In the same papyrus (§ XII), there is a reference to an embankment, which may well have been intended for the erection of a monument, perhaps an obelisk, as the problem immediately following concerns the transport of an obelisk from the quarry. The scribe Ḥori puts the problem: “There is made a ramp of 730 cubits, with a breadth of 55 cubits, consisting of 120 compartments (?) filled with reeds and beams with a height of 60 cubits at its summit, its middle of 30 cubits, its batter (?) 15 cubits, its base (?) of 5 cubits. The quantity of bricks needed for it is asked of the commander of the army . . . . . . . Answer us as to the quantity of bricks needed. Behold its measurements (??) are before thee; each one of its compartments (?) is of 30 cubits long and 7 cubits broad.” Since the words translated by “compartment” and “base” are very doubtful in meaning, it is difficult to obtain any definite idea as to the internal construction of the ramp. Borchardt supposes the words “the middle” to mean the space filled with rubbish in the inside of the embankment as a means of economising the bricks. The ‘compartments’ may refer to the longitudinal divisions in the middle of the embankment, which can still be seen in the construction ramp inside the South Ptolemaic (?) pylon at Karnak. Choisy, in his _L’Art de bâtir chez les Égyptiens_, p. 86, gives rather a good little sketch of this, apparently made when the ramp was newly cleared. Borchardt, on the other hand, imagines the compartments to be transverse divisions. It is certain, however, that there is a mistake in the measurements given in the Anastasi papyrus, as it seems quite impossible to {36} divide up the embankment according to the data, even if we take ‘compartments’ to mean the sections or towers into which nearly all brick enclosure walls and embankments were divided (see SOMERS CLARKE, _J. Eg. Arch._, vol. VII, p. 77). It seems to me that Borchardt is right as to the embankment being, as it were, a brick box filled with earth; otherwise there is a great redundance of data. Obviously, the only measurements necessary for an embankment (built of plain brickwork or in towers like the great temple walls), if solid, are: Horizontal length of ramp (L); highest part (H); width at top (W); and the batter (B). Then the number of bricks required will be, to a close approximation: ½ L⁠H (W + B) divided by the volume of one brick, plus a factor for waste bricks. It may be remarked that if the Aswân obelisk were pulled up an embankment of the slope given here, it would need (neglecting friction) over 2000 men.