Why is egypt a desert, when it was tropical during the time of the pyramids?

Question

Why is egypt a desert, when it was tropical during the time of the pyramids?

Answer 1

Tectonic plate shifting...those couple of feet over the past thousands of years could have changed the environment (rise/lowering of altitude ever so slightly).

Global warming (that whole cycle thing)

Maybe God got mad and decided to make the Egyptians suffer for the rest of eternity by living in a desert instead of a tropical paradise. IDK.

Answer 2

It WAS desert then, too.

They did have an annual flooding cycle that gave fertile flood deposits for them to farm with.  This cycle was disrupted by the building of the Aswan Dam in the 1960s.

Answer 3

It wasn't tropical then ...

It was lush next to the river (the Nile), but apart from next to the river, it was always a desert.

Answer 4

the world used to be covered in ice. and all the continents were together. things change over time. and you know the whole global warming doesnt help.

Answer 5

When the pyramids were being built, the fertile region of Egypt (what you refer to as 'tropical') was due to the annual flooding of the Nile which deposited fertile silt in large areas.  This doesn't happen any more because dams have been built on the Nile.  The current fertile regions use the water from the Nile and a lot of chemical fertilisers.  The vast majority of Egypt  is dessert as it was when the pyramids were built.