A team of Egyptian researchers announced today, Saturday, the discovery of an ancient watercourse of the Nile River adjacent to the pyramids. This finding explains why more than 30 pyramids were constructed along the western desert strip of the Nile Valley 4,700 years ago.
The Egyptian newspaper “Al-Watan” reported that Dr. Mahmoud Zaki, President of Tanta University, stated that “the discovery was made with the participation of researchers from the university, as part of a team led by Dr. Iman Mohammed Ghoneim, an alumna of Tanta University – Faculty of Arts, Department of Geography, and the Director of the Space and Remote Sensing Laboratory at the Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, along with the participation of other Egyptian researchers.”
Dr. Hatem Amin, Vice President of Tanta University for Graduate Studies and Research, explained that “this discovery was reached using modern and traditional techniques such as satellite images, ground-penetrating radar, electromagnetic tomography, in addition to drilling wells up to 28 meters deep below the surface in various locations of the Nile Valley from Giza to Luxor.”
The research team found a dry branch of the Nile River, 64 kilometers long and 200 to 700 meters wide, buried for a long time under agricultural lands west of the current Nile and parallel to it, near the series of pyramids and pharaonic temples.
In this context, the researchers discovered many different river channels reaching the outskirts of the pyramids, ending at an archaeological construction called the Valley Temple, where a rock passage connects these temples directly to the pyramids.
Recently, Egypt confirmed the accuracy of circulated reports about the discovery of a massive structure or model near the Great Pyramid of Khufu in Giza Governorate. The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities denied the accuracy of these reports in a statement, with Ashraf Mohie El-Din, General Director of the Pyramids Antiquities Area, affirming the incorrectness of what was circulated. He noted that a Japanese archaeological mission from Waseda University conducted a radar archaeological survey during the last excavation season (2022-2023), after obtaining approval from the Permanent Committee of Egyptian Antiquities, at the site of the western cemetery area of the Giza pyramids.
He added that “the radar archaeological survey work in April 2023 resulted in the discovery of a cavity underground, without knowing its nature, whether it is empty or contains something inside, prompting the Supreme Council of Antiquities to form an Egyptian-Japanese archaeological mission to conduct archaeological excavations at the site of the cavity.”
