Amma in Egypt – Part 6 – Azwan
We went on from Cairo to Azwan. We had breakfast and checked out of the room. We went to the airport to take a flight to Azwan.
The whole group was not made to travel together in the same flight. My husband and I were in one flight and the others were in another. Our flight was scheduled to reach about 10 minutes earlier. So they had asked us to wait at the airport for them to join us. But it so happened that our flight did not take off on time. We were delayed by almost 30 minutes. Everyone else had to wait for us.
From the Azwan airport they took us in a bus to visit the high dam of Azwan, the pride of Azwan, an ideal place for a panoramic view of Azwan. Azwan was not like Cairo. It was very nice. The buildings were all very clean and neat. They had maintained it very well. There was also a lot of greenery. We were happy to see this city. This is where Egypt ends and Nubia begins.
After seeing the high dam we headed to the unfinished obelisk.
What is an obelisk?
An obelisk is a tall, narrow, four-sided, tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape at the top. Ancient obelisks were often monolithic whereas most modern obelisks are made of several stones and can have interior spaces.
The unfinished obelisk is the largest known ancient obelisk, located in the northern region of the stone quarries of ancient Egypt in Aswan (Assuan), Egypt. It is unknown which pharaoh created this structure . It is nearly one third larger than any ancient Egyptian obelisk ever erected. If finished it would have measured around 42 m (120 feet) and would have weighed nearly 1,200 tons. Archeologists speculate that it was intended to complement the so-called Lateran Obelisk which was originally at Karnak and is now outside the Lateran Palace in Rome. (Thutmose III obelisk in Lateran, Rome: 105 ft)
The obelisk’s creators began to carve it directly out of bedrock, but cracks appeared in the granite and the project was abandoned. Originally it was thought that the stone had an undetected flaw but it is also possible that the quarrying process allowed the cracking to develop by releasing the stress. The bottom side of the obelisk is still attached to the bedrock. The unfinished obelisk offers unusual insights into ancient Egyptian stone-working techniques, with marks from workers’ tools still clearly visible as well as ocher-colored lines marking where they were working.
Next we proceeded to the perfumery and saw a demonstration of how scented oils were used to make perfumes.
From there we boarded our legendary Nile cruise for a great 3 day journey on the scenic Nile river. In the evening we were free. They took us for shopping.
People seemed to shop everything and anything they saw. Many things did not look worth or even interesting…but most of them were shopping at every shop. We just bought some souvenirs (fridge magnets with Egyptian kings pics). We dint find anything else interesting enough to buy.
Some details of Azwan at http://www.aswanguide.com/
Greetings. To start with I need to say that I definitely like your webpage, just determined it last week but I have been reading it constantly since then.
I look to consent with most of your respective thoughts and beliefs and this submit is no exception. absolutely agree with you.
Thank you for any excellent website and I hope you hold up the excellent operate. If you do I will carry on to read it.
Use a good evening.