Rock temples cut directly in the rocks at the Silsileh quarrying site, near Aswan
The stone quarries of ancient Egypt once produced quality stone for the building of tombs and temples and for decorative monuments such as sarcophagi, stelae, and statues.[1] These quarries are now recognised archaeological sites. Ancient quarry sites in the Nile valley accounted for much of the limestone and sandstone used as building stone for temples, monuments, and pyramids.[1] Eighty percent of the ancient sites are located in the Nile valley; some of them have disappeared under the waters of Lake Nasser and some others were lost due to modern mining activity.[1]
Some of the sites are well identified and the chemical composition of their stones is also well known, allowing the geographical origin of most of the monuments to be traced using petrographic techniques, including neutron activation analysis.
In June 2006, the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) of Egypt established a new department for conservation of ancient quarries and mines in Egypt. The new department was designed to work in close cooperation with the regional SCA offices, and special training programmes for Inspectors of Antiquities will be carried out to enable the regional authorities to tackle inventory, documentation, risk assessment and management of the ancient quarries and mines.
This article details some of the most important ancient quarry sites in Egypt, listing material type and known monuments using sourced material when known. Quarry sites are listed by location from North to South.
Abu Rawash
Abu Rawash is located 8 km (5 mi) north of Giza and is home to the pyramid of Djedefre and the ruins of the first pyramid of Lepsius.[2] A necropolis is located at the site, sat on top of a small hill and contains twelve mastabas dated to the 1st dynasty.[3]
Typical materials known from this site are:
Limestone
Gebel el Ahmar
The Colossi of Memnon are two massive statues made from blocks of quartzite quarried from Gabel el Ahmar.
Gebel el Ahmar[4] is located near Cairo on the east bank of the Nile, near the suburb of Heliopolis. The name means Red Mountain. The site was in full production in the times of Amenhophis III, Akhenaton, Tutankhamon, and Ramses III. The quarry was directed by Huy, known as "Chief of the King's Works", and also by Hori. The quarry was active during the Pharonic period and is now largely destroyed in modern time.[1]
Typical materials known from this site are:
Red and brown silicified sandstone or quartzite[1]
Some of the monuments known to come from this site are:
Tura-Masara is located 12 km (7.5 mi) south of Cairo and spans 6 km (3.7 mi) of underground quarries along the eastern bank of the Nile. The Tura quarry and Masara quarry are often separated, viewed individually, but due to their proximity they are more appropriately recognized as one extended system.[6] The quarries were active sometime during the Old Kingdom through the Late Period and remain partially destroyed in present day.[1]
Umm es-Sawan is located on Gevel el-Qatrani, Faiyum, 20 km (12.4 mi) north-east of Wide el-Faras in the landscape of the Northern Faiyum Desert. The white gypsum from this site occurs in near-vertical veins that cross-cut the other stratigraphy.[8] The quarry was active during the Pharonic period and remains largely intact.[1]
Widan el-Faras is located on Gebel el-Qatrani, Faiyum, 60 km (37 mi) southwest of Cairo in the Western Desert and is one of the oldest preserved hard-stone quarries sites.[9] Widen el-Faras, literarily translates to "Ears of the Mare" and is named for the twin peaks located east of the quarry site.[9] The quarry landscape of the Northern Faiyum Desert comprise both the Umm es-Sawan and Widan el-Faras basalt quarries, both heavily exploited for hardstone during the Old Kingdom pyramid age due to their proximity to the Nile Valley.[1] The quarry was active between the Old Kingdom and Late Period.[1] The ancient quarries have since been partially destroyed but Widen el-Faras continues to be a site for modern quarrying through the 20th century.
11.5 km long, paved quarry road connecting Widan el-Faras and Qasr el-Sagha used basalt fragments from the quarry along with other materials such as limestone, sandstone, and petrified wood.[9]
El Amarna
The El Amarna site is located a short distance from El Amarna.
The Gabal Abu Dukhan site, near modern Hurghada on Egypt's Red Sea coast, was particularly important for the Roman Empire. Pliny the Elder's Natural History stated that "imperial porphyry" was discovered at an isolated site in Egypt in 18 CE by a Roman legionary named Caius Cominius Leugas. The location of the site, known to the Romans as Mons Porphyrites, was lost for many centuries until rediscovered in the 19th century. It was the only source of imperial porphyry in antiquity. The quarry was active during the Greco-Roman period.[1]
Doryphoros torso (Uffizi). Basanite from the Wadi Hammamat quarry
Wadi Hammamat is a quarrying area located in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. This site is noted because it is described in the first ancient topographic map known, the Turin Papyrus Map, describing a quarrying expedition prepared for Ramesses IV. Inscriptions found at Wadi Hammamat describe quarry workers breaking blocks from the mountain and using a ramp to lower them to the ground when a monument was requested by the King.[11] Wadi Hammamat was active through the Pharonic period into the Greco-Roman period and remains largely intact in modern time.[1]
El-Dibabiya was a limestone quarry site at the southern end of the Eastern Desert in Egypt along the Nile. The quarry was active during the Old Kingdom and remained active into the Greco-Roman period in Egypt.[1] The site remains largely intact.
