Image Gallery - Napoleon and the Scientific Expedition to Egypt

Minerals of Egypt
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View of the pylon at Luxor, with its two large flanking obelisks. The right obelisk was taken away in 1831 and installed in the Place de la Concorde in Paris. From the Description de l'Égypte Antiquités.
Syenite is abundant in Egypt, particularly in the ancient quarries near the city of Syene, or Aswan, often described as the southern limit of ancient Egypt. The mineralogist Roziére called the most common type of syenite Oriental red granite. from Description de l'Égypte Histoire naturelle	Syenite is the stone that was used by the ancient Egyptians for the temples and monuments, for the colossal statures, for all the obelisks at Thebes, Alexandria, and Heliopolis, and for those that had been transported to Rome. This is the stone mentioned by Pliny in the second century, Roziére pointed out, who gave it the name syenite in his encyclopedic Natural History.

This exhibition is made possible with the generous support of the J.E. Dunn Construction Company.

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