5.0 on Tripadvisor Licensed by the Ministry of Tourism and AntiquitiesMinistry licensed guides On the river since 2011 Luxor and Aswan, every week
In the granite quarries of Aswan lies an obelisk that was never raised. It cracked while it was still being cut from the bedrock, and it shows you, better than any finished monument, how the Egyptians worked stone.
Three things to look for in the quarry.
It lies where it was cut, still attached to the granite. Finished, it would have stood about 42 metres high and weighed 1,168 tonnes, taller than any other ancient Egyptian obelisk.
Flaws and fissures opened in the stone while it was being worked, and the project was abandoned where it lay.
Quarrymen pounded a trench around the obelisk with hard dolerite stones. It is about 75 centimetres wide and up to 5.2 metres deep.
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Fire and stone. Egyptian quarrymen worked granite with stone tools, together with fire, from the Old Kingdom into at least the Ptolemaic Period. The rows of small wedge holes you see in some quarries came later, with iron tools, from the Ptolemaic Period onwards.
How slow was it? In 2023, researchers measured how fast a dolerite pounder of about 3.5 kg removes Aswan granite: around 216 cubic centimetres an hour. That is so slow that they think other methods were used alongside the pounders.
The obelisk is believed to have been commissioned by Queen Hatshepsut (about 1473 to 1458 BC) for the temple of Amun at Karnak, where one of her obelisks still stands. Flaws and fissures in the stone stopped the work, and the obelisk was left in the quarry. Canals were cut into this quarry so that finished pieces could be floated away rather than dragged over land. Sand covered the obelisk for thousands of years, until it was uncovered in the early twentieth century.
Every cruise we sell visits the Unfinished Obelisk with a licensed Egyptologist.
Yes. Entrance to the Unfinished Obelisk is part of the price on every cruise we sell.
Yes. The Unfinished Obelisk and Philae Temple are visited on the same day in Aswan.
It is believed to have been commissioned by Queen Hatshepsut for the temple of Amun at Karnak.
Tell us your dates and we will send back two or three ships that fit, with real prices.
See also Philae Temple, visited the same day.
