The New York Obelisk: Cleopatra's Needle / With a Preliminary Sketch of the History, Erection, Uses, and Signification of Obelisks

CHAPTER II

The quarrying, transporting, and raising of obelisks.

§1. Egypt is undoubtedly in every respect a land of wonders. At the most remote period of its history we observe that it was already in such an advanced state of civilization, as would appear to us to be wholly incompatible with its venerable age. When Greece first began to issue from its times of heroes and demi-gods and advance on a path of civilization, Egypt had already for at least twenty centuries possessed everything that enlightened Greece could boast of. The first objects among the many wonders that still remain in Egypt to catch the eye of a traveler, are the grand monuments set up in honor of various divinities or as proud guide-posts for future generations. Among these obelisks and pyramids rank first. We marvel at the enormous stones which our modern steam-engines would lift with difficulty, yet which the ancient Egyptians quarried, transported, and erected in their proper places, not only setting them on the ground, but even lifting them some hundred feet, as in the case of the Pyramids. We look upon the greater number of obelisks, each made of one unbroken piece of stone, and are forced to admire the workmanship and engineering skill which they exhibit. We may endeavor to grasp this wonderful achievement, but must continually ask: how was it done, and how was it possible to do so at that time, when even now with all our many inventions and contrivances we should perhaps fail. Unfortunately we receive no definite answer. It is so long ago since the Egyptian stone-cutters plied their chisels and the engineers built their machines, and no papyrus or inscription tells us directly how the work was accomplished. A relic of indomitable labor and uncompleted work still lies in the quarry at Assuan. It is an obelisk of 95 feet still cleaving on its fourth side to the native rock. This may throw some light on the mystery.

We notice the nicety and precision with which the stone-cutter went to work in hewing out and polishing the monument. His art was one that had been brought to the highest state of perfection in Egypt; and no wonder, for in a country where timber was scarce and hardly one tree was suitable for wood-work, men had to fall back on their natural supply which the mountains rising on both sides of the valley yielded. Stone was there in abundance. Hence from the earliest times of Egyptian history the stone-cutter receives a prominent place. The implements he employed must have had a wonderful degree of hardness to chip and polish the tenacious rock of Syene.

With regard to the quarrying of the rock, that is, how, after having selected a properly-sized piece of rock without a flaw and having carefully marked it, the stone-cutters were able to detach 50-100 feet of it without a break—that has given rise to many conjectures. Belzoni held, that after a groove of about two inches had been cut along the line, the blow of some machine must have separated the pieces of rock, as glass when cut by a diamond. Others believe that a saw was employed to sever the rock. Sir J. F. Herschel prefers to accept the theory that the separation of the rocks was caused by fire, a method still employed in India. He calls attention to the fact, that after the workmen there have cut a groove into the rock they kindle a small fire on top of this line, and that after the rock is thoroughly heated they suddenly pour cold water on it, causing the rock to split with a clean fracture. It is, however, more probable that the Egyptians made use of wooden wedges to accomplish their purpose. We frequently find not only grooves in the rock but also wedge-holes inside these grooves. Wedges with their slow and steady pressure would insure a good fracture. Possibly, as Wilkinson surmises, the grooves themselves may have carried water to the wooden wedges which, being kept continually moist and thereby expanding, would have caused the rock to split. The saw was undoubtedly used for the last cutting to separate the piece from the native rock.

Stone-cutters smoothing a block of granite.

Stone-cutter at work.

The blocks having been quarried, the stone-cutters cut them exactly to the required shape and polished them almost as smooth as glass with the chisel and incessant rubbing. The accompanying pictures fully illustrate and explain this. In the accurate chiseling and planing of the angles the Egyptians have never been surpassed. As for the material used in the manufacture of the tools that were to cut the hard Egyptian rock which bends even our iron and steel tools of to-day and makes them useless, we must profess a deep ignorance. Either the Egyptians employed chemical compounds and emery, or else they possessed a wonderful knowledge of tempering bronze and iron tools which has been completely lost. It still remains for our advanced civilization to rediscover what the ancient Egyptians already knew.

Chiseling, planing, polishing, and inscribing statues.

Transportation of a colossus.

§2. We know almost less about the transportation than the quarrying of obelisks. We have only one picture on the monuments, at Bersheh, to guide us. In this the dragging of a colossus by workmen is represented in vivid outlines. The accompanying picture shows the man in charge of the work, the servant greasing the runners of the sledge, and the multitude of toiling people, but it tells us very little about the manner of transportation for a distance of more than one thousand miles between Syene and Lower Egypt. That the removal of such monoliths from the quarry to the place of erection was a matter of some importance is fully brought out by many inscriptions, where this task is intrusted by Pharaoh to a loyal subject, and where the latter expresses his gratification that his mission was completed to the satisfaction of his master, who rewarded him quite handsomely. From some inscriptions it would appear that the blocks, when ready for transportation, were rolled to the river's edge, or perhaps placed on rollers and then pushed or else dragged down on an inclined plane. The Nile, ever ready to extend his welcome help to the children of his soil, aided them again in their efforts. Large barges or rather floats were built where the water of the inundation would reach the blocks, and where they, when once on the floats, would be carried on that great Egyptian highway to any part of the vast empire. Many monuments, however, were transported overland, in which case the aid of the Nile must have been dispensed with. The Colossi at Thebes, the two statues of Amenophis III., and the statue of Ramses II. in the Memnonium at Thebes, which weighed as much as 1,800,000 pounds, are instances of this. Such masses of rock were moved along on sledges by human hands, as shown in the above picture. The inscription of HammamÂt makes mention of the men who died while handling such sledges with their enormous loads. Possibly the Egyptians already used besides rollers and levers also pulleys to facilitate their work. At all events the transportation by human hands of obelisks and other monoliths of enormous size and weight without the most powerful appliances of modern times is such a wonderful feat, that we cannot at present fully comprehend it. All we know for certain is the fact that those men of old have succeeded, and therefore accomplished what we would regard as almost impossible.

§3. The method employed by the Egyptians in the erection of obelisks has to this day remained a profound mystery. Of course, just as with regard to the quarrying and transporting them, many conjectures have been advanced which, however plausible they may seem, give us no definite solution of this problem. That the Egyptians must have possessed some mechanical means, with which to lift these colossi into their exact place, cannot be disputed: otherwise the time consumed in setting them up would have been equal to that of quarrying them. They had undoubtedly some unknown facilities for doing work of this kind, and being great mathematicians, they may have constructed agents more powerful than those of the present day.

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