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The unfinished obelisk

By : Nada Yahia | 01 July 2020

The Unfinished Obelisk is a huge Granite block in Aswan city, it could be traced back to the ruling era of the New Kingdom, and it remains unfinished in its original position in the Southern Aswan Granite quarry. Aswan was the source of ancient Egypt’s finest granite, used to make statues and embellish temples, pyramids and obelisks.

1. Construction

The unfinished obelisk is nearly one-third larger than any ancient Egyptian obelisk ever erected. If finished it would have measured around 42 metres (138 ft) and would have weighed nearly 1,090 tonnes (1,200 short tons), a weight equal to about 200 African elephants.It is without a doubt the largest obelisk ever constructed but unfortunately was uncompleted, it really worth a visit, you can visit it with Magic Life Tours agency.

2. History

It was constructed by Hatshepsut, the queen of Thutmose II, who also ruled Egypt as a Pharaoh from 1478 to 1458 B.C., jointly with Thutmose III, who was then only a child. This obelisk was perhaps built following the example of the Lateran Obelisk that was initially built at Karnak Temple Complex in Egypt and was later shifted to the Lateran square of Rome, near the end of the Roman Empire. Start planning your tour with Magic Life Tours. Upon entering the quarry, steps lead down into the pit of the obelisk, where there are ancient pictographs of dolphins and ostriches or flamingos, thought to have been painted by workers at the quarry. The Northern Quarries are about 1.5km from town, opposite the Fatimid Cemetery. Besides the unfinished obelisk, an unfinished, partly worked obelisk base was discovered in 2005 at the quarries of Aswan.[2] Also discovered were some rock carvings and remains that may correspond to the site where most of the famous obelisks were worked. All these quarries in Aswan and the unfinished objects are an open-air museum and are officially protected by the Egyptian government as an archeological site.

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