The mystery that lies behind the way ancient Egyptian pyramids the iconic pyramids over 4,500 years ago, with each building block weighing roughly 2.3 metric tonnes, amounting to roughly 2.3 million individual blocks used for the Great Pyramid of Giza, for instance, according to scholars, may have been solved by scientists, including other 30 pyramids as well.

The Egyptian pyramids were probably constructed along a long-lost, old branch of the River Nile that is currently buried in agriculture and desert, according to research from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, because moving such heavy objects without mechanized equipment seemed implausible.

This cross-continental effort involved the researchers mapping the river branch, which they believe was buried thousands of years ago by a major drought and sandstorms, using geophysical surveys, historical maps, radar satellite imagery, and sediment coring (a technique used by archaeologists to recover evidence from samples).

The river branch was probably buried thousands of years ago by sandstorms and a significant drought. A team led by geomorphologist Eman Ghoneim, a professor and director of the Space and Drone Remote Sensing Lab at the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, mapped it using radar satellite imagery, historical maps, geophysical surveys, and sediment coring, a method used by archaeologists to recover evidence from samples.

“Even though many efforts to reconstruct the early Nile waterways have been conducted, they have largely been confined to soil sample collections from small sites, which has led to the mapping of only fragmented sections of the ancient Nile channel systems,” said lead study author Ghoneim.

But up until now, "nobody was certain of the location, the shape, the size or proximity of this mega waterway to the actual Egyptian pyramids site", according to one of the study's authors, Prof Ghoneim.

“This is the first study to provide the first map of the long-lost ancient branch of the Nile River.”

For an extended period, scholars have believed that the ancient Egyptians must have utilized a neighboring canal to move supplies, such as the stone blocks required to construct the pyramids, over the river. The theories have even been far-fetched to have considered aliens as pat helpers in building these wonders.

Between the town of Lisht and Giza, a 50-kilometer tract of desert runs north-south and is home to the majority of Egypt's Egyptian pyramids. These locations are now several kilometers from the Nile. Although Egyptologists have long conjectured that the river may have previously been nearer to the pyramids, and in fact, literary material from the time supports this theory as well, concrete evidence has been difficult – until now.

A large extinct branch of the Nile that passes directly next to the Egyptian pyramids has been located by research published in the journal Communications Earth and Environment on May 16. This branch may have been utilized for moving heavy materials. The scientists used the radar technique to "penetrate the sand surface and produce images of hidden features".

Among those features were "buried rivers and ancient structures" running at the foothills of where the "vast majority of the Ancient Egyptian pyramids lie," Prof Ghoneim said.

Speaking to the BBC, one of the study's co-authors, Dr. Suzanne Onstine, said "Locating the actual branch and having the data that shows there was a waterway that could be used for the transportation of heavier blocks, equipment, people, everything, really helps us explain pyramid construction".

The researchers discovered that the river branch, known as the Ahramat branch (the Arabic word "ahramat" means "pyramids"), was around 64 km (39 miles) long and 200–700 m (656–2,296 ft) broad. Additionally, it was surrounded by 31 Egyptian pyramids that date back between 4,700 and 3,700 years.

“The large size and extended length of the Ahramat Branch and its proximity to the 31 Egyptian pyramidsin the study area strongly suggests a functional waterway of great importance,” Ghoneim said.

Using “the river’s energy to carry these heavy blocks, rather than human labor just a lot less effort,” Onstine said. The finding of this long-gone river branch explains the high pyramid density in what is currently an inhospitable region of the Sahara desert—between Giza and Lisht, the location of Middle Kingdom graves.

Egyptian pyramids
Source: CTV News

After all, the procedure involved more than merely transporting stones to the pyramid's location. Researchers assume that thousands of laborers used sleds, strong ropes, levers, and massive ramps lubricated with water or wet clay to carefully install these blocks. The pyramids themselves required sophisticated knowledge of mathematics and architecture to even begin to be conceived.

For example, the Great Pyramid of Giza has a 52-degree gradient on each side, which is an exact and constant design feature that demonstrates the skill of the builders as well as their forethought. These laborers were housed close to the pyramids in large, well-organized villages. Bundles of animal bones and the remnants of bakeries demonstrate that not only were labourers well-fed for their job, but the entire project was controlled by a strong central authority.

“Many people think of the site as just a cemetery in the modern sense, but it’s a lot more than that,” Egyptologist Peter Der Manuelian told The National Geographic in 2023. Their construction, decoration, and existence shed light into “every aspect of life in ancient Egypt”, he said.

The study demonstrated that when the pyramids were built, the geography and riverscapes of the Nile differed significantly from those of today, said Nick Marriner, a geographer at the French National Centre for Scientific Research in Paris. He was not involved in the study but has researched the fluvial history of Giza.

“The study completes an important part of the past landscape puzzle,” Marriner said. “By putting together these pieces we can gain a clearer picture of what the Nile floodplain looked like at the time of the pyramid builders and how the ancient Egyptians harnessed their environments to transport building materials for their monumental construction endeavors.”

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