TRANSPORT OF OBELISKS.
(28) Before entering into the question of the transport of obelisks, it
may be as well to give extracts from ancient writers. They throw very
little light on the problem, the Roman and Greek writers only giving
what seems to be third-rate hearsay information, while the Ancient
Egyptians usually confine themselves to statistics as to the numbers of
men employed.
King Menthuḥotpe IV sent an expedition of 10,000 men to the Wady
Hammâmât quarries to bring in a sarcophagus, and records that it took
3,000 sailors from the Delta nomes to remove the lid, measuring 4
by 8 by 2 cubits, from there _to Egypt_. This seems to shew that a
pressed gang of the amphibious Delta inhabitants from the lakes had
been taken out to the quarries. At any rate we are told that “not a man
perished, not a troop was missing, not an ass died and not a workman
was enfeebled” (BREASTED, _Ancient Records_, I, 215). This was more
fortunate than the expedition of Ramesses IV quoted below, but it gives
no details of the various kinds of artisan employed.
In the reign of Amenemḥêt III, an official, also called Amenemḥêt,
was sent to the same place to obtain 10 statues of 5 cubits high. The
personnel consisted of (BREASTED, _A. R._, I, 313):
Necropolis soldiers 20
Sailors 30
Quarrymen 30
Troops 2000
Under Ramesses IV, a large expedition was again sent to the Wady
Hammâmât for monumental stone. It numbered 8362 persons. Breasted sums
up the personnel as follows (_A. R._, III, 224):
High Priest of Amûn, Ramesses-nakhl, Director 1
Civil and military officers of rank 9
Subordinate officers 362
Trained artificers and artists 10
Quarrymen and stone-cutters 130
Gendarmes 50
Slaves 2000
Infantry 5000
Men from Ayan 800
Dead (excluded from total) 900
────
8362
════
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From this it will be seen that larger parties than our estimate of 5725
were sent much further afield than Aswân, which itself was a garrison
town. It seems to have been the custom to use troops on this unpleasant
kind of fatigue, if captives or pressed gangs were not available in
sufficient numbers.
The only record that we have on the transport of an obelisk is a
passage from the Papyrus Anastasi I (GARDINER, _Egyptian Hieratic
Texts_, Part I, p. 17*, § XIII), in which one scribe called Ḥori writes
to another called Amenemope, accusing him of being unable to calculate
the number of men required to transport an obelisk of given dimensions.
He says: “An obelisk has been newly made . . . . . of 110 cubits in
length of shaft; its pedestal 10 cubits square, the block of its base
making 7 cubits in every direction; it goes in a slope (?) towards the
summit (?), one cubit one finger, its pyramidion one cubit in height
its point measuring two fingers. Add them together (?) so as to make
them into a list (??), so that thou mayest appoint every man needed to
drag it . . . ”
Here the obelisk is very long and thin and has an impossibly short
pyramidion, but in any case such a problem can only be solved by
one who has had previous experience, not only of the friction to be
overcome in the transport of large blocks, but of the nature of the
ground to be traversed. The figures given are only sufficient to
determine the weight of the obelisk.
(29) The largest transportation on land, of which a scene has come down
to us, is that of the winged bull of Nineveh. This is published in
LAYARD, _Discoveries_, pls. X–XVII. The bull is drawn by men pulling on
four cables, and a line of men keeps on placing rollers under the front
of the sleds on which the colossus is attached. Behind it men assist
the overcoming of the initial friction with large handspikes.
Another scene, this time from Egypt, is the transport of a statue of
one called Dḥutḥotpe (LEPSIUS, _Denkmäler_, II, 134, and BREASTED,
_Ancient Records_, I, 309–312). The method used here is that of a sled,
whose runners are wetted or greased, pulled on sleepers. Though the
statue was only about 22 feet high and weighed some 60 tons, it appears
to have required 172 men to move it; we can therefore safely rule this
method out as applying to a 1170‐ton obelisk. If a sled was used, it
must have been in conjunction with rollers.
