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Primary sourceArtifactc. 1500 BCE

Unfinished Obelisk of Aswan

c. 1500 BCE

A massive granite obelisk abandoned in the quarry after cracking, possibly commissioned by Hatshepsut to pair with one already standing at Karnak.

This obelisk was probably commissioned by Hatshepsut, showing the massive scale of her building ambitions.

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A large granite quarry trench in Aswan, Egypt, with an unfinished obelisk still attached to bedrock. Its carved surfaces show stepped chisel marks along the sides of a long, tapering pink granite block. A shallow trench runs beside it, and a modern town and walkway lie in the background.
Unfinished obelisk, Aswan quarries, c. 1500 BCE.

About this source

What it is

This is the largest known ancient Egyptian obelisk, still attached to the bedrock in the stone quarries of Aswan. It was never finished because cracks appeared in the granite during carving, and the project was abandoned. It was studied in detail by Reginald Engelbach in 1922 and lies within quarries now protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Why it matters

Its creation may have been ordered by Hatshepsut, possibly to complement an obelisk from Karnak later moved to Rome. If finished, it would have been nearly a third larger than any obelisk ever erected, showing the huge ambition of her monuments. Because it was abandoned mid-carving, it preserves tool marks and work lines that reveal exactly how Egyptian workers cut stone.

Look closer

  • What does the obelisk's unfinished state tell us that a completed monument could not?
  • Why would a ruler want obelisks this enormous?
  • What problems might ancient workers have faced carving stone this large by hand?

This artifact is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Hatshepsut on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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