Silsilis (fig. 49). Here the cliffs were quarried from above, and under the
open sky. Clean cut and absolutely vertical, they rise to a height of from
forty to fifty feet, sometimes presenting a smooth surface from top to
bottom, and sometimes cut in stages accessible by means of steps scarcely
large enough for one man at a time. The walls of these cuttings are covered
with parallel striae, sometimes horizontal, sometimes slanting to the left,
and sometimes to the right, so forming lines of serried chevrons framed, as
it were, between grooves an inch, or an inch and a half, in width, by nine
or ten feet in length. These are the scars left upon the surface by the
tools of the ancient workmen, and they show the method employed in
detaching the blocks. The size was outlined in red ink, and this outline
sometimes indicated the form which the stone was to take in the projected
building. The members of the French Commission, when they visited the
quarries of Gebel Abûfeydeh, copied the diagrams and squared designs of
several capitals, one being of the campaniform pattern, and others prepared
for the Hathor-head pattern (fig. 50).[10] The outline made, the vertical
faces of the block were divided by means of a long iron chisel, which was
driven in perpendicularly or obliquely by heavy blows of the mallet. In
order to detach the horizontal faces, they made use of wooden or bronze
wedges, inserted the way of the natural strata of the stone. Very
frequently the stone was roughly blocked out before being actually
extracted from the bed. Thus at Syene (Asûan) we see a couchant obelisk of
granite, the under side of which is one with the rock itself; and at Tehneh
there are drums of columns but half disengaged. The transport of quarried
stone was effected in various ways. At Syene, at Silsilis, at Gebel Sheikh
Herideh, and at Gebel Abûfeydeh, the quarries are literally washed by the
waters of the Nile, so that the stone was lowered at once into the barges.
At Kasr es Saîd,[11] at Tûrah, and other localities situate at some
distance from the river, canals dug expressly for the purpose conveyed the
transport boats to the foot of the cliffs. When water transit was out of