Unveiled findings suggest ancient Egyptians harnessed the Nile's annual floods for constructing pyramids, possibly utilizing an erstwhile tributary as a natural lift for transporting building materials.
Paläoökologic tips reveal the Nile had a different appearance in the past 8,000 years, as outlined by a team led by geographer Hader Sheisha from Aix-Marseille University.
The researchers' findings imply that the ancient Egyptians might have taken advantage of an abandoned river arm for transporting construction materials, referring to the area as a hydraulic "lift" enabled by the river's annual floods.
The Große Pyramide, at approximately 455 feet high, was built around 4500 years ago by Pharaoh Khufu. It comprises an estimated 2.3 million stone blocks and is the largest of the Giza pyramids, with a total weight of 5.75 million tons – sixteen times the size of the Empire State Building.
The construction of these impressive structures, which include temples, cemeteries, and worker accommodations, took place on the Giza plateau near the border of Cairo. These sites were among the first World Wonders of the ancient world, established by ingenious engineers and architects who harnessed the Nile's power to drive their ambitious building projects.
Previously, scientists believed that the ingenious ancient Egyptians uncovered the outlying sections of the Nile and transported vast amounts of limestone and granite using sophisticated hydraulic systems, such as the "Fluss-Hafen-Komplex" hypothesis, which posited that they had dug a small canal from the floodplain along the western riverbank up to the Khufu arm of the Nile and filled it with silt to create a platform for the transport of heavy stones.
However, researchers had been lacking detailed information on the specific landscapes involved. Through various techniques to reconstruct the ancient Nile floodplains, the research team discovered that the ancient Egyptians could have utilized the now-abandoned Khufu arm of the Nile to transport construction materials to the site of the pyramids in Giza.
The study team analyzed soil cores taken from the Giza floodplain in 2019 to estimate the water levels in the Nile's tributaries thousands of years ago. Additionally, they examined fossilized pollen in the sediments from the Khufu region to identify areas with lush vegetation, signaling higher water levels.
Their findings show that the region experienced flourishing vegetation during the Old Kingdom of Egypt (around 2700-2200 BCE), which is believed to be when the three main pyramids were built. Furthermore, the study shows that water levels in the Khufu arm remained high during the reigns of Pharaohs Cheops, Khafre, and Mykerinos.
“The upper reaches of the Cheops Branch offered an environment that likely provided a framework for the origin and development of Pyramid construction sites and helped planners in transporting stones and materials by ship,” reads the study’s findings.
However, research shows that the water levels in this tributary dipped in the late Egyptian period, between 525 BCE and 332 BCE, during a dry spell. This finding aligns with studies of oxygen levels in mummies and bones from this era, providing evidence of lower water levels during this time.
When Alexander the Great invaded Egypt in 332 BCE, the once-mighty Cheops arm had shrunk to a small river.
In summary, the study findings reveal that ancient architects utilized the Nile's natural annual floods as hydraulic lifts for transporting heavy building materials to the construction sites of the pyramids. This theory debunks the previously held belief that a man-made canal was necessary for transporting materials. The study also highlights the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in historical understanding, as environmental research sheds new light on ancient societies.
[4] Smithsonian Magazine, “How the Mighty Nile Shaped Ancient Egypt”
