How the Ancient Egyptians Raise Their Obelisks? | Hacker News Reader

How the Ancient Egyptians Raise Their Obelisks?

historicaleve.com

34 pointsthunderbong9 comments

Moving large stones with primitive tools is much easier than you might have thought [1].

We also know obelisks were built on their side because we have an unfinished one that was abandoned when it was revealed to have a large crack [2].

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5pZ7uR6v8c

[2]: https://mymodernmet.com/unfinished-obelisk-aswan-egypt/

I‘m impressed that they were able to transport a obelisk as one piece with a ship. Were they able to built large enough ships from wood?

According to Wikipedia the largest ships they built were 30m long with a width of 5m. Going 1.5m deep they were able to transport several hundreds of tons.

I still wonder how they managed to load the obelisks onto the boat without capsizing it.

The drawings depict the bottom of the obelisk as free standing on the ground or another base. Is that correct? I would have assumed the bottom of it would extend into the ground somewhat for stability (which would have the benefit of being easier to erect)

> Then, workers would pound the obelisk out of the quarry using dolerite balls, working shoulder to shoulder and creating dust in the process. This method of quarrying left no chisel marks on the unfinished obelisk, and it is a marvel to look at.

I am having a hard time visualizing this; the lack of chisel marks is presumably because the tools had no sharp pointy ends, but I still don't really understand how they were able to create a smooth, sharp surface with it, especially at the angles.

(I can, however, pretty clearly picture what sort of shape the workers' lungs were in after doing this for awhile.)

The second link provided by jmyeet gives more details. Apparently they made a roughly flat surface by splitting the stone by cutting a line of holes into which they fit dried wooden wedges. Then they soaked the wedges in water, causing them to swell, opening a crack along the line. Then they bashed this surface flatter by pounding dolerite balls on any imperfections. You can see traces of this process on the surfaces of the abandoned obelisk lying in Aswan.

> To free the bottom of the obelisk, the ancient Egyptians had to dig caverns

They were carved laying down I think, so the "bottom of the obelisk" at this stage was one of the sides. Confusingly worded.

C'mon HN, don't we all know that they used kites?

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jun-24-me-14211...

https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/caltech-researchers-succe...

To this day I am not sure that this wasn't some sort of elaborate prank, but at the time the researchers appeared to be sincere.

Slaves. The answer is Slaves.

Completely uninteresting answer, because it doesn't explain anything.

Whether slaves or paid workers the question is how they managed with the tech they had.

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