BBC Science Focus: “Egypt’s iconic pyramids have been a source of mystery and wonder for thousands of years, as experts have scrambled to understand how an ancient society could be capable of building such colossal structures. Now, archaeologists have uncovered a crucial piece of the construction puzzle – a long-lost branch of the Nile River, buried beneath desert sands for millennia, that could finally explain how the ancient Egyptians transported massive stones (some of which weigh upwards of 10 tonnes) to build these monuments. The discovery, detailed in a new study published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment, sheds light on the puzzling location of 31 pyramids, including the famed Giza complex. These pyramids sit on the edge of the harsh Sahara Desert, far from the modern Nile – a seemingly odd location to our modern eyes. The newly identified 64-kilometre-long branch, dubbed the ‘Ahramat’ (meaning ‘pyramids’ in Arabic), would have provided a vital water route for transporting building materials directly to the pyramid sites…”