The extinct Ahramat branch of the Nile died due to increasing sand deposition, reduced precipitation and tectonic activity, according to scientists
The Pyramids of Giza. Photo: iStock It is a question that every child must have pondered over in school: How did the ancient people of Kemet or Egypt get so many huge stones to build their towering pyramids in the burning desert? Now, a study by scientists from the University of North Carolina Wilmington has an answer: The mighty Nile river.
Today, the Nile is the longest river on the planet — although that status is hotly disputed by acolytes of the Amazon. Its headstream is the Kagera river in Africa’s Great Lakes region. From there it flows into South Sudan and Sudan, where the Blue Nile, flowing in from Lake Tana in Ethiopia, joins it.
It makes those impressive cataracts between Khartoum and Aswan. At the latter, it is now spanned by the Aswan High Dam and Lake Nasser. It then enters Lower Egypt, passing through Cairo before emptying into the Mediterranean through its distributaries, the Rosetta and the Damietta.
That is what we know of the mighty Nile today. We also know that Ancient Egypt was the ‘Gift of the Nile’ as annual floods downstream in the heart of Africa annually inundated the river and brought water and silt to Egypt, making life possible in what is otherwise a harsh and inhospitable desert.
The Egyptian pyramids are situated between Giza and Lisht. They were built over a 1,000-year period starting approximately 4,700 years ago. They stand more than five miles from the Nile river today. But during the days they were being built, the river flowed at the worksite, as the scientists found.
“They (the pyramids) now sit on the edge of the inhospitable Western Desert within the Saharan Desert. Sedimentary evidence suggests the Nile used to have a much higher discharge, with the river splitting into several branches in places. Researchers have previously speculated that one of these branches may have flowed by the pyramid fields, but this has not been confirmed,” a statement by the University of North Carolina read.
It added that a team led by Eman Ghoneim, earth and ocean sciences professor at the university, studied satellite imagery, geophysical surveys and sediment samples to confirm the location of the former river branch.
The team has proposed naming the branch Ahramat, meaning ‘pyramids’ in Arabic.
The pyramids between Giza and Lisht today lie in a strip of desert near the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis.
The team noted how the branch may have helped in the construction of the pyramids:
The enormity of this branch and its proximity to the pyramid complexes, in addition to the fact that the pyramids’ causeways terminate at its riverbank, all imply that this branch was active and operational during the construction phase of these pyramids. This waterway would have connected important locations in ancient Egypt, including cities and towns, and therefore, played an important role in the cultural landscape of the region.
But where did this branch of the Nile go? It is a tale of environmental change, one that people living today in the age of climate emergency can well identify with.
“The eastward migration and abandonment of the Ahramat Branch could be attributed to gradual movement of the river to the lower-lying adjacent floodplain or tilting of the Nile floodplain toward the northeast as a result of tectonic activity, as well as windblown sand incursion due to the branch’s proximity to the Western Desert Plateau,” the researchers stated.
They added that the increased sand deposition was most likely related to periods of desertification of the Great Sahara in North Africa.
“In addition, the branch eastward movement and diminishing could be explained by the reduction of the river discharge and channel capacity caused by the decreased precipitation and increased aridity in the region, particularly during the end of the Old Kingdom,” they said.
The study was published as The Egyptian pyramid chain was built along the now abandoned Ahramat Nile Branch in Nature Communications Earth & Environment on May 16, 2024.
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