Greek and Roman writers throw very little light on ancient methods
of transportation. Herodotus, in book II, chap. 175, remarks: But of
these, that which I not the least, rather the most admire, is this:
he (King Amasis) brought a building of one stone from the city of
Elephantine, and 2000 men, who were appointed to convey it, were
occupied three whole years in its transport, and these men were all
pilots. The length of this chamber, outside, is 21 cubits, the breadth
14, and the height 8. This is the measure of the outside of the
one-stoned chamber. But inside the length is 18 cubits 20 digits, and
the width 12 cubits, and the height 5 cubits.
Gorringe, in his _Egyptian Obelisks_, gives an almost complete
collection of the accounts of transportation, erection, etc., by
ancient authors. Many of these accounts are so vague or improbable as
to be hardly worth including here. {31}
(30) Having discussed the possible methods of removing the obelisk from
the quarry, the next thing to be considered is whether it was rolled
over and over down to the river bank, or whether it was pulled along on
rollers.
The first way is not without its advantages, as it is almost
fool-proof. The width of the embankment or track, of which there are
many about the quarries, need only be about one-third the length of the
obelisk, and the tendency for the obelisk to roll in a circle would be
to a large extent neutralized if it were of soft sand, where the heavy
end would sink in to a greater depth than the point end. However, the
turning would be a most laborious process, and the general progress
very slow and requiring an enormous number of men. It is obvious that
the obelisk was brought into the temple precincts lengthways, so if it
was moved a little that way it is quite possible that the greater part
of its journey on land was so made.
(31) Plate VII gives a rough plan of the quarry in which the obelisk
lies. It is accurate as regards the obelisk, embankments and the rock
faces A, B and C. It will be seen that the rock at B, which is also
shewn on plate III, no. 2, has been partly cut away, presumably to
let the point of the obelisk pass out of the quarry. It may be only a
coincidence, but, strangely enough, the distance A C (from both ends
of which rock has been removed), is almost exactly the length of the
obelisk. My opinion is that the obelisk was only rolled sideways for
a very short distance until it was very little higher than the level
of the floor of the valley, and was then put on to rollers running on
heavy baulks of limber, the process being:
(1) Track prepared before the obelisk has reached its lowest level.
(2) Track and rollers covered over with soft sand, the line of the
track being marked by sighting poles.
(3) Obelisk rolled down on to the sand above the track.
(4) Sand dug away from under the obelisk. In the end, I think that
this way would be quicker than levering the obelisk up by horizontal
levers—but that is still a possibility.
It has been doubted that the Egyptians knew rollers, but without them
I do not see how a thousand-ton block can be transported. After all,
the Assyrians were familiar with them in the 8^{th} century B. C. at
latest (section 29), and there was extensive communication between them
and the Egyptians for centuries before that. Are we to assume that the
discovery was made between the probable 15^{th} century of our obelisk
and the 8^{th}?
The Luxor obelisk, in the course of its removal to Paris, was dragged
along a specially prepared wooden track after it had been mounted on a
wooden ‘cradle’, the track being well greased. The pulling was done by
capstans and blocks and tackles. It was found that a pull of 94 tons
was required to pull the obelisk up the slope leading to the pedestal.
This was with a 227‐ton obelisk. Since friction with average-sized
blocks is about proportional to the weight, to pull the Aswân obelisk
would need (1168/227 × 94) = 485 tons, which would require about 11,000
men. I cannot believe that all these could have been arranged so as to
pull the obelisk up an embankment (see sections 35 and 37). {32}
The great advantage of rollers is that comparatively little space is
required and a minimum of pulling force; its disadvantages are that
there is always a risk of the rollers becoming jammed, and that, even
on a slight incline, the obelisk is liable to get out of control.
As to the sizes of the rollers required, I can only say that the top
of the fallen obelisk of Ḥatshepsôwet now rests on 20 cent. diameter
pitch-pine rollers, spaced one metre apart, and there is not the
faintest sign of crushing. The worst stress with the Aswân obelisk
might rise to 11 times as much as the example cited.
