramids of Egypt, especially those who stood in the glory of Giza. Necropolis which was used during the 4th Dynasty in the Old Kingdom, for the Kings Cheops, Chephren, and Mycerinus

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