Reginald Engelbach - The Aswân Obelisk

SERVICE DES ANTIQUITS DE LGYPTE

THE ASWN OBELISK WITH SOME REMARKS ON THE ANCIENT ENGINEERING

BY R. ENGELBACH CHIEF INSPECTOR, ANTIQUITIES DEPARTMENT

LE CAIRE IMPRIMERIE DE LINSTITUT FRANAIS DARCHOLOGIE ORIENTALE

1922

ASWN OBELISK
SCALE 1:100 [See .]

THE ASWN OBELISK WITH SOME REMARKS ON THE ANCIENT ENGINEERING.

(1) The unfinished obelisk of Aswn lies in a quarry on the south-east side of the medival Arab cemetery, being about twenty minutes walk from the Cataract Hotel. It is approached by a small valley leading up south-eastwards from the track of the old Barrage railway.

Up to the time of the visit of King Fuadthen Sultanin the winter of 192021, only about 22 metres of the obelisk were exposed to view, the remainder running down into a vast heap of blocks and chips. The curious trench, made round the obelisk for the purpose of detaching it from the rock, has long interested visitors, and His Majesty expressed a desire that the whole obelisk be cleared in order to obtain, if possible, new data as to ancient methods of quarrying, and to expose a unique monument.

I wish to tender my thanks to Mr. Somers Clarke for his kindness in putting his notes on the quarrying of granite at my disposal, and for reading and criticising my MS. before sending it to press; to Prof. Flinders Petrie for reading the proofs and giving many valuable suggestions; to Mr. W. Golnischeff for the references on the Anastasi papyrus and the Hammmt inscriptions; to Mr. D. Watt, Resident Engineer of the Aswn Barrage, for the loan of books on the properties and working of granite and of surveying instruments from the Barrage works; to the Geological and Chemical Departments (sections ) for their report on specimens submitted to them, and to the Survey Department for taking much trouble in preparing my plans for publication.

Mr. A. M. MacGillivray, of Aswn, took the photographs shewn on plate , nos. 1 and 2, and has kindly permitted them to appear here.

(2) I began the work shortly after the departure of King Fuad, and soon found that the excavation would be more extensive than I had at first supposed; the length of the obelisk had reached 36 metres by April 1921, and the chip-heap, covering the butt end of the obelisk, began to shew signs of giving way. I had made arrangements, as regards the angle of the chip-heap, supposing that the obelisk was not larger than any of the known obelisks. Thirty-six metres was a surprise, so, as Ramadan was approaching, I abandoned the work for the season and applied for a further credit to make a complete clearance. This was done in the winter of 192122 by Mahmd Eff. Mohammad, Inspector of Edf, assisted by Mustafa Eff. Hasan, chef de fouilles of the same district. I visited the site from time to time whenever my {2} other work permitted, but it was not till the end of the tourist season that I had sufficient time to study the obelisk.

During the removal of the chip-heap, we found some hundreds of large granite blocks thrown from a quarry above on to the obelisk; these had to be cut into two, and sometimes into four, before our workmen could handle them. At first we borrowed men from the Selugia quarries, but afterwards we employed local stonemasons, who proved more satisfactory, as they did not all want to be raises.

The total cost of the clearance was L. E. 75.

A word of explanation is, perhaps, needed on the system of weights and measures used in this volume. It has been the custom of my Department to insist on metric scales in all plans. In the text, however, I enter somewhat deeply into the stresses and strains set up in the granite, and since nearly all the English engineering text-books and tables use the ton-inch units, I have adhered to the English system, reducing the metric linear measures to inches in my calculations. The