THE TRENCH.
(12) The trench surrounding the obelisk, by means of which it was
intended to separate it from the surrounding rock, is of most peculiar
form, the effect being a series of parallel and equidistant vertical
cuts, as if it had been made by a gigantic cheese-scoop. Plate III,
no. 1, shews the structure of the sides and bottom of the trench. Its
width averages 75 cent., and its depth about two-thirds that necessary
to extract an obelisk of square section. Down the division between each
concave “cut” a red line was drawn, it appears, by a plumb-bob with its
string dipped in ochre (section 44). These lines are not continuous,
but have been projected down from time to time as the level of the work
became lower. The average distance between the vertical red lines is
29.9 cm., there being very little variation between examples. These
appear to be feet, and the unit the double-foot. This is discussed in
section 18.
It will be noticed in plate III, no. 1, that distinct horizontal marks
are visible along the wall parallel to the bottom of the trench; these
shew how uniformly the work was kept at the same level. The aspect of
the bottom of the trench is so well shewn as not to need a description.
When the whole trench is examined, the divisions _across_ the bottom of
the trench seem to run in pairs; it is difficult to define where the
resemblance between each pair lies, but it is very clear, and I noticed
it almost as soon as I began work. A clearer feature is the division
between the depressions at the bottom of the trench separating each
into a north and a south half, shewing that the work was done from each
side of the trench alternately.
At irregular intervals, and not parallel either to the top of the
obelisk or to each other, are red and black lines. They occur all over
the walls of both trenches and on the sides of the obelisk itself. On
plate I, no. 6, I give a diagram of the lines on the rock face U V,
where they are clearest and most numerous. The only explanation I can
give for them is that they are merely lines from which to measure from
time to time the depth to which the trench had reached.
A feature of the surrounding trench is that there are no
corners—everything is rounded; neither are there any traces of the
marks of wedges, which are quite unmistakable (see plate III, no.
2); besides, it is not practicable to use a wedge unless one has to
remove a part from the side of the parent rock. Chisels also leave sure
traces; examples of fine pointing are seen in plate III, no. 2, and
rough dressing on plate III, no. 4 (which was taken in the quarries of
Shellâl). There are no traces of chisel-work in the trench at all, and
not a trace of any copper implement was found during the clearance of
the obelisk. We are therefore forced to the conclusion that the large
balls of tough greenish-black stone, found in such profusion round
the obelisk and all quarry work at Aswân, must have been the tools
employed. {12}
(13) These stones, which I propose to call ‘pounders’, are nearly
spherical, and vary between 8 and 13 inches in diameter, their weights
ranging between 9 and 15 pounds. On assembling a large number of them
and examining them closely, it is seen that nearly every one of them
has one, and often several, brownish-red stains, which are never seen
on the inside when a ball is broken. The balls are of almost natural
formation, and shaped by the action of water during the ages, the
stains being at the part where the block touched the parent rock before
being washed out. The stains are caused by fissures in the original
rock, which allowed the water to enter, decomposing the surfaces. They
consist of ferric oxides from the ferrous silicates.
I have buried some hundreds of these pounders under the west
retaining-wall and elsewhere, as even their weight did not prevent them
from being carried off freely by souvenir-hunters.
Mr. C. Firth has given me some stone chisels from the district of Wady
Alaqi, in Nubia, for comparison with the pounders used on the obelisk.
He tells me that rounded stones of similar appearance to the pounders
may be seen in large numbers in the wadys of the Eastern Desert both
above and below Aswân.
I took some pieces of pounders, together with the chisels, to the
Geological Museum, Cairo, where they were examined by Mr. W. F. Hume
and Hassan Eff. Sadek, who have kindly furnished me with the following
report:
‘It has been concluded (as the results of the examination supported
by specific gravity determinations made in the Government Analytical
Laboratory), that the stone from which the chisels were made was a
diorite, the specific gravity varying from 2.75 to 2.87. The pounders,
on the other hand, are composed of dolerite, which is a more basic rock
than the diorite, with a specific gravity of 2.93 to 3.05. Though rocks
of this nature are present in the Aswân Cataract region (see J. BALL,
_First or Aswan Cataract_, pp. 79 and 86), it is quite conceivable that
the material for these implements has come from other localities. Rocks
of this type abound in the Second Cataract at Wady Halfa and have been
used as pounders in many gold-mining localities of the Eastern Desert,
such as the Baramia Mine where they are of wide distribution.’
My own examination of the Aswân quarries has not revealed stone of
precisely the same quality as that of the pounders, and in so far tends
to support the idea that the material for chisels and pounders is
derived from some other region.
The wear on the pounders is not distributed evenly over the whole
surface—which would be expected if they had been used entirely by
hand—but appears in patches, shewing that the pounders were used in
one position until the bruising surface in use had become flat, and
therefore useless. When a pounder is newly used, the bruising surface
nearly always is found at a point directly opposite to the stain,
possibly as there is always a slight flattening there.
In very many cases the pounder had been broken by the great force of
the blows delivered with it. I cannot believe that a man, using one of
these by hand, could break it, as the only way I succeeded in doing so
was by hurling one down from a height of about 30 feet on to a pile of
others, and then only after repeated attempts.
It has long been known that the face of the granite was dressed by
means of these pounders, but I have not heard of their use being
suggested for excavating a trench in it.
There are many examples of monuments, partly pounded out, now lying
in the quarries of {13} Aswân and Shellâl. Plate IV, no. 3, shews an
example where, apparently, the lid of a sarcophagus is being shaped by
this means.
