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Articles on Pyramids

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The pyramids at Giza, like dozens of others, are located several kilometres west of the current path of the Nile. Alex Cimbal / Shutterstock

We mapped a lost branch of the Nile River – which may be the key to a longstanding mystery of the pyramids

Why build pyramids in the desert? A centuries-old puzzle may be answered by the slow wandering of the Nile.
El Castillo pyramid illuminated at night under a starry sky in Chichen Itza, Mexico, one of the largest Maya cities. Matteo Colombo/DigitalVision via Getty Images

For the Maya, solar eclipses were a sign of heavenly clashes − and their astronomers kept sophisticated records to predict them

The skies and the gods were inseparable in Maya culture. Astronomers kept careful track of events like eclipses in order to perform the renewal ceremonies to continue the world’s cycles of rebirth.
The building blocks of the Giza pyramids contain trillions of fossilised remains of an ocean-dwelling organism called foraminifera. Sui Xiankai/Xinhua via Getty Images

Four ways that fossils are part of everyday life

Fossils aren’t just pieces of the past that allow scientists to look backwards. They can play a role in modern policy decision-making, too.
Graffiti bullheads carved on the temple walls. RTI: Suzanne Davis and Janelle Batkin-Hall/IKAP, 2016

Temple graffiti reveals stories from ancient Sudan

Visitors to these sites had one particular religious ritual that may strike some as strange: they carved graffiti in important and sacred places.

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