The types of tools used for the quarrying of soft stones (Mohs 1-5) during pharaonic times has not been definitively determined. Judging from the marks preserved on quarry walls, some type of axe or pointed pick was probably used in the Old and Middle Kingdoms, whereas a pointed chisel hammered with mallet was evidently employed from the New Kingdom onward. The wide grooves on the surfaces of a few stone blocks suggest that a very large stone chisel may sometimes have been used. Some Egyptologists have argued that most of the tool marks were made by soft copper chisels in the Old and Middle Kingdoms and harder copper or bronze chisels from the New Kingdom onward (with characteristic patterns possibly deriving from specific chronological phases); others have pointed out that harder alloys would already have been available during the Old Kingdom. Those chisels that have survived at ancient construction sites usually have a broad, flat cutting edge rather than a point. Chert and flint (Mohs 7) tools were also used for stoneworkine.
As far as the extraction of such hard stones as granite (Mohs 6-7) is concerned, it was once assumed—because of the many surviving groups of rectangular wedge holes at Aswan—that the rock was removed by inserting wet wooden wedges into holes and levering the blocks away from the bedrock. It has been pointed out, however, that even wooden wedges soaked in water would generally not have been strong enough to break the granite, and that no wedge holes have yet been securely dated to pharaonic times. Iron wedges could have been used to extract hard stones from the Ptolemaic period onward. Various experimental studies and analyses of the quarries at Aswan suggest that the actual process of extraction in pharaonic times involved the excavation of opencast quarries, by means of hammerstones, gradually removing the desired stone from the surface downward. In the quartzite quarry at Gebel Gulab (on the western bank at Aswan), a broken obelisk inscribed with the name of the nineteenth dynasty ruler Sety I survives in situ near the quarry face from which it was extracted. The nearby quarry face shows definite traces of the use of stone pounders. Pounder marks have also been found at Qau el-Kebir, in a limestone quarry of unusually dense and hard rock (limestone may be soft [Mohs 3], medium [Mohs 4], or dense and hard [Mohs 5]). Further evidence for the extraction of stone by pounding has survived in the form of a set of marks in the siltstone quarry of the Wadi Hammamat, which may well date to pharaonic times.
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As far as the extraction of such hard stones as granite (Mohs 6-7) is concerned, it was once assumed—because of the many surviving groups of rectangular wedge holes at Aswan—that the rock was removed by inserting wet wooden wedges into holes and levering the blocks away from the bedrock. It has been pointed out, however, that even wooden wedges soaked in water would generally not have been strong enough to break the granite, and that no wedge holes have yet been securely dated to pharaonic times. Iron wedges could have been used to extract hard stones from the Ptolemaic period onward. Various experimental studies and analyses of the quarries at Aswan suggest that the actual process of extraction in pharaonic times involved the excavation of opencast quarries, by means of hammerstones, gradually removing the desired stone from the surface downward. In the quartzite quarry at Gebel Gulab (on the western bank at Aswan), a broken obelisk inscribed with the name of the nineteenth dynasty ruler Sety I survives in situ near the quarry face from which it was extracted. The nearby quarry face shows definite traces of the use of stone pounders. Pounder marks have also been found at Qau el-Kebir, in a limestone quarry of unusually dense and hard rock (limestone may be soft [Mohs 3], medium [Mohs 4], or dense and hard [Mohs 5]). Further evidence for the extraction of stone by pounding has survived in the form of a set of marks in the siltstone quarry of the Wadi Hammamat, which may well date to pharaonic times.
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