How does obelisk work

Once the obelisk began to pivot over the edge, three braking ropes attached to the monument's tip were pulled taut to control the fall. Were the ropes to fail, the granite obelisk would violently smash against the ground and crack.

Once in place, the obelisk was removed from its sled and gently fell right into the turning groove. There are no chisel marks on the unfinished obelisk. Often you learn more about an unfinished object than a finished one. What they must have done is, after they pounded it free on a few sides, you have to free it on the bottom. How do you get the thing free on the bottom? They probably took these dolerite balls and then threw them against the granite, by horizontally dropping it against the side, chiseling out caverns.

You can imagine the miner, so to speak, the guys working on the obelisk, going into a cavern underneath the obelisk. Once you have caverns carved out underneath the obelisk, you then kind of shore it up in a couple of places and carve the rest out. Hatshepsut says she did two of them in seven months—erecting them, carving them, transporting them.

Now, how do you move it? They were pulled on rollers. They probably had hundreds of logs serving as rollers, and eventually, they would get the obelisk onto a roller and with ropes, roll it along. The rollers would move. Now, imagine the obelisk lying on its side on the bank parallel to the Nile. What they next did was to carve a canal under the obelisk, according to what an ancient historian says.

We have no record from the Egyptians about how they erected obelisks. Now, Hatshepsut, on her temple, shows the transportation of two of the obelisks on one barge. One of the things that made this all possible is that the granite quarry is in the south in Aswan. Learn more about the role of mythology, religion, and philosophy in ancient Egyptian thought. The hardest part is erecting an obelisk. We have no record of how they built pyramids, nor any instructions on how to build a temple or a tomb.

How did they erect an obelisk? There are a couple of theories. The best of them is a ramp theory. Although this is a theory, we are fairly certain that this was, in fact, how an obelisk was erected.

The Egyptian obelisk was a symbol of a ray of petrified sunlight , thought to embody the sun god Ra. There were probably more, but there are 21 Egyptian obelisks left in the world with only five still in Egypt.

The Egyptians usually erected Egyptian obelisks in pairs at the doors of temples. While there are many theories, the most reasonable and widely believed theory for how the Egyptian obelisks are thought to have been raised is by slaves pulling the obelisk up a ramp made of dirt with rope, until the bottom came down the flat end of the ramp into a prepared hole in the ground and then pulling it upright.

Peter's to the front where it now stands," she says. Long says the dramatic transport process was fraught with danger and celebrated all around Italy when it was accomplished. We can marvel at it today both because of Fontana's lucid explanations and the illuminating illustrations showing the steps and the machinery used for the move. While obelisks are rich in meaning and historical significance, their main attraction may really be their awe-inspiring aesthetics.

They are immensely heavy, but also fragile. They are the oldest or among the oldest human-made structures that exist in whichever city you find them. They display a subtle geometry. Block out the traffic noise, and other distractions, and spend some time looking at the obelisk, walking around it if you can , observing the hieroglyphs, the pyramidion pointing to the sun.

Immensely heavy monuments that are also transportable, they connect us to an ancient past, but can be deeply moving in the present as well. It was erected in Central Park on January 22, , after having been sold to the United States by the Egyptian government.

Sign up for our Newsletter! Mobile Newsletter banner close. Mobile Newsletter chat close. Mobile Newsletter chat dots. Mobile Newsletter chat avatar. Mobile Newsletter chat subscribe. Towering Obelisks Are Everywhere.