El-Gabal el-Ahmar

Gebel el- Ahmar (Arabic جبل الأحمر, " the Red Mountain" ) is the name of a mountain in Egypt, near Heliopolis northeast of Cairo.

The mountain was used in Ancient Egypt as a quarry for hard quartzite, the one used for the production of statues and sarcophagi from the Old Kingdom. From the New Kingdom and the Late Period to inscriptions, of which the vizier Hori among the most important at the end of the mountain find. Hori led on behalf of the king a quarry expedition to the region. The French Egyptologist Georges Daressy published further inscriptions, representations of animals and graffiti, including a text by the workers headman Penimeni.

Inscriptions on the statue of Amenhotep, son of Hapu and on a back pillar of the Colossi of Memnon suggest that the stone for these statues at Gebel el- Ahmar to be broken. However, recent comparative analyzes of the rock speak for the Gebel Tingar at Aswan as the origin.

Ramses II reports on a stele with a speech to the quarry workers of his visit to the quartzite quarries and that he had selected there two large blocks for his statues.

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