New discovery shows what helped the ancient Egyptians build the pyramids

The Giza pyramids on the outskirts of Cairo have always made people wonder: how were such incredible structures built with nothing but human and animal muscle for power? Depositphotos View 4 Images –

By Michael Irving
2024 May 20
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Scientists have discovered that the ancient Egyptians may have had help building the pyramids after all – not from aliens, but a long-lost river. Evidence of a previously uncharted branch of the Nile has been found snaking along near dozens of pyramids, lending credence to the idea that blocks were floated to the work sites.

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The question of how an ancient civilization managed to move huge stone blocks great distances to build monuments has perplexed the world for thousands of years. Floating them on rafts down rivers is one of the most plausible and widely believed hypotheses, but there’s still one problem: the Nile is many kilometers away from where the pyramids were built.

At least, it is currently. A new study suggests that the river was once much closer, but this branch has long since dried up. Using a combination of satellite imagery, geophysical surveys and analysis of sediment samples, the researchers claim to have now mapped out this ancient river branch. They propose the name “Ahramat,” which means pyramids in Arabic.

According to the study, the Ahramat branch extended about 64 km (40 miles) in a north-south direction, roughly parallel to the modern Nile but between 2.5 and 10.25 km (1.6 and 6.4 miles) west of it. It was between 2 and 8 m (6.6 and 26.2 ft) deep, and 200 to 700 m (656 to 2,297 ft) wide, which are similar dimensions to the current river.

*A map showing the proposed site of the newly discovered branch of the Nile, and how it snaked past many pyramid sites. Eman Ghoneim et al.*

Importantly, this old man river seems to have weaved its way past dozens of pyramid sites. Many of them had causeways that end in small structures right where the riverbanks of the Ahramat branch were proposed to have been, suggesting these were acting as docks.

“Many of us who are interested in ancient Egypt are aware that the Egyptians must have used a waterway to build their enormous monuments, like the pyramids and valley temples, but nobody was certain of the location, the shape, the size, or proximity of this mega waterway to the actual pyramids site,” said Professor Eman Ghoneim, lead author of the study. “Our research offers the first map of one of the main ancient branches of the Nile at such a large scale and links it with the largest pyramid fields of Egypt.”

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So what happened to the Ahramat? The short answer is time – it’s been well over 2,000 years since the last pyramid was built in the area, and that’s plenty of time for the river to migrate eastward. Constant winds depositing sand into the channel could have dried it up, floods could have deposited other sediments into it, or plate tectonics could have diverted it towards its current path.

The discovery could help paint a more accurate picture of life in ancient Egypt, add context to unexplained structures or texts, and could direct teams to new sites for archeological excavations.

The research was published in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment.

Sources: University of North Carolina Wilmington, The Conversation, Nature

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Science Archeology River Historic Geology University of North Carolina
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Michael Irving

Michael has always been fascinated by space, technology, dinosaurs, and the weirder mysteries of the universe. With a Bachelor of Arts in Professional Writing and several years experience under his belt, he joined New Atlas as a staff writer in 2016.
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6 comments

CapgenQ – 2024 May 20 – 06:39 AM

Expect the whole they never had boats capable of holding 50 ton blocks… Did you read about those crazy Russians when they moved that insane stone? Look what was needed when they had to cross water……..

veryken – 2024 May20 – 09:02 AM

Nonsense. The bigger challenge would still be lifting each block two million times hundreds of feet up in the air per great pyramid. No secret ancient river can help that.
No. They built the pyramids using a long-lost mixture of what’s equivalent to polymeric concrete today. Each block was formed in place, poured in place. The ingredients were trolleyed up on rails at the perimeter with special 90° swivel at each corner. This has all been shown most plausible by independent researchers. And so the ingredients are probably powder form but still huge quantities. So whether the river is nearby or a bit further is relatively minor.

vince – 2024 May 20 – 10:09 AM

Fast forward millions of years and you won’t even find evidence of mankind. Will blow it up.

MartyKinn – 2024 May 20 – 10:43 AM

Still doesn’t explain how those massive blocks were lifted into place…many, many thousands of them. Manpower can’t achieve it no matter how anyone ignore the physics of it.

Expanded Viewpoint – 2024 May 20 – 10:43 AM

What utter nonsense! How were those huge blocks of stone cut with such precision and loaded onto these barges and then off loaded again and raised to these incredible heights? And this drivel is coming out of a university? Do they teach advanced courses in Lego building too there??

jerryd – 2024 May 20 – 04:25 PM

They knew how to make canals too.
For moving them on land they strapped on quarter moon like wood pieces to turn the block into a double wheel they rolled up the ramps.
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