Mystery of the placement of the Egyptian pyramids is solved as researchers discover why they were built in an ‘inhospitable desert strip’

The Egyptian pyramid may have been designed to rise above a verdant stretch along the Nile River in the midst of arid western Sahara.

But something happened, and now the Great Pyramid rises from a “narrow and inhospitable strip of desert.”

two

Approximately 4,700 years after construction began on these ancient wonders, scientists at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington may have solved the mystery of the pyramid’s location.

Attempting such an architectural feat eight kilometers from the nearest river has intrigued experts.

But soil samples and satellite images suggest that the chain of pyramids – 31 in total – may have originally been built along a 40-mile-long branch of the Nile River.

This branch of the Nile would have extended the vegetation that flourishes alongside the main channel down to the sands.

But it no longer exists.

Scientists believe it has long been buried beneath windblown sand.

The branch of the river, nicknamed Ahramat by researchers, may have even disappeared before the pyramids were even finished being built – a feat that took around 1,000 years.

This long-lost branch of the river may have been instrumental in transporting the materials needed to build the pyramids.

“Many of the pyramids, which date from the Old and Middle Kingdoms, have causeways leading to the branch and ending with the Valley Temples, which may have functioned as river ports along it in the past,” researchers said. to write in a recently published study.

“We suggest that the Ahramat Branch played a role in the construction of the monuments and that it was simultaneously active and used as a waterway to transport workers and construction materials to the pyramid sites.”

Researchers found that many of the pyramids had causeways that ended at the proposed banks of the Ahramat River.

The team, led by Eman Ghoneim, used geophysical surveys and sediment cores to find sediments from rivers and ancient channels beneath the more modern land surface.

Our research offers the first map of one of the main ancient branches of the Nile on such a large scale and links it to the largest pyramid fields in Egypt.

Eman Ghoneim, lead researcher on the study

They believe that a significant drought around 4,200 years ago could be the answer to why this branch of the Nile no longer exists today.

“Our research offers the first map of one of the main ancient branches of the Nile on such a large scale and links it to the largest pyramid fields in Egypt,” said Eman Ghoneim, lead researcher on the study.

Future research to find more extinct branches of the Nile could help unlock more secrets about Egypt’s ancient history.