Private Tour: High Dam and Unfinished Obelisk

Depart your Aswan hotel or cruise ship and travel to the High Dam of Aswan. Located near Aswan, the world famous High Dam was an engineering miracle when it was built in the 1960s. Containing more material than used in the Great Pyramid of Cheops, the Dam is 11,811 ft long, 3215 ft thick at the base, 364 ft tall and is carved into from the existing granite, providing irrigation and electricity for the whole of Egypt. from the top of the High Dam you can gaze across Lake Nasser, a huge reservoir created when it was built, to Kalabsha temple in the south and the huge power station to the north.

Continue to the Unfinished Obelisk in the granite quarries of Aswan where much of the red granite used for ancient temples and colossi came from. The Unfinished Obelisk located in the Northern Quarry still lies where it was carved when a crack was discovered as it was being hewn from the rock. Your qualified Egyptologist guide will explain how the 1 tonne obelisk was carved, and why the crack caused it to be abandoned.