An aerial view of the Unfinished Obelisk in the ancient granite quarries of Aswan, Egypt 🇪🇬 This Unfinished Obelisk, sits in an ancient granite quarry in Aswan, in southern Egypt. Had it been completed, it would have stood about 137 feet tall and weighed over 1,200 tons. The obelisk was carved directly out of the bedrock. Many historians believe it was commissioned by Queen Hatshepsut, one of Egypt’s most powerful female pharaohs, though no inscription confirms it. Workers shaped the stone by pounding it with balls of dolerite, a rock even harder than granite. It was slow, grueling work. Then cracks appeared in the stone. A cracked obelisk could snap while being moved or raised, so the project was given up. That failure turned out to be a gift for archaeologists. Because it was never finished, the obelisk shows exactly how ancient Egyptians carved these monuments, including the tool marks and the trenches where workers knelt and hammered. For comparison, the tallest ancient Egyptian obelisk still standing, now in Rome, is about 105 feet tall. Granite from the Aswan quarries was also used inside the Great Pyramid of Giza, including the massive beams of the King’s Chamber, which were moved more than 500 miles down the Nile. #archaeohistories