Was 500 meters wide

Egypt’s pyramids once stood on a branch of the Nile

The famous pyramids of Giza were once located near the banks of a branch of the Nile that no longer exists today.

(Bild: APA/AFP/Phillipe Bourseiller)

The fact that the pyramids of Giza and other structures all stand in a narrow, now rather inhospitable strip of land on the edge of the Sahara desert has long been a mystery to archaeologists around the world. Now a team from the University of North Carolina claims to have solved it.

Using satellite images and sediment samples, they claim to have found evidence that no fewer than 31 pyramids, including those of Giza, were once built along a branch of the Nile that no longer exists today. According to the US researchers, this is what made it possible to build the pyramids almost 5,000 years ago.

Side arm was half a kilometer wide
According to the broadcaster CCN, the scientists were able to map a dried-up branch of the river (see graphic below) around 64 kilometers long, which is buried under farmland and desert. The waterway, called Ahramat (the Arabic word for pyramids, note), was about half a kilometer wide and - similar to today's Nile - at least 25 meters deep, says researcher Eman Ghoneim.

The researchers were able to map an approximately 64-kilometer-long dried-up branch of the river (see graphic), which is buried under farmland and desert.

(Bild: Nature/Eman Ghoneim et al.)

"The size and length of the Ahramat Arm and its proximity to the 31 pyramids in the study area strongly suggest a functioning waterway of great importance," says Ghoneim. It probably played a key role in transporting the enormous amount of building materials and labor that the ancient Egyptians needed to build the pyramids.

Ceremonial walkway led to the shore
The investigations, the results of which were published in the specialist journal "Communications Earth & Envirnonment", would also show that many of the pyramids in the study area have a causeway, "a ceremonial raised walkway that runs perpendicular to the course of the Ahramat branch and ends directly on its banks", Ghoneim is quoted by CNN.

Over time, however, the Nile migrated sideways, to the east, and its branches silted up and silted up - why is unclear - leaving behind many ancient Egyptian sites that are far from the present course of the river, the scientists report.

For this reason, the pyramids of Giza, as well as those of Abusir, Saqqara and Dahshur, now stand on the edge of the inhospitable Sahara, according to the researchers.