ontained also a most interesting
illustrated account of the transport of two great obelisks down the Nile
in the reign of the same queen. Unfortunately, parts of the description
and of the carvings have been lost, but enough remains to give us a very
clear idea of the vessels employed and of the method of transport. Fig.
5 shows the type of barge employed to carry the obelisks, of which there
were two. The dotted lines show the portions of the carving which are at
present missing. The restoration was effected by Monsieur Edouard
Naville.[6] The restoration is by no means conjectural. The key to it
was furnished by a hieroglyph in the form of the barge with the obelisks
on deck. Some of these obelisks were of very large size. There are two,
which were hewn out of granite for Queen Hatshepsu, still at the Temple
of Karnak. They may, very possibly, be the two which are referred to in
the description at Der-el-Bahari. One of them is 98 feet and the other
105 feet in height. The larger of the two has been calculated to weigh
374 tons, and the two together may have weighed over 700 tons. To
transport such heavy stones very large barges would have been required.
Unfortunately, the greater portion of the inscription describing the
building of these boats has been lost, but what remains states that
orders were given to collect "sycamores from the whole land (to do the)
work of building a very great boat." There is, however, an inscription
still intact in the tomb of an ancient Egyptian named Anna, who lived in
the reigns of the three kings Thotmes (and therefore also during that of
Queen Hatshepsu), which relates that, having to transport two obelisks
for Thotmes I., he built a boat 120 cubits long and 40 cubits wide. If
the royal cubit of 20.72 inches was referred to, the dimensions of the
boat would have been 200 feet long by 69 feet wide. This is possibly the
very boat illustrated on the walls of Der-el-Bahari; for, it having
evidently been a matter of some difficulty to collect the timber
necessary to build so large a vessel, it seems only natural to suppose
that it would be carefully preserved for the future transport of similar
obelisks. If, however, it was found necessary to construct a new boat in
order to transport Queen Hatshepsu's obelisks, we may be fairly certain
that it was larger than the one whose dimensions are given above, for
the taller of her two obelisks at Karnak is the largest that has been
found in Egypt in