The largest obelisk
Still in its bedrock.
Chabe01 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Holger Uwe Schmitt — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Aoineko at French Wikipedia — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Gary Todd from Xinzheng, China — CC0 · Steven C. Price — CC BY-SA 4.0
The largest known ancient Egyptian obelisk, still lying in the bedrock of the quarry where it was carved more than three thousand years ago, in Aswan's northern granite quarries, which supplied the pink stone for many of Egypt's temples and obelisks. Had it been finished, it would have stood about forty-two metres tall and weighed over a thousand tonnes, about a third larger than any obelisk ever raised in ancient Egypt. Queen Hatshepsut probably ordered it, but cracks appeared in the rock during the work and the craftsmen abandoned it where it lay. The site's value lies in what it reveals of how the ancient Egyptians worked: you see the marks of carving tools, the stone balls they used to pound the granite and the trenches dug around the obelisk, and you understand how giant blocks were cut and moved to the temples. A foreign visitor's ticket costs about two hundred and twenty Egyptian pounds, and it opens from seven to four. The site is exposed and hot, so visit in the morning; it is close to the city centre and usually combined with the High Dam and Philae.
Still in its bedrock.
Marks of ancient tools.
The temples' pink stone.
The northern quarries, south of central Aswan
Cracks appeared in the rock during carving, making it impossible to raise it whole, so the craftsmen left it in the quarry as it was.
