Discovery of lost branch of Nile may solve mystery of pyramids

Archaeologists have long wondered why the ancient Egyptians built their pyramids on what is now a narrow, inhospitable strip of desert. New satellite images appear to solve the riddle.

A guide pulls a lead camel as tourists ride in a row past the Great Pyramid of Khufu and the Pyramid of Khafre on the outskirts of Giza. Picture: AFP

Archaeologists have long wondered why the ancient Egyptians built most of their pyramids on what is now a narrow, inhospitable strip of desert.

They may now have an answer after scientists uncovered evidence that the pharaohs’ tombs originally sat next to a 65km branch of the Nile that vanished centuries ago but would once have been an artery for commerce, culture and building materials.

The former waterway is now buried but was found using satellite images, geophysical surveys and the discovery of buried river sediment. When the construction of the pyramids began about 4700 years ago it would have run parallel to the current course of the Nile, but to the west. It is likely to have been used to bring in materials and labourers, said Eman Ghoneim, of the University of North Carolina Wilmington, who led the research.

“We were surprised at just how large this branch of the Nile once was – at points it would have been half a kilometre wide and 25m deep,” she said.

Until now, “no convincing explanation as to why these pyramids are concentrated in this specific locality has been given”, Dr Ghoneim and her colleagues wrote in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

They propose naming the lost portion of river the “Ahramat branch”, with ahramat meaning “pyramids” in Arabic. The researchers looked at a tract of land in the northern Nile Valley ­between Lisht in the south and the Giza Plateau in the north, where 31 pyramids were built over a period of nearly 1000 years. They now sit on the edge of the arid Western Desert, which is part of the Sahara.

A segment of the former Ahramat Branch in the Nile floodplain in close proximity to the Giza Plateau. Eman Ghoneim, of the University of North Carolina Wilmington, top right, led the research.

Dr Ghoneim suspects that the vanished river branch was used to bring in materials such as granite from Aswan, about 800km to the south of Giza. She also notes that many of the pyramids dating to the Old and Middle Kingdoms have causeways that lead to the branch. These walkways end with temple structures that would have sat on the banks of the lost river and may have acted as harbours, Dr Ghoneim said.

The researchers suggest that a build-up of windblown sand, linked to a major drought that began about 4200 years ago, was one of the reasons for the waterway first shifting to the east and eventually vanishing as it silted up.

They first studied satellite imagery, looking for evidence of a former river branch running along the foothills of the Western Desert Plateau, close to the pyramid fields. They then used geophysical surveys and sediment cores to confirm the presence of river sediments and former water channels beneath the modern land surface.

Dr Ghoneim said that the findings underscore the role played by the Nile in the rapid growth and expansion of the ancient Egyptian civilisation.

“It served as a lifeline in a largely arid landscape,” she said. “And it provided a route or a water corridor that allowed for the transportation of goods and workmen and building materials.”

Campbell Price, an Egyptologist at the University of Manchester who was not connected to the study, said: “I think people often imagine Egyptian pyramids being marooned in the middle of the desert. This research seems to demonstrate that they were, in fact, closely connected with the River Nile.”

Nigel Strudwick, an Egyptologist at Cambridge University who was also not involved in the study, said the idea of pyramid complexes being connected by water “seems extremely plausible”. “Water transport was the main method of movement in Ancient Egypt,” he said. “There are references in texts to various channels, canals etc that we cannot usually locate with any certainty.”

The Times