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Fig. 1: Stone-quarry by Aswan.

An account of Herodotus that refers to Elephantine from an economic standpoint is found in his retelling of the building program of King Amasis in Egypt (II 175).1 According to Herodotus, Amasis used the resources of the stone-quarries from Elephantine and Memphis i.a. for the restauration of the Athena temple in Sais which was the capital of Egypt during that period.2 He was most impressed by a monolith chamber that took two thousand men three years to bring it from Elephantine to Sais.3

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Fig. 2: Unfinished obelisk.

The quarries of Elephantine that are referenced by Herodotus in this paragraph extend for ca. 5 km along the Nile south of Aswan and have been in use since early Pharaonic times until the Greco-Roman period. From there originates the so-called rose-granite which was used for many different purposes like building monuments, statues and steles.4 The largest of these quarries (Fig. 1) lies southeast of the ancient town of Aswan and is known for the monumental unfinished obelisk (Fig. 2) that precedes it. North of the town evidence for stone processing workshops and an embarkation site for granite blocks from the early 5th Dynasty was found.5

Biography • Geography • Military • Economy • Culture

 

  1. 5th ruler of the 26th Dynasty, 570-526 BCE (Beckerath 1999, 287). ↩
  2. Sais was the Egyptian capital during the 24th Dynasty (732-720 BCE) and the 26th Dynasty (664-525 BCE) (Shaw; Nicholson 1995, 250). ↩
  3. Herodotus also mentions that Sais is a twenty-day journey away from Sais (II 175). ↩
  4. Klemm; Klemm 1993, 324. ↩
  5. V. Pilgrim 2012, 888-889. ↩