The Unfinished Obelisk of Aswan
How did New Kingdom quarrymen, using nothing harder than dolerite hammerstones, set out to free a single 1,090-tonne granite monolith from solid bedrock — and what does the crack that stopped them reveal about the limits, and the method, of ancient hard-stone quarrying?
c. 15th century BCE (New Kingdom, reign of Hatshepsut) · Northern Quarries, Aswan, EgyptAdded July 2026