Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.Egypt’s Great Pyramid and other ancient monuments at Giza exist on an isolated strip of land at the edge of the Sahara Desert.The inhospitable location has long puzzled archaeologists, some of whom had found evidence that the Nile River once flowed near these pyramids in some capacity, facilitating the landmarks’ construction starting 4,700 years ago.Using satellite imaging and analysis of cores of sediment, a new study published Thursday in the journal Communications Earth & Environment has mapped a 64-kilometer (40-mile) long, dried-up, branch of the Nile, long buried beneath farmland and desert.“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 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.“This is the first study to provide the first map of the long-lost ancient branch of the Nile River.”Ghoneim and her colleagues refer to this extinct branch of the Nile river as Ahramat, which is Arabic for pyramids. Ancient Egyptians likely used the now-extinct Ahramat Branch to build many pyramids. – Eman Ghoneim et alThe ancient waterway would have been about 0.5 kilometers wide (about one-third of a mile) with a depth of at least 25 meters (82 feet) — similar to the contemporary Nile, Ghoneim said.“The large size and extended length of the Ahramat Branch and its proximity to the 31 pyramids in the study area strongly suggests a functional waterway of great importance,” Ghoneim said.She said the river would have played a key role in ancient Egyptians’ transportation of the enormous amount of buil …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnSign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.Egypt’s Great Pyramid and other ancient monuments at Giza exist on an isolated strip of land at the edge of the Sahara Desert.The inhospitable location has long puzzled archaeologists, some of whom had found evidence that the Nile River once flowed near these pyramids in some capacity, facilitating the landmarks’ construction starting 4,700 years ago.Using satellite imaging and analysis of cores of sediment, a new study published Thursday in the journal Communications Earth & Environment has mapped a 64-kilometer (40-mile) long, dried-up, branch of the Nile, long buried beneath farmland and desert.“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 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.“This is the first study to provide the first map of the long-lost ancient branch of the Nile River.”Ghoneim and her colleagues refer to this extinct branch of the Nile river as Ahramat, which is Arabic for pyramids. Ancient Egyptians likely used the now-extinct Ahramat Branch to build many pyramids. – Eman Ghoneim et alThe ancient waterway would have been about 0.5 kilometers wide (about one-third of a mile) with a depth of at least 25 meters (82 feet) — similar to the contemporary Nile, Ghoneim said.“The large size and extended length of the Ahramat Branch and its proximity to the 31 pyramids in the study area strongly suggests a functional waterway of great importance,” Ghoneim said.She said the river would have played a key role in ancient Egyptians’ transportation of the enormous amount of buil …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