(32) The obelisks of Ḥatshepsôwet were mounted on sleds, perhaps to
make an easier running surface; it would also serve to damp any shocks
and to distribute the upward pressure of the rollers evenly along the
under surface of the obelisk. The method of attachment is shewn in
figure 7 (from NAVILLE, _The Temple of Deir el Bahari_, Part VI, pl.
CLIV), but is rather vague. I cannot say whether the Aswân obelisk was
to have been mounted in this way or not; if it were, then it would be
put on its sledge at the same time as it was put on the rollers, as
explained in the last section.
[Illustration: Fig. 7.—Ḥatshepsôwet’s obelisk on sled.]
(33) Once on its rollers, there is a fairly level and straight track
from the mouth of the valley running along the course of the old
barrage railway (pl. VII), joining the two large embankments DE
and FG, which feed the quarries on the south of the obelisk and on
the high desert respectively. Plate IV, no. 4, gives a view of the
embankment FG looking down to Aswân town. It joins the course the
obelisk would take at A. The modern town north of the station prevents
us determining exactly where these embankments gave on to the river
bank.
(34) On the details of the boats, on which we know the obelisks were
transported, I can offer no opinion of value, as I am not familiar with
boat design, particularly that of the “queen-truss” type which seems
to have been so popular with the Egyptians. I will content myself,
therefore, with citing certain accounts and giving sundry references,
which may prove of use to those who intend to pursue this matter
further.
The only scene we have of water transportation is that of the temple of
Dêr el-Baḥari, published by Naville and entitled _The Temple of Deir
el Bahari_, Part VI, plate CLIV, where there is a picture of the boat
containing _two_ 30‐metre obelisks placed butt to butt[12]. The boat
used here must have been at least 82 metres long. He mentions also the
boat used to carry the two obelisks of Tuthmôsis I, which measured 63
metres by 21 wide (BREASTED, _Ancient Records_, II, 105). Both this
boat and that of Ḥatshepsôwet are spoken of as the “August” boat. {33}
[12] It has been suggested that the two obelisks shewn butt to butt
in the Dêr el-Baḥari sculpture were not the Karnak pair, but those
erected before the Dêr el-Baḥari temple. Excavation has not confirmed
this. The subject is discussed by Breasted in _Ancient Records_, II,
p. 135, note _e_.
Another great boat was made by one Uni, in the VI^{th} dynasty, for
the transport of stone from Aswân. This measured 60 cubits (31 metres)
in length by 30 in width, and took only 17 days to construct (_Ancient
Records_, I, 322).
The construction of ancient boats is discussed in _Ancient Egypt_,
1920, Part 1 ff. by Mr. Somers Clarke, and a detailed description of
Ḥatshepsôwet’s boat is given by Naville, in his work cited above, on
pages 2 to 4. Boats are also described in WILKINSON, _Manners and
Customs_, vol. I, p. 276, and vol. II, pp. 211, 212.
To me, the only practicable way of loading such an obelisk on to a
boat, would be by building an embankment round and over the boat,
pulling the obelisk into a position above it, and then digging the boat
and channel clear again. We can hardly believe that the obelisk was
hauled in over the gunwale! In moving the Luxor obelisk to Paris, and
the Alexandria obelisk to New York, in the one case the whole prow of
the barge was removed, and in the other a port was cut in the bows of
the steamer through which the obelisk was introduced (see sections 53
and 54).
Pliny, in his _Natural History_, book XXXVI, chap. 14, gives an
account of how King Ptolemy Philadelphus had an obelisk transported
to Alexandria. He tells us, apropos of the loading on to the boat: “A
canal was dug from the River Nile to the spot where the obelisk lay;
and two broad vessels, loaded with blocks of similar stone a foot
square—the cargo of each amounting to double the size, and consequently
double the weight of the obelisk—were put beneath it; the extremities
of the obelisk remaining supported by the opposite sides of the canal.
The blocks of stone were removed and the vessels, being thus gradually
lightened, received their burden.” If this was so or not, it certainly
was _not_ the method by which the obelisks were brought from the Aswân
quarries to the bank. No trace of a canal of this sort is to be seen,
though there are plenty of traces of enormous embankments.
{35}