The timeline of Egyptian history is so wild. The span of time between this pyramid being built and the founding of Rome is longer than the time between Plato and Aristotle and now. There’s 1,100 years between this pyramid and King Tut. There’s 800 years between this pyramid and mammoths going extinct. And this isn’t the oldest pyramid.
My understanding was that Egypt was also extremely green for a long time. As generations passed and the population grew, over farming the land allowed the dust-bowl creep across the land. Haven’t checked recently but the same thing is happening across parts of China and the dust can blow nearly halfway around the world. Humans have been good at exploiting land for a very long time.
Is this really true? A quick search seems to suggest that the desertification was caused by changing climate, not by over-farming.
It’s not necessarily human intervention that did this, the Sahara desert was a lot smaller back then, and there’s evidence of regular rain eroding the Sphinx. A similar process happened to the Levant.
