A forgotten branch of the Nile flowed past the pyramids in Egypt

Many of the pyramids of ancient Egypt were built along the now-defunct tributaries of the Nile River, geological research has revealed. This may explain why these pyramids, including the famous Great Pyramid of Giza, are concentrated in a thin strip of dry, barren land.

“Since ancient times, the Nile has provided nourishment for Egyptian settlements, and in the past it served as a major water corridor that enabled the transport of goods and building materials,” he said. say. Tim Ralph At Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. “For this reason, most of the major cities and monuments were built in close proximity to the banks of the Nile and its surrounding tributaries.”

More than 100 pyramids were built between 4,700 and 3,500 years ago as the magnificent tombs of the Egyptian pharaohs. Thirty-one of them, including the pyramids of Dahshur, Giza, and Saqqara, are scattered along the edge of Egypt's western desert, several kilometers from the Nile River.

To transport the vast numbers of people and resources needed to build these pyramids, researchers have long suspected that the Nile once had a tributary that flowed past the construction sites. I did.

To investigate further, Ralph and his colleagues examined radar satellite images and land elevation data of the area. Depressions in the topography indicated that the old waterway may have extended 64 kilometers beyond the pyramid area between the city of Giza in the north and the village of Lisht in the south. It was also close to Memphis, the capital of ancient Egypt, and the pyramid complexes of Abusir, Saqqara, and Dahshur.

Once the researchers had a rough idea of ​​the location of the tributary, they took core samples of soil and sediment along its path, discovering sandy riverbeds hidden beneath present-day farmland or desert.

“We estimate it was approximately between 200 and 700 meters wide and at least 8 meters deep at its deepest point,” Ralph said.

The causeway found around the 31 pyramids appears to have ended on the banks of this ancient Nile tributary. This indicates that thousands of years ago this waterway was used to transport building materials.

Ralph said the ancient branch, called the Ahramat branch after the Arabic word for pyramid, eventually withered after a severe drought hit the area about 4,200 years ago.

“The existence of the channel is a great result,” he says. penny wilson At Durham University, UK. “Creating all these maps is a wonderful addition to the buried ancient landscape and represents a cost-effective way to reconstruct and reassess the economic and social systems of the pharaonic state. Masu.”

campbell price “I think people often imagine the pyramids of Egypt as being stranded in the middle of the desert,” said the professor at Britain's University of Liverpool.

“This study seems to provide further evidence that they were indeed closely connected to the agricultural life of pharaonic Egypt and the Nile River,” he says.