The Nile, has it moved since ancient times?

After studying the Nile and the surrounding area, i noticed that on the west side, it seemed to be what looked like a huge dried out riverbed. it got me thinking. What if some kind of disaster, og or natural cause made the Nile change direction (path) some time in a distant past. wouldn't the logical place to look for lost cities or civilizations be along the banks of the "old" river? Does anyone know if there has been any research or archeological surveys done into this? looking forward to some input other than my own imagination

edit: fixed subject.

[edit on 25-5-2010 by darkspace]

Yup, the Nile's path did move....

You can check out Dr. Carmen Boulter - The Pyramid Code;





These are part One and Two, you can go to YouTube for the rest

i did find this document but what they show there, is to close to the present nile location. will watch those videos.

I probably know this doesn't help you much,but due to the relentless force of water,rivers will pretty much always carve a new path.Silt and erosion also will play significant parts to the shifting of river courses.

Also it is known that great sand storms from the Sahara reclaimed a lot along the Nile,and most likely influenced its course corrections.

( Of course the above doesn't include mankind's riparian interests )

[edit on 25-5-2010 by Cygnus_Hunter]

reply to post by darkspace


My first thought before reading this thread was:

"Not another bloody timeshift thread!"

I'm very glad it's not.

As already mentioned, rivers will change course, widen and shrink in size.

A river as large as the Nile will be susceptible to these things, and I would assume the Egyptians knew this, this could explain why civilized areas were built away from the river.

Also, with the Egyptians irrigation technology, being away from the river was never a problem.

I know that the mouth of the nile has moved during historical times but I'm not sure about the rest of the river. 2nd line, don;t remember the source but I am sure of it.

reply to post by Cygnus_Hunter


actually, it helps a lot. but of course, i knew that already. that was one of my points in posting in the first place, but as usual i keep forgetting parts of what i was going to say in the first place.

My memory of this is so bad one could argue that what I am about to say is not exactly offering to your inquiry.

I had seen a documentary, years ago, that dealt with exactly this. they shown a portion of the river that had clearly shifted to a new location, causing drought around the old riverbed. I am not sure but I think this supposedly happened about 800-900 years ago. As to about where it happened, I'd say near the border to Sudan but I won't bet a dime on it - could be anywhere along the Nile riverbed to be frank.

What made it stick to my memory was a reference to the drought and the plight of the people that suffered from it, at one point it was reported people eating their own children in desperation caused by the extreme hunger. I have to look into this more but I think the dates were as I said above.

I was wrong in part, the cause. It was not a shift in the riverbed but a low Nile that caused famine, not once but many many times. Here's a piece that is referring to the one I wrote about above:

This seven years' reversion to savagery induced by starvation had its companion period of suffering and degradation in the same country during the years 1201 and 1202. Whole quarters and villages became deserted during the famine which followed the low Nile of 1200 and 1201, according to chroniclers, who maintain that the starving populace ate human flesh habitually.
"True, the punishment meted out to those detected in the crime was death at the stake, but few criminals were caught, and the custom could be practiced with impunity by parents who subsisted on their own children." … "The very graves of Egypt were ransacked for food. The roads became death traps, while flocks of vultures and packs of hyenas and jackals mapped the march of the cannibal outlaws. Of course the piles of unburied dead bred pestilence of a virulent type."

The whole story can be found here!

again, apologies for messing your question with my irrelevant answer...

There are satellite imagery showing Nile paleochannels where the river once coursed. The 4th cataract shows the most significant amount of movement.

Science: The Sahara's Buried Rivers

The Oriental Inst. has done a fair amount of studies on ancient water ways since it's only logical signs of civilization would lie along their paths.

Actually, geophysical scientists agree with you. Radar images captured by the Spaceborne Imaging Radar C/X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SIR-C/X-SAR) discovered hidden former river beds flowing across the Sahara Desert(specifically ones connected with the Nile's strange bend in the Sudan region where it flows southwest before returning to its usual northern direction). They've since went on to theorize that at one time the Nile(or at least proto rivers that would eventually join together and become the Nile) might very well have flowed west through the Sahara Desert region and emptied into the Atlantic Ocean.

I see Blackmarketeer had better luck in finding a source. All I could find were technical papers on sites that required a person to get a membership.

[edit on 5/25/2010 by Mad Simian]

Imagine the Nile emptying in the Atlantic!! that would make a river about 7,000 miles long, without counting bends along the way!

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


interresting, now, i am wondering if there is any remains of old "advanced" structures anywhere along side the old riverbed. that would be really interresting. to bad sand erosion is very high in that area. ruins would have to be buried quite deep to remain recognizable after such a long time. even stone erodes somewhat in time. dang, times like these, i really wish i had a time-machine or being able to look back in time to see what the area looked like back in the day

When Edgar Cayce predicted that we would find the "Hall of Records" between the Sphinx and the Nile, he also mentioned that the path of the Nile had been redirected in this region by the ancients.

You might take note of the secret, night time, excavations taking place there now.

Originally posted by Flatfish
When Edgar Cayce predicted that we would find the "Hall of Records" between the Sphinx and the Nile, he also mentioned that the path of the Nile had been redirected in this region by the ancients.

You might take note of the secret, night time, excavations taking place there now.

i believe this is a little off topic....

Another interesting tidbit about the Nile possibly taking alternate courses in ancient history....

On most recreations of Herodotus' map of the ancient world, the Nile splits near a place called Meroe. A shorter branch flows from where the river is known to originate from now but another longer branch makes a sharp turn westward and ends up almost at the Atlas Mountains.

Herodotus' Map Image Link

Strangely enough, there is such a 'split' in the area if one were to look at satellite imagery of the Nile. Also, Meroe was a real city and was the southern capitol of the land of Kush(which I believe has a thread of its own).

Meroe Wiki

[edit on 6/1/2010 by Mad Simian]

reply to post by Mad Simian


interressting, but i believe the map isn't actually accurate by todays standards.
the features on the map looks like they are tvisted and bent out of shape to fit on the "paper". another excample of this is the "piri reis" map, where south america is bent to the left to fit the entire continent on the map.
are you aware of any onther "ancient" maps of the nile's passage through africa? if there are other uncorrelated maps showing the same passage, then we may be on to something.

reply to post by darkspace


True, true. Also, one must realize that Herodotus had a reputation for mixing gossip along with actual facts in his histories when he couldn't verify said gossip so its completely conceivable that his map could be 'warped' in a similar manner. However, for the most part he tried to be as accurate as he possibly could.

So, I didn't present it as absolute proof but it certainly makes one wonder...

[edit on 6/1/2010 by Mad Simian]