Typical materials known from this site are:
Limestone
Edfu
These quarries are located 8km (5.0mi) north of Edfu.
Some of the monuments known to come from this site are:
Gebel el-Silsila or Gebel Silsileh is 64km (40mi) north of Aswan along the banks of the Nile. It was a very well known quarrying area throughout all of ancient Egypt due to the quality of the building stone quarried there. The site is a rich archaeological area, with temples cut directly in the hills. Examples include the rock temple of Horemheb on the west bank. Many of the monuments here bear inscriptions of Hatshepsut, Amenhotep II, Ramesses II, Merenptah, and Ramesses III. The quarries and the stone temples here are visible from boats on the Nile. The quarry was active sometime during the Old Kingdom through the Late Period and remains largely intact in modern time.[1]
The quarries of Aswan are located along the Nile near the city of Aswan. There are a number of well-known sites: Shellal, consisting of northern and southern quarries within an area of about 20 km2 (7.7 sq mi) on the west bank, and the islands of Elephantine and Seheil. One of the known directors of the Aswan sites was Hori during the reign of Ramses III. Great amounts of granite were quarried from Aswan at an extent only comparable to ancient Egypt's limestone and sandstone quarries.[13] The quarry sites were active in the Old Kingdom through the Late Period, and continued to be active in the Greco-Roman period of Egypt.[1] In the present days, the quarry area is to become an open-air museum.[14]
Aswan is a city in Southern Egypt, and is the capital of the Aswan Governorate.
An obelisk is a tall, slender, tapered monument with four sides and a pyramidal or pyramidion top. Originally constructed by Ancient Egyptians and called tekhenu, the Greeks used the Greek term obeliskos to describe them, and this word passed into Latin and ultimately English. Though William Thomas used the term correctly in his Historie of Italie of 1549, by the late sixteenth century, Shakespeare failed to distinguish between pyramids and obelisks in his plays and sonnets. Ancient obelisks are monolithic and consist of a single stone; most modern obelisks are made of several stones.
Amenemhat III, also known as Amenemhet III, was a pharaoh of ancient Egypt and the sixth king of the Twelfth Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom. He was elevated to throne as co-regent by his father Senusret III, with whom he shared the throne as the active king for twenty years. During his reign, Egypt attained its cultural and economic zenith of the Middle Kingdom.
Elephantine is an island on the Nile, forming part of the city of Aswan in Upper Egypt. The archaeological digs on the island became a World Heritage Site in 1979, along with other examples of Upper Egyptian architecture, as part of the "Nubian Monuments from Abu Simbel to Philae".
The Egyptian pyramids are ancient masonry structures located in Egypt. Sources cite at least 118 identified "Egyptian" pyramids. Approximately 80 pyramids were built within the Kingdom of Kush, now located in the modern country of Sudan. Of those located in modern Egypt, most were built as tombs for the country's pharaohs and their consorts during the Old and Middle Kingdom periods.
The pyramid of Menkaure is the smallest of the three main pyramids of the Giza pyramid complex, located on the Giza Plateau in the southwestern outskirts of Cairo, Egypt. It is thought to have been built to serve as the tomb of the Fourth Dynasty Pharaoh Menkaure.
The Giza pyramid complex in Egypt is home to the Great Pyramid, the Pyramid of Khafre, and the Pyramid of Menkaure, along with their associated pyramid complexes and the Great Sphinx. All were built during the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom of ancient Egypt, between c. 2600 – c. 2500 BC. The site also includes several temples, cemeteries, and the remains of a workers' village.
The Arabian-Nubian Shield (ANS) is an exposure of Precambrian crystalline rocks on the flanks of the Red Sea. The crystalline rocks are mostly Neoproterozoic in age. Geographically – and from north to south – the ANS includes parts of Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Yemen, and Somalia. The ANS in the north is exposed as part of the Sahara Desert and Arabian Desert, and in the south in the Ethiopian Highlands, Asir province of Arabia and Yemen Highlands.
Gebel el-Silsila or Gebel Silsileh is 65 km (40 mi) north of Aswan in Upper Egypt, where the cliffs on both sides close to the narrowest point along the length of the entire Nile. The location is between Edfu in the north towards Lower Egypt and Kom Ombo in the south towards Upper Egypt. The name Kheny means "The Place of Rowing". It was used as a major quarry site on both sides of the Nile from at least the 18th Dynasty to Greco-Roman times. Silsila is famous for its New Kingdom stelai and cenotaphs.
