Conny Waters – AncientPages.com – The pyramids of Giza consтιтute one of the world’s most iconic cultural landscapes and have fascinated humanity for thousands of years. How these ancient monuments were built has been debated for years.

An international team of scientists has now announced they have found evidence that the Khufu branch of the Nile River ran so close to Giza that it could have been used to carry the stones used to build the famous pyramids.

Artist’s reconstruction of the now defunct Khufu branch of the Nile River. Credit: Alex Boersma/Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2202530119

In their study published in the journal PNAS, the researchers write that “the 22 Egyptian Old Kingdom pyramids (2675–2250 BCE), notably those of the Giza plateau, were mᴀssive monuments to the kings entombed within them and to their stone quarriers, block transporters, and exact builders who were supported by the concentrated barley yields of seasonal Nile inundation agriculture—famously without the construction and manipulation of riverside canals as required in contemporary southern Mesopotamia.

The mysterious mechanics of those pyramid constructions are now solved, in part, by the recent Wadi al-Jarf papyri discoveries that document contemporary Nile boat transport of stone blocks for pyramid construction from the cliffs opposite Giza and from the Red Sea.

Today, the Nile flows more than 7 km east of the Giza pyramids. But Nile flow through a channel that linked the Giza plateau to the Nile, termed the “Khufu channel” after the famed Khufu pyramid at Giza (2,583,283 m3, 146 m high), has been hypothesized from a modern wastewater project’s corings and its 1.8-km-long trench that cut through an ancient channel—even perhaps through Khufu’s palace.”

In their paper, scientists explain that at the timeline and flow of the branch, they found its levels were high enough that it reached nearly all the way to Giza, located 7 kilometers from the Nile — during the times when three of the major pyramids (Menkaure, Khafre and Khufu) were built which according to historians and archaeologists is approximately 4,000 years ago.

Study of the Wadi al-Jarf papyri describes the transport of stone via an offshoot of the Nile to Giza. Examinations of the sediment collected sediment near the pyramid site as well as bones and teeth from mummies of the time also showed the area had become much drier later.

Studying pollen grains provided evidence of ancient plant life that could not have survived without water.

Location of the cores on the Giza floodplain. Credit: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2202530119

“This fluvial channel, the Khufu branch, enabled navigation to the Pyramid Harbor complex, but its precise environmental history is unclear. To fill this knowledge gap, we used pollen-derived vegetation patterns to reconstruct 8,000 y of fluvial variations on the Giza floodplain… Our results show that Giza’s waterscapes responded to a gradual insolation-driven aridification of East Africa, with the lowest Nile levels recorded at the end of the Dynastic Period.

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The Khufu branch remained during the reigns of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure, facilitating the transportation of construction materials to the Giza Pyramid Complex.”

The study was published in the journal PNAS

Written by Conny Waters – AncientPages.com Staff Writer