56 On the Method of Moving Colossal Stones. 



3811) 1 of red granite, which when entire weighed upwards of 8871 

 tons, and was brought from Assouan to Thebes, a distance of 138s 

 miles. This is indeed a surprizing weight, but it has the reputation! 

 of being the largest statue the world ever saw, and though nowfl 

 shattered into several pieces, lies a perfect marvel to all beholders.! 

 These three colossal statues I myself saw and roughly measured! 

 last winter. 



But to pass from the statues to other blocks of stone. Herodotus 

 describes a chamber made of a single stone 2 quarried at Syene, 

 which took two thousand labourers three years to convey to Sais,| 

 and which was 21 cubits long, 14 broad, and 8 high, (or 31 feet in 

 length, 22 in breadth, and 12 in height). Still more extraordinary,!! 

 not to say incredible than the last, is his second story of the 

 monolithic temple at Buto 3 which was 40 cubits, or 60 feet in] 

 height, breadth and thickness, and which would have weighed 

 some 6738 tons, a tolerable bulk to move at any time, and which 

 would, I think, startle our most scientific engineers even with all 

 their clever appliances of the 19th century after Christ: what! 

 then must it have been as many centuries before Christ, when thei 

 lever, the wedge, and the inclined plane comprized almost all the I 

 mechanical science the nations of antiquity possessed. 



But I will not tax the credulity of the Society, by asking it to 

 give a blind assent to the figures of Herodotus, generally accurate I 

 though I hold that much maligned but most valuable author to be. 

 I would rather call attention to the huge masses of stone which 

 still exist, quite enough in number, and bulky enough in size, to 

 astonish us, and perplex us to account for their transport to the 

 sites they still occupy : all of which moreover I have myself seen, 

 and most of which I have measured this year. 



And here the obelisks of Egypt first claim our attention. 4 

 They were all carved in the quarries of Syene, at the first Cataracts, 

 and they were transported either to Thebes, a distance of 138 miles, 



1 Ancient Egypt, p. 329. Handbook for Egypt, p. 331. 



2 Herodotus, book ii., chap. 175. Rawlinson's Herodotus, vol. ii. p. 267. 



3 Herodotus, book ii., chap. 155. Rawlinson's Herodotus, vol. ii., p. 140. 



4 Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, vol. iii., pp. 329 — 331. 



