How the Pharaohs’ Slaves With Their £
—Sectkmal working model of the Egyptians' method of erecting an obelisk weighing hundreds of tons.
The obelisk (A) being hauled on a sled up the artificial embankment (B). The buildings (C) are
where sand is sifted and
poured into the funnel
(E), which
from the
top of the embank
ment to the ground
Level (F). The door
(D) lead* to
a galleryopeo
i'ig into the
p i t through
which the sand
is removed
—The pvt filled with sand and the obelisk ready to be pushed over on it, base down
ward. The pedestal on which the obelisk is to stand is oa the ground level at the very
^bottom of the
-The obelisk, with all the lashings released and it* base sinking into the sand, which
tw presents it from dropping too fast and being broken
-s-r* * ■ v
i w^^/rnMvmmmmzh—; ;: ~
—The obelisk when enough of the sand has hen removed to permit its
sinking half way down the funnel-shaped pit
a
—As the obelisk looks after the last of the sand has been removed from
its base and it has been polled upright, resting squarely on its pedestal.
Now all that remains to be done is to remove (he surrounding embank meat
MONG the most remarkable of
the monuments left by the
ancient Egyptians for us to
marvel at are the obelisks—imposing
columns consisting of a single piece of
stone, often rising to a height of more
than one hundred feet and sometimes
weighing more than five hundred tons.
How the toiling slaves of the Tharoahs
eves* managed to- quarry such huge
stones, transport them over long
stretches of land and water and finally
set them up on pedestals where they
have stood firmly for centuries has long
been a puzzle to science.
On the obelisks themselves and in the
tombs of some of their architects there
have been found no aid of facts about
the builders’ pride in these monuments,
the men and gods in whose honor they
were raised and, in some cases, the
length of time it took to set them up.
But there is yet to be discovered any
description of the methods of quarrying
and transporting one of them and finally
lifting it into an upright position on its
pedestal.
With all their lack of the engineering
knowledge and appliances which we
possess, the Egyptians apparently did
not think the erection of an obelisk such
a difficult task. It was “all in the day’s
work” and the details were not thought
important enough to bother history
with.
Yet it was a task that makes the
modern world marvel at the patience
and ingenuity of the Egyptians.
“Cleopatra’s Needle,” which now
stands in New York’s Central Park, is
not one of the tallest and heaviest of
the obelisks. It is a few inches less
than seventy feet in height and weighs
193 tons.
But to bring this column from Egypt,
to load it on the ship and unload it, to
drag it through New York’s streets and
finally set it up where it now stands was
a job that taxed the skill of some of the
world’s best engineers. They would
hardly have known how to accomplish it
without the aid of steam hoisting engines
and the most approved cranes, derricks,
winches and jacks—all things which are
believed to have been quite unknown
in ancient Egpt.
The most plausible theory at the
way the obelisks were quarried and
transported long distances and set
up is that just given to the world
by R. Engelback, chief inspector of
antiquities for Upper Egypt. It is
based on hi3 study of the unfinished
obelisk in the quarry at Aawan,
from which many of these monu
ments came.
This unfinished one is larger than
any of those which we know to have
been set up. It is 137 feet long
and weights 1,168 tons. Work
on it seems to have been stopped
because of an unexpected fissure
in the rock.
Professor Engelbach patient
ly cleared away the debris of
centuries that covered this
abandoned monument and care
fully studied the methods that
had been followed in quar
rying it. When these were
settled he proceeded to re
construct the plan he be
lieves would have been fol
lowed in lifting the obelisk
out of its resting place in
the quarry, carrying It to
the site selected for it and
rearing its huge bulk on its
pedestal.
Preliminary shafts first
were sunk, Mr. Engelbach
thinks, to ascertain if the
rock was of the proper
quality for an obelisk of the
srae desired. After the sur
face stone had been re
moved by burning and by
prying it. off with wedges
thtf outline of the proposed
Statue of Sennemut, architect of Queen Hat
shepsowet’s obelisks, holding her little daugh
ter, to whom he was tutor. Above—“Cleo
patra’s Needle,” whose erection in New York’s
Central Park proved a difficult engineering
problem
obelisk was marked out and the digging
. of a trench clear around it begun.
This trench probably was dug by
pounding with rammers tipped with
heavy round stones that crumbled the
granite to dust. As they wielded these
tools the toiling slave# sang chanteys
very similar ^o those sung by the
laborers of modern Egypt at their work.
While the trench nround thr obelisk
prew deeper nnd deeper, other workmen
attacked the surface of the obelisk tlint
already had been exposed, and made it
nicely smooth.
When the trench on both sides and
either end had reached a point suffi
ciently deep, the work of removing the
rock from the under side bcpan. As the
Primitive Tools Set Up the Great
Columns of Stone Which Tax the
Ingenuity of Our Modern Engineers
The famous painting, "The Building of the Pyramids,” showing some cf the thou
sands who tinted for years to raise these amazing monuments to the genius if an
cient Egypt’s architects and engineers
The obelisk of Senosret I
at Mataria, near C.iro.
is a comparative \y cn il
one, 67 feet in heigh- and
weighing 121 t m
unless covetous Europeans or
Americans should take it
down and carry it off.
