The Ecology of Things: Artifacts as Embodied Relations

Abstract

In the fifteenth century BC, queen Hatshepsut of Egypt had two huge granite obelisks carved in honor of her divine father, which were transported from Aswan to Karnak. Stone reliefs at Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple Deir el-Bahri show the obelisks being conveyed by ships along the Nile. One of the obelisks stands 30 meters high and is estimated to weigh around 320 tons. The reliefs are strikingly similar to modern blueprints. They represent in informative detail the ancient technology of moving obelisks, complete with pulleys, ropes, and great numbers of rowers. The 3,500-year-old images can help us distinguish analytically between engineering and energy sources. It is evident that the technology of monumental architecture three-and-a-half millennia ago required specialized technical knowledge. Although adapted to the practicalities of harnessing slave labor, ancient Egyptian engineering is as analytically distinguishable from slavery as modern engineering knowledge is distinguishable from economic access to fossil fuels. “Technology” in the sense of expert knowledge is as much a necessary condition for transporting ancient obelisks as it is for modern air travel, but in neither case is it a sufficient condition. Without fossil fuels, our technological knowledge would be as powerless as queen Hatshepsut would have been without slaves.