Religion played a more than crucial role in the lives of the Ancient Egyptians, and the overwhelming costs and labor needed to produce, transport and erect religious artifacts, such as obelisks and pyramids, was insignificant compared to its final gratification to the Egyptian people and their rulers. Obelisks where placed, in pairs, in front of or into temples, such as the temple of Karnak in Luxor. They were believed to act as antennas that channeled cosmic energy down to Earth.
An obelisk is a single, quadrangular, monolithic stone wider at the base, tapering gently as it rises upwards, ending with a pyramidion summit. Sometimes the pyramidion was covered with a gold and silver alloy called electrum. The electrum cap duplicates the glare of the Sun as it emits its rays to the earth. The four sides of the obelisk were inscribed and decorated with hieroglyphs. The inscriptions were usually dedications to the Sun god, Amun-Ra or commemorations of a life of a king or queen.
According to the ancient mythology of Egypt, and from the belief in the concept of “Ma’at” (harmony and truth), we know that the obelisks came in pairs and that there were two in heaven and two on earth in every age. The obelisk was associated with the worship of the solar cult, and were called tekhenu by the Egyptians. The Greeks were the ones who called them “obelisk” or little spits (items used for roasting meat over a fire). The oldest obelisk was discovered in Abusir, dating back from the Old Kingdom during the reign of King Niuserre (2449-2417 BC), but it was only 10 feet tall.
To be a success the obelisk had to be a giant single piece of rock, if the cosmic energy was to travel down through it. If completed, the Unfinished Obelisk would have been the largest yet at 1,168 tones and standing 137 feet tall. The tallest today is the Lateran Obelisk in Rome, at 105 feet and weighing 455 tons, which originally stood at the temple of Karnak in Luxor. The project of the Unfinished Obelisk was abandoned because during its extraction, a profound crack was discovered near the center of the obelisk. The bottom side of The Obelisk is still attached to the bedrock, giving insight into the stone-work techniques adopted by the ancient Egyptians.
The Unfinished Obelisk is located in the Northern Quarry in Aswan. It was commissioned by Queen Hatshepsut to commemorate her 16th anniversary on the throne, and would have been the world’s largest piece of stone ever handled. The Obelisk if finished would have had to be transported by boat on the Nile, to be erected at the Karnak Temple.
The marks left behind on the rock face by ancient rock cutters and the tools they left behind sheds light on how such an accomplishment was undertaken. To carve out the huge stone block as a single piece, a row of holes were made with wooden wedges driven into them. Water was then poured on to the wood and as the wood expanded it caused the rock to split. The obelisk was then chiseled into shape by workers with dolomite rock, which is even harder than granite. Heated bricks were then placed on the surface of the obelisk and when it was sufficiently hot, water was poured on, causing the uneven parts to flake off, giving the granite a smooth finish.
The quarry site has been recently renovated and equipped to accommodate tourists. Being an open-air museum it is protected by the Egyptian government as an archaeological site. Although The Obelisk never came out of its bedrock it was not a complete failure for today we are grateful, as this Unfinished Obelisk has taught us more than any other monument in Egypt!About the Author:
Gawhara Hanem
It was told that Isis managed to trick the all powerful sun god Ra into telling her his secret name (the name that held all his divine power). By creating a magical serpent that bit Ra. She was called upon to cure him but to do so she had to know his secret name, which he finally divulged giving her power equal to his own and so she became divine and as powerful as Ra himself.
The end to this religion came in 535 A.D. when the Roman emperor Flavius Anicius Justinianus ordered the closure of the temple, forbad the art of reading and writing hieroglyphs and imprisoned its priests. This put an end to the religion that had spread beyond the lands of Egypt and spread all across the Mediterranean.
Isis was the sister-wife of Osiris and the mother of the god Horus. Osiris was a great and just king who was loved by his people and wife, but he was hated by his brother Seth (the god of the underworld). Seth was jealous of his brother so he devised a plan to get rid of him. He secretly obtained Osiris' measurements and had a magnificent casket of the rarest wood and decorated with ebony, ivory, silver and gold made to fit him exactly. He then held a great feast in honor of Osiris where he offered to give the casket to whoever fit it exactly. With the aid of 72 of his wicked friends they tricked Osiris into trying it for size, but as soon as he lay in it they nailed the lid shut and threw the casket into the Nile.
And when no one was looking she opened the chest and turned into a bird called the kite and flapped her mighty wings. The wind created by her wings gave Osiris the Breath of Life for one day, during which she conceived her son Horus from him. Seth managed to find the casket again and after opening it he rented the body into 14 pieces and scattered them along the shores of the Nile for the crocodiles to eat. Isis seeking the help of her sister Nephthys and Anubus the son of Nephthys, who was said to take the form of a jackal to find all the pieces of Osiris. All the pieces were recovered except for one. She stuck the pieces together and wrapped him in linen making him the first Egyptian mummy. Not able to return in a human form, Osiris was sent to rule the underworld, being the only person to live after death. 
Isis then returned to raise her son Horus, who often took the form of a hawk. Horus eventually avenges the death of his father and manages to defeat Seth. Horus was then given the privilege of taking his father's place and ruling Earth as Osiris had once done.
