What do you get, when you go to Walmart in July and buy a wool suit?
Give up? How about a "Hot- Cheap- Suit"? Pretty dumb, eh? But you then have drilled into your head something "stupid" regarding Hatshepsut. Trust me, it works.
During her rule, and in general during the New Kingdom of Egypt (1550-10
00 BCE), Aswan was the center of granite stone masonry. All of the granite deposits in Egypt come from this area, and there must have been several major quarries. Just outside Aswan, the southern neighborhood, one can find a granite quarry. Here we can readily see the techniques incorporated into cutting and working of stone thousands of years ago. Once discovered, this amazing quarry has been preserved by the Supreme Council of Antiquities. But here's the most incredible thing, in the quarry there was discovered an unfinished obelisk, dating to the reign of Hatshepsut.
00 BCE), Aswan was the center of granite stone masonry. All of the granite deposits in Egypt come from this area, and there must have been several major quarries. Just outside Aswan, the southern neighborhood, one can find a granite quarry. Here we can readily see the techniques incorporated into cutting and working of stone thousands of years ago. Once discovered, this amazing quarry has been preserved by the Supreme Council of Antiquities. But here's the most incredible thing, in the quarry there was discovered an unfinished obelisk, dating to the reign of Hatshepsut.
So, what exactly is an obelisk? Well, when the Greeks came to this incredible land during the invasion by Alexander the Great in the late 4th Century BCE, they found in the various temples these tall, needle-shaped stone spires. They thought that they looked like petrified rays of the sun- so they called them obeliskos. Hence our term today.
Apparently, Hatshepsut suffered from penis envy perhaps! She ordered her sculptors to carve the largest obelisk in Egypt at that time. It was to be 42m long, 4 m wide and over 1200 tons in weight. This would be an unbelievable feat in the annals of stoenmasonry. So...... all was proceeding well, the masons followed directions, and were about 3/4 of the way through cutting the block. They started to work on shaping and finishing the pyramid-shaped point before removing the block from the bedrock. One night, there must have been an incredible CRAAAACK like thunder and lightning combined. No one knew where the sound came from. The next morning, as they came to the quarry, they discovered that their precious obelisk's granite had a flaw in it, and it cracked straight down its length for over 10 m.!
But Hatshepsut was not fazed in the least bit..... after all, she was Pharoah! So she ordered the masons to simply leave it! She then ordered them to cut another one.
Its our gain.......... since the unfinished obelisk is still lying in the quarry for us all to see, and imagine the techniques involved in ancient stone masonry!
PHILAE ISLAND
From the quarry, its a short hop to a small landing area adjacent to the "holding lake" between the Old and High Dams. There are a few islands in this area. One of them in antiquity was called Philae. A traditional burial place of the god Osiris, it would become the home for a temple complex dedicated to the goddess Isis during the Ptolemaic Greek Era during the 3rd Century BCE. Late, the Roman Emperor Trajan would build a small kiosk there in the end of the 1st Century-early 2nd Century CE.
However, the island would be in constant jeopardy due to the annual floodwaters of the Nile. This would become increasingly a problem after the building of the Old Aswan Dam at the start of the 20th Century. with this temple underwater much of the year. The problem would then be exacerbated by the new High Dam creating this "in-between" lake. The site would be threatened with total inundation and destruction.
The UNESCO Project that would save Abu Simbel would also save the m
onuments of Philae. But because it was an island, the unique situation called for an equally unique solution. The answer, move the monuments to another island! Adjacent to Philae was another island, substantially higher in elevation, called Agilkia Island. The engineers, architects and restorers would literlly blast the surface of this new island to match the topography of the original. They then would cut the monuments into millions of blocks and re-create the island a few 
hundred meters away! A massive cofferdam would surround the original island, protecting it from the waters, as this project was carried out. The end result, an incredibly beautiful reconstruction and restoration, as precise as one could imagine.
onuments of Philae. But because it was an island, the unique situation called for an equally unique solution. The answer, move the monuments to another island! Adjacent to Philae was another island, substantially higher in elevation, called Agilkia Island. The engineers, architects and restorers would literlly blast the surface of this new island to match the topography of the original. They then would cut the monuments into millions of blocks and re-create the island a few 
hundred meters away! A massive cofferdam would surround the original island, protecting it from the waters, as this project was carried out. The end result, an incredibly beautiful reconstruction and restoration, as precise as one could imagine.
No comments:
Post a Comment