The Unfinished Obelisk
The Unfinished Obelisk offers a unique chance to imagine what this procedure might have entailed and how challenging it was to shape and carve the enormous stone blocks that comprise Egypt’s numerous monuments.
The largest obelisk in Egypt, this enormous structure would have stood 140 feet tall. It was going to be made of the renowned Red Aswan granite, which is used to adorn many of Egypt’s most significant structures. But the biggest of all the Egyptian monoliths was never completed. A flaw in the rock was found at a late stage in its formation, and it was abandoned.
Because of this, it is still present in one of Aswan’s historic quarries, fully formed and carved on three of its four sides while remaining anchored to the bedrock on the other. This obelisk, which archaeologists think was intended for Karnak, has been sitting in the quarry for several thousand years as a curious testament to the challenges of stone carving.
