Diego Delso · File:Obelisco inacabado, Asuán, Egipto, 2022-04-01, DD 166.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) · https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Obelisco_inacabado,_Asu%C3%A1n,_Egipto,_2022-04-01,_DD_166.jpg
Attraction · Aswan
The Unfinished Obelisk
The largest obelisk anyone ever attempted, lying in the quarry where it cracked — and the only place in Egypt that explains how the finished ones were made.
Time needed30 – 45 minutes
Best timeEarly morning
WhereNorthern quarries, south Aswan
Attributed toHatshepsut, c. 1470 BC
If raisedAround 42 m, over 1,000 tonnes
ShadeNone — it is a quarry
About
The Unfinished Obelisk
Almost every obelisk in the world came out of the granite around Aswan, and this is the one that did not leave. It lies on its side in the northern quarry, still joined to the bedrock along one face, three sides cut and the fourth abandoned when a crack opened along its length. Had it been finished and raised it would have stood about forty-two metres and weighed well over a thousand tonnes — larger than any obelisk ever erected. What makes it worth half an hour is not the size but the evidence. The cutting trenches are still there, with the rounded pounding marks left by dolerite balls hammered into the granite by hand; the abandoned work shows the sequence, the tool marks show the method, and the crack shows why it failed. Every other obelisk in the world is a finished object. This one is a process caught in the middle.
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What to See
What to see at the quarry
One object and its trench, plus the quarry around it. Short, and unusually informative.
The obelisk
- The full length of the shaft in its trench, with three faces dressed and the underside still attached to the bedrock.
- The crack that ended the work, running across the shaft — visible enough that the decision to abandon it needs no explanation.
- The scale, which only registers when someone walks along it. Photographs of it without a person in them are useless.
The method
- The pounding marks in the separation trenches — regular rounded hollows made by hammering dolerite balls into granite, which is harder than any metal tool available.
- The narrow working trench cut along each side, just wide enough for one person to sit in.
- Other abandoned pieces around the site, including partly cut blocks and a sarcophagus, which show the quarry did more than obelisks.
The setting
- The view over the modern town and the river from the top of the quarry, which most visitors do not turn round to look at.
- The exposed granite of the quarry floor itself, which is the same stone as the islands splitting the Nile below.
- The walkways and railings, which are newer than the rest of the site and make the route around the shaft straightforward.
Getting There
Getting there
On the southern edge of the town, and almost always visited as part of the standard Aswan morning.
From Aswan
- Ten minutes by car from the corniche. It is inside the town rather than out of it.
- The standard morning is Philae first, then this, then the High Dam — or the same three in the reverse order coming back from the dam.
- Cruise excursions almost always include it, usually for about half an hour.
At the site
- A single ticket, a short walk in, and a raised walkway running the length of the obelisk.
- The route is a loop of a few hundred metres with a gentle climb, and it can be done in twenty minutes.
- There is a small shop at the entrance and no shade beyond it.
Combining it
- With Philae, which is fifteen minutes further south, as one morning.
- With the Nubian Museum, which is close by in the town and is the natural indoor stop when the heat wins.
- Anyone going to Karnak later in the trip should do this first — the standing obelisk there means much more afterwards.
Best Time
When to visit
It is an open granite quarry with no shade in the hottest city in Egypt. That decides it.
Time of day
- Early morning, before the granite has taken the day’s heat — the rock radiates and by midday standing on it is genuinely unpleasant.
- Late afternoon is the alternative, with better light along the shaft and the tool marks in relief.
- Midday between May and September is to be avoided outright.
Time of year
- October to April is comfortable at any hour of the morning.
- May to September needs the first hour after opening; this is a site where the surface underfoot is part of the problem.
- Khamsin days flatten the light and take the definition out of the tool marks, which are the point.
How long
- Thirty minutes is a complete visit; forty-five if you are interested in the method and stop to look at the trenches.
- It is deliberately a short stop and it works well as the second item in a morning rather than the first.
- A guide adds more here per minute than at almost any site in Egypt, because everything visible is a technique rather than a picture.
Visitor Intelligence
Visitor intelligence
A short site that rewards knowing what you are looking at.
What to look for
- The rounded pounding marks rather than the obelisk itself. They are the reason the site matters.
- The width of the working trenches, which tells you how the quarrymen were positioned and how slow the work was.
- The crack — and the fact that the whole thing was abandoned rather than salvaged, which says something about how these projects were run.
Photography
- Put a person in the frame or the scale disappears entirely. This is the single most common mistake here.
- Low sun along the shaft brings out the tool marks; overhead sun erases them.
- The view back over the town from the upper walkway is the shot nobody takes.
Comfort and access
- The walkways are firm with a gentle gradient and handrails, so it is more accessible than most Egyptian sites.
- Granite underfoot in summer is hot enough to feel through thin soles.
- Water and a hat. There is genuinely nowhere to get out of the sun once you are past the gate.
Families
- It is short, which is its main virtue with children after a long morning.
- The story — the biggest one ever attempted, cracked, abandoned, still lying there — lands immediately.
- Letting a child walk the length of it for the photograph is the standard and effective solution.
Nearby
Nearby
All within fifteen minutes, and usually done as one morning.
Philae
Fifteen minutes south and across the water — the temple of Isis on its rebuilt island.
Aswan
The town itself — corniche, souq, Nubian Museum and the felucca landings.
Abu Simbel
The long day south, by road before dawn or by a short flight.
The Nubian Museum
A few minutes away in the town, and one of the best museums in Egypt. No page of its own yet.
Good to Know
Frequently asked
About forty-two metres and well over a thousand tonnes, which would have made it larger than any obelisk ever actually raised — the tallest standing one, Hatshepsut’s at Karnak, is around thirty metres. It is generally attributed to Hatshepsut too, though that is an inference from period and scale rather than an inscription. The work stopped when a crack opened along the shaft, and rather than salvage a smaller piece the quarrymen simply left it.
Yes, because it is short and because it changes what every other obelisk in Egypt looks like. Thirty minutes here — the pounding marks, the trenches, the abandoned shaft — is what turns the standing obelisks at Karnak and Luxor from impressive objects into things somebody made by hand out of granite with stone hammers. It is the explanation the rest of the country assumes you already have.
By pounding, not by cutting. Granite is harder than the copper and bronze tools available, so quarrymen hammered balls of dolerite — a harder stone — into the rock to crush a narrow trench along each face of the intended shaft, working down until it could be levered free from the bedrock. The rounded hollows left by that process are still all over this site, which is why it is the one place the method is legible rather than theoretical.
Thirty minutes for a complete look and forty-five if you stop at the trenches and the other abandoned pieces around the quarry. It is designed as a short stop and it usually sits second in the standard Aswan morning, after Philae and before or after the High Dam. A guide is worth more here per minute than almost anywhere else, because everything on show is a technique rather than a picture.
Reasonably. There are firm raised walkways with handrails running the length of the obelisk and a gentle climb rather than steps, which makes it one of the more manageable sites in Upper Egypt. The route is a short loop. What it has none of is shade, and the granite underfoot gets very hot in summer, so the constraint is heat rather than gradient.
Other abandoned work, which most visitors walk past. There are partly cut blocks, an unfinished sarcophagus and further separation trenches scattered around the site, all showing the same technique at different stages. There is also a view back over Aswan and the river from the upper walkway that almost nobody turns round for, and which puts the quarry, the town and the granite islands in the river into one relationship.
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