Vanished arm of Nile helped ancient Egyptians transport pyramids materials

When the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids of Giza around 4,500 years ago, the Nile River had an arm — one that has long since vanished — with high water levels that helped laborers ship materials to their construction site, a new study finds.

The discovery builds on previous archaeological and historical findings that the Nile had an extra arm flowing by the pyramids. But now, by analyzing ancient pollen samples taken from earthen cores, it's clear that "the former waterscapes and higher river levels" gave the Giza Pyramid's builders a leg up, a team of researchers wrote in a paper published Aug. 29 in the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(opens in new tab).

The research sheds light on how the pyramids — royal tombs for the pharaohs Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure — rose to monumental heights. Their towering stature was achieved, in large part, thanks to the Nile's now-defunct Khufu branch, which "remained at a high-water level during the reigns of Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure, facilitating the transportation of construction materials to the Giza Pyramid Complex," the team wrote in their paper.

Researchers have known for decades that the long-gone Khufu branch extended up to the Giza plateau in ancient times, but the new project aimed to find exactly how the water levels had changed over the past 8,000 years.

To reconstruct the Nile's past, in May 2019 the team drilled five cores into the Giza floodplain. The researchers measured the amount of pollen found in different parts of the cores to determine how pollen levels had changed over time. Time periods when water was plentiful should have more pollen than periods that were arid, the study authors wrote.

The pollen analysis revealed that at the time the ancient Egyptians built the Giza pyramids, water was plentiful enough that the Khufu branch would have flowed near the Giza pyramids. "It was a natural canal in the time of the fourth dynasty [when the pyramids were built]," study lead author Hader Sheisha, a physical geographer at Aix-Marseille University in France, told Live Science in an email.

Sheisha noted that the water level was important for pyramid construction. "It would be very difficult if not impossible to build the pyramids without the Khufu branch and without it having a good level, which provides enough accommodation space for the boats carrying such heavy blocks of stone," she said. When exactly the branch went extinct is not certain, but the research shows that by 2,400 years ago the water level of the branch was very low.

The finds fit well with previous archaeological finds, which revealed a harbor close to the pyramids, as well as ancient papyri records that detailed workers bringing limestone to Giza via boat, the team noted in their paper.

Live Science contacted several experts not involved with the research to get their thoughts. Most were unable to comment at press time, but one who did, Judith Bunbury, a geo-archaeologist at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, praised the research.

"The paper is an exciting contribution to our understanding of the dialogue between humans and their environment in Egypt within the context of changing climate," Bunbury told Live Science in an email.

https://www.livescience.com/giza-pyramids-built-nile-high-water

Did Nero really fiddle while Rome burned?

 
The Roman emperor Nero ranks among the most infamous rulers of the Roman Empire for supposedly fiddling while Rome burned. But did that really happen? And does Nero really deserve his bad reputation?

As with all stories, we have to consider the source.

Born on Dec. 15, A.D. 37, Nero became the fifth emperor of Rome and the last of the Julio-Claudians, the dynasty that founded the empire, according to archaeologist Francesca Bologna, who curated the Nero Project at the British Museum(opens in new tab) in London.

Nero was only 2 years old when his mother, Agrippina the Younger — whose great-grandfather was Augustus, the empire's first emperor — was exiled by Emperor Caligula. At age 3, Nero's father, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, died, leaving him in the care of his aunt. When Caligula was murdered in A.D. 41 and succeeded by Emperor Claudius, Nero was reunited with Agrippina, who later married her uncle Claudius, Bologna noted.

Despite having a biological son, Claudius designated Nero, his great nephew and stepson, as his heir, and Nero ascended to power in A.D. 54 at the age of 16. But his reign was short: Nero died in A.D. 68 at age 30 after taking his own life.

Roman historians have contended that Nero killed Agrippina and two of his wives, only cared about his art, and had very little interest in ruling the empire, Bologna said. However, "our sources for Nero are people that hated him," Harold Drake, a research professor emeritus of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told Live Science. One always has to keep in mind that much of his reputation "was written for us by his adversaries," he said. Bologna agreed, noting in her post for the British Museum that accounts of Nero "were keen on representing him in the worst possible light."

In July A.D. 64, Nero was vacationing in Antium (what is now the seaside town of Anzio, Italy) when he learned about what later became known as the Great Fire of Rome, Drake said. Before the conflagration burned itself out a week later, 10 of Rome's 14 districts had burned to the ground and thousands in a city of 500,000 to 1 million people had lost everything.

Nero raced back to Rome. He arranged emergency shelter and supplies of food and drink for the public, and opened his own palace and gardens for shelter, Drake noted(opens in new tab).

So, if Nero wasn't in Rome when the conflagration started, what's the origin of the rumor that "he fiddled" while the empire's capital burned?

Nero fancied himself a musician. At some point during the relief efforts, a rumor said he consoled himself by singing about another great fire — the fall of Troy, the Homeric tale that's the focus of the Roman poet Virgil's epic poem "The Aeneid," Drake said.

"He had done everything he could to deal with the fire, and he was exhausted," Drake said. "Being of an artistic bent, he consoled himself by comparing this disaster to the fall of Troy, which Romans liked to think they descended from, via the mythical ancestor Aeneas."

But even if Nero did play music while Rome was burning, he would not have used a fiddle, as bowed instruments would not become popular for another 1,000 years, Drake said. Instead, to accompany himself, Nero probably would have used a cithara, a portable harp-like instrument with seven strings, he explained.

There was precedent for Romans acting in such a manner. For example, the historian Polybius wrote that as the Roman general Scipio Aemelianus watched Carthage being destroyed, he quoted Homer's "The Iliad," saying, "'And a time will come when holy Ilium shall fall, and Priam, and Priam's folk of the good ashen spear,'" Drake said. "He was not thinking of Carthage but expressing fear that a like fate awaited the Romans."

In the aftermath of the Great Fire of Rome, Nero offered financial incentives to landlords to clear their property of debris and begin rebuilding, insisted that developers use stone instead of wood, straightened and widened streets, and ensured an adequate water supply for the city, Drake said. "Does that seem like the activity of a madman?" he asked.

So why might history remember Nero as a bad ruler? Almost everything the modern world knows about Nero comes from two sources: Roman senators and Christians. To both, Nero was an enemy.

"In general, senators loved to indulge their fantasy of a restored republic, sometimes by engaging in assassination plots, and then being outraged when the emperor reacted with hostility," Drake said.

As for the Christians, Roman senator and historian Tacitus suggested that because a rumor began circulating that Nero was responsible for the fire, he looked for a scapegoat in the Christians. The result was that many died from crucifixions, fires and other means. This often led Christians to blame Nero for the persecution they would endure from the Roman Empire, Drake said.

All that said, "I don't want to fall into the trap of justifying everything Nero did just because he has suffered from bad press," Drake said. "Nero was unquestionably pampered and overindulged by his tutors and, like other tyrants at other times, became much more arbitrary in his actions."

In the end, although Nero might not have been a madman, "there's little reason to doubt that he became increasingly unstable" over the course of his reign, Drake said. After the Great Fire of Rome, a group of nobles tried to assassinate him, and Nero grew increasingly paranoid, according to Hareth Al Bustani, author of "Nero and the Art of Tyranny(opens in new tab)" (Independently published, 2021).

Perhaps, given all that happened to Nero, any instability late in his life "should come as no surprise," Drake said.

https://www.livescience.com/did-nero-fiddle-while-rome-burned?utm_campaign=368B3745-DDE0-4A69-A2E8-62503D85375D