We Solved The Mystery Of The Pyramids

The Pyramids of Giza have fascinated and confused us for hundreds of years, and while we know a lot about who built them and how they were made, one question that has remained is why they are where they are. And the answer to that question lies in an ancient, long-dried out riverbed buried in the desert.

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[SciShow]

Explore the role of technology in advancing international development goals in the Master of Science in Global Technology and Development. Create solutions by focusing on history, social science concepts, government policies and development projects from around the world.

[Vivi-jx]

That's really cool! The map showing how already-discovered settlements and monuments follow the line of the ancient riverbed was interesting, and I hope this does lead to more discoveries.

[joshuamitchell]

Why are the pyramids in Egypt?

Because the British couldn't figure how to get them back to England

(I'll see myself out)

[dreamingwolf]

"Why are the pyramids in Egypt?" Silly SciShow. They're there because they're too big to move to th3 british museum ...

[nachoijp]

When a question is like "why did this ancient civilization did this thing in such a weird way?", the answer is almost always "they didn't", and I love that :p

[ODISeth]

That’s wild to think that the Sahara used to be mostly swampland. The Earth ebbs and flows, changes all the time, but it’s a lot harder to remember that our lives are limited to such a small scale. I wonder if there’s like a simulated timelapse that visualizes the transformation, that would be really cool to see

[iBeo]

It’s also pretty bad to build next to a river due to flooding. So having decent spacing is a must

[FairbrookWingates]

Coming from the Midwest USA, we have half-moon shaped lakes scattered everywhere, remnants of previous river channels. Many are turned to stagnant swamps. Some are fully grown over and only satellite imagery or a geologist could tell "this spot" was an old river channel. Still, it was due to this that my first thought on "why seven miles from the river?" was "because the river moved?". Pretty close to correct, much to my amusement. Fascinating discovery and I look forward to what is found by tracing this ancient riverbed!

[thexanderthemander]

Last time I was this early sci show didn't run mid-roll ads

[ender]

This is the first episode I have seen hosted by Niba, and I think she did a great job - I really like her voice and narration style!

[oscar_charlie]

Excellent voice and camera presence. She should be in more videos.

[sarahleonard]

Reading some of the earliest comments on this video makes me really glad that I don't understand the appeal of hate watching. I genuinely don't understand why you would spend your time watching material that you despise just so that you can leave negative comments on it for people to argue with. (Let's be honest, no one actually believes that these negative comments are going to persuade anyone.) Especially because all that does is give more watch time, interaction, and ad revenue to the thing that you hate.

[quiestinliteris]

Wow, a lot of these comments show a remarkable lack of understanding of how research communication works. Crapping on you citing your sources because it's not YOUR research? Because... NOT citing your sources would be better? 🙄

[berendharmsen]

Anything other than 'there used to be a river there' would have surprised me. But nice that it's confirmed.

[Its-Just-Zip]

Because I've seen the comment a couple of times already, for people who are saying, "I thought the question was how." I would like to point out that that is only a question within the conspiracy theorist communities.

For the rest of us, with a halfway working understanding of archaeology, we know how the pyramids were built. A lot of manpower, multiple decades of work, and one of the most fundamental machines known to engineering, the inclined plane.

[RayneTam]

Figuring out there was a branch of the Nile there was genius! Love hearing about what geology can teach us.

[Alex-jslg]

Okay, science is truly incredible sometimes. We sent satellites into space so we could shoot radar waves at the surface of the earth and analyze what the geography likely was thousands of years ago.

[AynenMakino]

I imagine they also wouldn't want to give up a significant stretch of precious farmland to turn into a giant construction site.

[davetoms]

Niba is quickly becoming one of my favourite SciShow hosts. Informative, fun, and enthusiastic. Great video!

[Beanedict_C]

Absolutely wild and cool that we can still learn new things that fundamentally change how we think of the literal landscape of such a well known site all these centuries later