Gaby
A team of researchers from the University of North Carolina Wilmington discovered an ancient river buried under desert sand that helped Egyptians build more than three dozen pyramids at Giza.
The scientists found evidence of a previously unknown branch of the Nile running alongside the pyramids. This supports the theory that the massive stone blocks were transported via water routes to the construction sites.
What the Researchers Learned
The question of how ancient builders managed to move enormous stone blocks over great distances has puzzled people for millennia. The leading idea is that construction materials were floated on rafts, but the Nile lay many kilometers from the pyramid sites.
The authors of the new study say this waterway once flowed much closer to the construction sites. Unfortunately, this branch of the Nile has long since dried up. The researchers analyzed satellite images, geophysical surveys, and sediment samples. To penetrate deeper beneath the sandy cover and capture images of the hidden terrain, the team employed NASA radar technology. This allowed them to map the ancient river branch, which they named Akhramat, meaning “pyramids” in Arabic.
According to the study, the Akhramat branch stretched approximately 64 kilometers from north to south, nearly parallel to the modern Nile but between 2.5 and 10.25 kilometers west of it. Its depth ranged from 2 to 8 meters, and its width varied from 200 to 700 meters.
“People interested in Egyptian history have long speculated that the Egyptians used water routes to construct massive monuments like pyramids and temples, but no one knew the shape, size, or location of that waterway relative to the pyramids,” said Egyptian-American geomorphologist Eman Ghoneim, who led the research.
Her team produced the first large-scale map of one of the Nile’s main ancient branches and linked that waterway to the pyramid sites.
So, what happened to Akhramat? Time erased the channel. More than 2,000 years have passed since the last pyramid was built, according to New Atlas. Over that time, winds blew sand into the channel and filled it in.
The discovery will help build a clearer picture of life in ancient Egypt, add context to obscure texts, and spur new excavations.
The study was published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment.
