Скачать или смотреть The 1,200-Ton Obelisk That's Still in the Quarry (Modern Cranes Can't Move It)

Look at this crack.

One single crack in the granite.

And because of this crack, the largest obelisk ever attempted was abandoned.

1,200 tons. 42 meters tall. 137 feet.

Taller than a 10-story building. Heavier than 700 cars.

The ancient Egyptians were carving it out of solid bedrock in Aswan. Making progress. Getting close to completion.

Then this crack appeared.

They stopped. Left it. Walked away.

3,500 years later, it's still there.

THE UNFINISHED OBELISK.

Here's what's remarkable:

If this obelisk had been completed, we couldn't move it today.

Modern mobile cranes max out around 1,600 tons lifting capacity at fixed locations - not transport capacity over rough terrain.

Moving a 1,200-ton monolithic stone hundreds of miles? That's beyond modern mobile equipment capability.

Yet the ancient Egyptians were planning to do exactly that.

With Bronze Age technology. No steel. No modern cranes. No hydraulics. No engines.

THE ENGINEERING PROCESS REVEALED:

Because it's unfinished, we can see exactly how they did it:

QUARRYING METHOD:
Pounding stones (dolerite hammers)
Trench excavation around the obelisk outline
Undercutting - tunneling beneath 1,200 tons while it hung above
Years of continuous work by hundreds of workers

TRANSPORT PLAN:
Sledges pulled by 3,000-4,000 workers
Possibly wooden rollers reducing friction
Earthen ramps using gravity assist
Loading onto massive barges during Nile flood season
River transport using current (200+ km journey)

ERECTION THEORIES:
Massive earthen ramp method
Sand pit controlled descent method
Lever and counterweight system
Combination of techniques

MODERN COMPARISON:

Could we move it today?

YES - with fixed cranes (Taisun crane: 20,000 ton capacity)

But with MOBILE equipment? Transporting it over rough Egyptian terrain?

That would require:
Specialized heavy-lift transporters (SPMTs)
Extensive ground preparation
Temporary road construction
Months of planning
Tens of millions of dollars

The ancient Egyptians did this routinely. With wood, rope, and Bronze Age engineering.

THE SCALE:

The Unfinished Obelisk would have been:
1/3 taller than the largest standing Egyptian obelisk
Nearly 3X heavier than any erected obelisk
The culmination of Egyptian obelisk engineering

Only the crack stopped them. Not inability.

OTHER EGYPTIAN OBELISKS:

Lateran Obelisk (Rome): 455 tons - erected successfully
Luxor Obelisk (Paris): 250 tons - took 2 years to move in 1836
Cleopatra's Needles (London/NYC): 220 tons each - nearly sank during 1800s transport

The Romans - with more advanced technology - struggled to move Egyptian obelisks.

The Egyptians created them. Moved them. Erected them. Routinely.

VISIT THE UNFINISHED OBELISK:

It's still there at Aswan quarries. You can walk around it. Touch it. See the ancient tool marks.

A monument to Bronze Age ambition and engineering capability.

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📚 SOURCES:
Aswan quarries archaeological documentation
Ancient Egyptian quarrying techniques studies
Modern heavy-lift engineering comparisons
Obelisk transport historical records

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