Source Of The Nile

Search for the source of the Nile

Since the time of the ancient Greeks, Europeans have been curious about the source of the Nile and the origin of its floods. Herodotus was a Greek historian who visited Egypt in 457 BCE and traveled up the Nile to Aswan; he was puzzled by the Nile floods, which began in the summer – a season when Egypt had no rainfall. Geographers in Europe, Africa, and Arabia – dating back to Eratosthenes in the second century BCE – speculated that the source was a collection of lakes in central Africa. Many early maps of Africa showed the Nile originating in large lakes in Africa's interior but until the 1600s they were all speculative and not based on firm scientific knowledge.