To ascertain how much headway can be made by hand on this kind of work,
I tried, on the bottom of the trench, to see how much I could remove by
hand pounding. I found that, after an hour’s hard work, I had extracted
about five millimetres off the surface of the foot × half-trench-width
area. With practice I could perhaps have done more. I noticed that,
if I threw the pounder down and caught it on the rebound, the granite
broke up at a much greater rate; but to do this as a regular thing
would certainly result in an accident, as occasionally the pounder
rebounds at very unexpected angles. I am certain that they were not
used entirely by hand in the regular work of cutting out the trench, as
the work would go very slowly indeed, and, which is more to the point,
it would not have the same regular appearance that it has. There is
no doubt that very powerful blows were struck vertically downwards,
sometimes with such force as to split the dolerite pounders into
fragments.
The only conclusion I can come to is that the pounders were attached to
rammers, and worked on the principle of the modern _mindâlah_, as the
Egyptians call it, and with which they are very familiar. By this means
two or more men could work from the top of the trench, while the third,
working below, held the bottom of the rammer and directed the blows.
As to how the rammers were attached to the pounders—if such were indeed
used—I am uncertain. It may have been done by having the base of the
rammer made slightly concave, possibly bound with metal to prevent
splaying, the pounder being held up in its place by a metal (iron?)
ring, sufficiently large to expose enough bruising surface, but not
large enough to let the pounder slip through or to scrape against
the side of the trench. The ring would be held up by two metal bands
or hide thongs attached to the body of the rammer. Another method of
attaching the pounders would be by a leather strap, with a hole just
small enough to keep the ball from slipping through.
(14) It might well be asked why they did not make flat surfaces for the
rammer to bear on, and with some more convenient means of attachment.
The explanation is that once the bruising part of the pounder had worn
flat, it was of no further use, and a new part had to be selected;
besides, the spherical pounders are of natural occurrence, and their
great toughness would make any shaping a difficult process. There are
signs that the local basalt, and even the granite, were sometimes
used, apparently without much success, as they are far inferior
to the dolerite in toughness. Since the pounders were imported, a
certain economy was essential in making the maximum use of them before
discarding[7].
[7] Hand pounding also must have been largely used for the face
dressing, for examination of fissures, and possibly for undercutting.
Some quite small hand-pounders were also found; these had no stain on
them.
The pounding out of the trench has considerable advantages over other
possible methods; these may be summed up as follows:
(_a_) It is eminently suited to unskilled labour.
(_b_) The tools are durable, not easily lost and not liable to be
stolen. {14}
(_c_) Simultaneous rhythmic labour—so popular with the ancient and
modern Egyptian—could be organized.
The bottom of the trench gives a certain amount of information as to
how the labour was arranged. To work the maximum number of men, with
the minimum chances of one interfering with the other, seems to me to
be for each man to have two ‘feet’ marked out for him along the trench.
Squatting with his back to the obelisk, he worked on, say, the right
‘foot’ of his task, putting his ‘spoil’ on to the left ‘foot’. (Handing
it up would be a great waste of time, and not removing it constantly
would reduce the bruising force of the blows almost to nil.) Each
man during the spell, be it of days or weeks, sits with his back to
the obelisk and works on his right ‘foot’. The next spell is on the
same ‘foot’ but each man works _facing_ the obelisk, and the process
is repeated in exactly the same way for the two halves of the left
‘foot’ of their tasks. A glance at plate III, no. 1, will shew how
likely this arrangement is, as there is just room for a man to squat
comfortably, and there is always the space of a ‘foot’ between him and
his neighbour. The men at the top of the trench, if rammers were used,
would be rather crowded, but not impossibly so.
The average width of the trench is about 0 m. 75 cent.; the work may
have been measured taking into account a minimum width, but this is
not necessarily the case, as in certain places, the width of the
trench gets smaller and smaller as it gets deeper, and then suddenly
opens out again. In any case I imagine that the workmen would find it
false economy to narrow the trench too much, as the cramped position
would make the work go more slowly. I suggest that the reason for the
occasional narrowings is that one party knew that their spell was
coming to an end at a certain level, and finished it quickly, knowing
that someone else had to continue the deepening.
It will be noticed that the top-dressing, as seen at the pyramidion,
plate IV, no. 1, and the butt-end of the obelisk, is less regular than
the pounding work in the trench; it seems that, with more space at
their disposal, the workmen were given an area to pound, and left to
arrange their method of doing it.
(15) As to the time which would have been taken to complete the trench,
it is interesting to get a rough approximation.
Assuming that, with rammers, the men can extract 8 millimetres in an
hour in each quarter of their double-foot task, then the time taken
to complete the trench, with an extra metre for undercutting, will be
that of working it at its deepest part, that is to a depth of 4.2 + 1.0
metre, and will equal (4 × 5.2)/(.008 × 12 × 30) months of twelve hours
per diem = 7.22 months.
Before leaving the subject of time taken, we might apply this
calculation to the obelisk of Ḥatshepsôwet, assuming that it was
detached in much the same way. Here the deepest part of the trench
is 2.40 + .75 metre[8]; then the time taken would have been: (4
× 3.15)/(.008 × 12 × 30) = 4.4 months. {15}
[8] Since the obelisk is smaller.
It is recorded by the queen that “they are of one block of enduring
granite, without seam or joining. My Majesty exacted work thereon from
the year 15, the first of Machir (6^{th} month), until the year 16,
the last of Mesore (12^{th} month), making seven months of exaction in
the mountain.” Allowing for undercutting and a certain amount of top
clearance, our calculation seems within the bounds of reason.
During the work of trench-pounding, the top-dressing, embankment
preparing, and clearing for the exit of the obelisk would be carried on.
{16}