“I have made several ex
.periments in the slope of the
sides of the funnel,” says
Mr. Engelbaeh, “and the
form of the leading-in curve,
and I find that a wide range
of variation will produce the
desired results. The only ne
cessity appears to be that the
left wall of the funnel most
be straight untO it is of a
height of at least two-thirds
the height of the balancing
point of the obelisk before
the curve begins.
“Many students have bold
ly affirmed that the Egyp
tians knew engines and forces
of nature of which we are
to-day ignorant. This is
quite a wrong idea; it is, as
a matter of fact, far easier
to explain every step in the
mechanics of a large obe
lisk to the non-tech n i c a 1
reader than those erf an iron
bridge.
solid rock was crumbled away loose
stones were pat in its place along the
middle of the obelisk so that it would not
break in two of its own weight when the
rent of the supporting granite wae
removed.
When the obelisk wan finally detached
from the parent rock Mr. Rngelbach
thinks it was raised up snsne distance
with levers and the rock in front of it
brought down to the level of the obelisk's
lower side by wedging and burning. A
bank of sand was built an the rock and
_oto this the obelisk was tipped side
ways. This sand was dag away and a
new bank piled up to receive the obelisk
with another tipping and this process
was repeated over and over again until '
the edge of the quarry was reached.
There a huge sled waa waiting, buried
tinder quite a depth of sand. Onto this
the obelisk was rolled, then the sand wan
dug away from beneath it and the sled
waa drawn, probably on huge rollers, to
the hank of the Nile.
Loading onto a barge was accom
plished by drawing the boat as close to
the bank as possible, building an em
tiankment around and over it and then
letting the obelisk settle down into its
place by digging out the filling from
beneath it The unloading was done by
building nnother embankment but in Jus
case it had to reach only to the level of
the rollers on which the granite column
rested in the barge.
To make plain his novel theory of the
ingenious method by which one of these
huge and unwieldy pieces iff stone was
raised to its full height and set squarely
on a pedestal Mr. Rngelbach con
strorted—on a miniature grain, of course
—a complete working model. On this
page are given sectional views of this
model showing five different stages in
the erection of an obelisk.
As Mr. RngeTbach explains in his re
cently published book, “The Problem of
the Obelisks,” he believe* the Rgyptime
built over and around the pedestal an
embankment of earth almost as high as
the obelisk was to stand. This embank
ment sloped gently upwa-d from the
level of the ground at one ude and up
this incline the obelisk was hauled an a
sled.
Directly over prdestai a funnel
shaped pit was dog in the embankment,
extending from top to bottom. This pit
was filled with fine, soft sand and onto
this sand the nbeh.sk was Upped from
the sled, bottom end first.
Workmen in galleries built in the
lower part of the embankment then
would begin to remove the sand, and as
they did so the obelisk would start
sliding automatically deeper and deeper
into the pit.
At last, when all but a very little of
the sand had been removed, the obelisk
would be leaning against one side of the
pit, in an almost upright position. As
the remaining sand was taken away
slaves would pull the obelisk into a per
pendicular position and it would settle
gently down on the pedestal, the notch
in its base fitting nicely into the place
prepared for it.
Then all that had to be dore was to
level the embankment of earth that had
been thrown up and there the obelisk
was, prepared to stand for untold ages
“Though modern research robs the
Egyptians of the magical powers at
tributed to them, it makes them far
more admirable in the eyes of the prac
tical man, as it shows that they could
do, with the most primitive tools, feats
of engineering which we, with some
S.000 years of mechanical progress be
hind us, are barely able to copy.
“A study of the unfinished Aswan
obefsk enables the visitor to look with
different eyes on the finished monuments
and to realize, not only the immense
labor expended in transporting the giant
blocks and the years of tedious extrac
tion of stone in the quarries, but the
heartbreaking failures which most same
tunes haw driven the old engineers ta
the verge of despair before a perfect
monument could he presented by the
king to his god.
“Nowadays, if anything gets out of
position, s jack, a winch or a crane is
calhvi for, and the trouble is soon put
right; in ancient tiroes a colossus or aa
obelisk which came down badly onto its
pedestal was sotnelldng in the nature at
a tragedy.
“The origin and religious significance
of the obelisk are somewhat obscure, la
the royal sanctuaries of the fifth dy
nasty kings on the margin of the wester*
desert at Abuxir, not far front ths
Pyramids of Clizeh, the obelisk took the
place of the holy of holies of the later
temples.
“The obelisks of Upper Egypt, on the
other hand, had no very definite con
nection with sun-worship, their only
function being an additional decoration
to the pylons.”