Tagged “thebes”
HIGH WONDERColossi of Memnon
How did New Kingdom Egypt quarry, load, and move two seated statues carved from single blocks of quartzite — each weighing on the order of 700 tonnes — roughly 675 km across the country to the Theban plain, and why did one of them 'sing' at dawn for two hundred years?
c. 1350 BCE (18th Dynasty, reign of Amenhotep III) · Theban Necropolis, near Luxor, EgyptAdded July 2026
Great Hypostyle Hall of Karnak
How did New Kingdom builders raise stone roof-beams weighing on the order of 70 tonnes onto columns 21 metres tall, and roof over a covered hall of some 5,000 square metres — and which of the proposed methods, giant earthen ramps or levering, actually did the heavy lifting?
c. 1290–1220 BCE (19th Dynasty; built by Seti I and Ramesses II, on foundations begun earlier) · Karnak, Luxor, EgyptAdded July 2026