Lisht or el-Lisht is an Egyptian village located south of Cairo. It is the site of Middle Kingdom royal and elite burials, including two pyramids built by Amenemhat I and Senusret I. The two main pyramids were surrounded by smaller pyramids of members of the royal family, and many mastaba tombs of high officials and their family members. They were constructed throughout the Twelfth and Thirteenth Dynasties. The site is also known for the tomb of Senebtisi, found undisturbed and from which a set of jewelry has been recovered. The pyramid complex of Senusret I is the best preserved from this period. The coffins in the tomb of Sesenebnef present the earliest versions of the Book of the Dead.
Spanning over three thousand years, ancient Egypt was not one stable civilization but in constant change and upheaval, commonly split into periods by historians. Likewise, ancient Egyptian architecture is not one style, but a set of styles differing over time but with some commonalities.
Egyptian pyramid construction techniques are the controversial subject of many hypotheses. These techniques seem to have developed over time; later pyramids were not constructed in the same way as earlier ones. Most of the construction hypotheses are based on the belief that huge stones were carved from quarries with copper chisels, and these blocks were then dragged and lifted into position. Disagreements chiefly concern the methods used to move and place the stones.
Akoris ; Egyptian: Mer-nefer(et), Per-Imen-mat-khent(j), or Dehenet is the Greek name for the modern Egyptian village of Ṭihnā al-Ǧabal, located about 12 km north of Al Minya. The ancient site is situated in the southeast of the modern village.
The pyramid complex of Userkaf was built c. 2490 BC for the pharaoh Userkaf, founder of the 5th Dynasty of Egypt. It is located in the pyramid field at Saqqara, on the north-east of the step pyramid of Djoser. Constructed in dressed stone with a core of rubble, the pyramid is now ruined and resembles a conical hill in the sands of Saqqara. For this reason, it is known locally as El-Haram el-Maharbish, the "Heap of Stone", and was recognized as a royal pyramid by western archaeologists in the 19th century.
The Faiyum Oasis is a depression or basin in the desert immediately west of the Nile river, 62 miles south of Cairo, Egypt. The extent of the basin area is estimated at between 1,270 km2 (490 mi2) and 1,700 km2 (656 mi2). The basin floor comprises fields watered by a channel of the Nile, the Bahr Yussef, as it drains into a desert hollow to the west of the Nile Valley. The Bahr Yussef veers west through a narrow neck of land north of Ihnasya, between the archaeological sites of El Lahun and Gurob near Hawara; it then branches out, providing agricultural land in the Faiyum basin, draining into the large saltwater Lake Moeris. In prehistory it was a freshwater lake, but is today a saltwater lake. It is a source for tilapia and other fish for the local area.
Middle Egypt is the section of land between Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt, stretching upstream from Asyut in the south to Memphis in the north. At the time, Ancient Egypt was divided into Lower and Upper Egypt, though Middle Egypt was technically a subdivision of Upper Egypt. It was not until the 19th century that archaeologists felt the need to divide Upper Egypt in two. As a result, they coined the term "Middle Egypt" for the stretch of river between Cairo and the Qena Bend. It was also associated with a region termed "Heptanomis", generally as the district which separates the Thebaïd from the Delta.
Nubian architecture is diverse and ancient. Permanent villages have been found in Nubia, which date from 6000 BC. These villages were roughly contemporary with the walled town of Jericho in Palestine.
The following outline is provided as an overview of a topical guide to ancient Egypt:
References
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Abu-Jaber, Nizar, ed. (2009). QuarryScapes: ancient stone quarry landscapes in the Eastern Mediterranean. Geological survey of Norway special publication. Trondheim: Norges Geologiske Undersøkelse. ISBN978-82-7385-138-3.
↑ Quiles A, Tristant Y. RADIOCARBON-BASED MODELING OF THE REIGN OF KING DEN (1ST DYNASTY, EGYPT) AND THE START OF THE OLD KINGDOM. Radiocarbon. 2023;65(2):485-504. doi:10.1017/RDC.2023.15
1 2 3 4 5 Storemyr, P., Heldal, T., Bloxam, E.G., Harrell, J.A. (2003) Widan el-Faras Ancient Quarry Landscape, Northern Faiyum Desert, Egypt: Site Description, Historical Significance and Current Destruction (Report Expert -Center für Denkmalpflege ETH Hönggerberg, HIL D 33/34 CH-8093 Zurich - Switzerland (CENTER FOR CONSERVATION OF MONUMENTS AND SITES)).
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