Stone

Although small-scale quarrying of chert to make tools dates back to 40,000 bp, large-scale demand for stone to produce vessels, statues, and architectural elements arose at the beginning of the Pharaonic period (Aston, Harrell and Shaw 2000: 5-6). Three centuries after the first significant use of stone in the Early Dynastic tombs at Abydos and Saqqara, Djoser chose stone as the sole material to build his funerary complex; the design of many parts of the complex, however, was still deeply influenced by the earliest architecture built of light materials. By the time Khufu built his pyramid just one century later the Egyptians appear to have fully understood the potential of stone and to be perfectly able to exploit it, both structurally and formally. Khafre, Khufu’s successor, apart from building the second largest pyramid, inaugurated the tradition of large-scale production of royal statues (Lehner 1997: 84-133). Therefore, in a relatively short time stone had become the most common and most favored building material for any Pharaoh. State expeditions started to be organized to reach specific veins of valuable stones (e. g. Shaw and Bloxam 1999; also Shaw 1998); quarrying techniques developed, as well as efficient methods for transporting the blocks (Aston, Harrell, and Shaw 2000: 17-20), the size of which increased dramatically during the same short period of time (cf. Arnold 1991: 160, 1-2).

Even though quarries have been the subject of detailed studies in recent years (in general Klemm and Klemm 1993; for specific cases Aston, Harrell, and Shaw 2000: 70-7), the exact nature of the tools employed to extract stone blocks remains unclear. Chisels and pounders made of particularly hard stone are likely to have been the most common tools, with or without the help of other materials (Arnold 1991: 33-6; 258-64). In the case of soft stones, the use of copper chisels has been postulated (Klemm 1988); as for hard stones, the old assumption that wooden wedges were used to detach blocks from the bedrock has recently lost consensus (Aston, Harrell, and Shaw 2000: 7). Metal chisels and wooden mallets were certainly employed to dress stone blocks (Arnold 1991: 257-8), whilst the final polishing of vessels and statues was achieved by rubbing their surface with hard stones (Clarke and Engelbach 1930: 197-9).