The Writers' Circle

Egypt could, and should of ruled the world. It was once the world's most technologically advanced nation, but blew it all in spectacular fashion.

In order to understand what happened, we have to go back to the time of the Pharaohs. At that period Egypt had a lot going for it. Nice weather, good beaches and as much curried goat as you could possibly eat. The Egyptians themselves had invented many useful things including flower pots, hats and fondue sets. Only the spectre of the Ancient Greeks with their technically advanced design of step-ladder clouded the horizon.

To keep Egypt ahead of the game, the "Royal Inspectorate" would roam the known world seeking out innovation and invention wherever it was to be found, and bring back the information gained to the homeland, where it could be used for the benefit of the people.
One of the new inventions that they came across was on the land of a Tunisian farmer by the name of Gubos. He had constructed a large funnel shaped structure, built of stone and open to the sky. This structure had been filled with water that his slaves had hauled from a river some half mile distant. Gubos explained to the visiting Egyptian that as the top was larger than the bottom, it not only collected water efficiently whenever it rained, but it also gave a great weight and therefore great pressure of water at the bottom. By removing various small wooden stoppers at the bottom of his water tank, and putting his thumb over the hole he could direct a stream of water over a considerable distance to irrigate his land. As a result, he had been able to turn arid desert into fertile soil and grew a large amount of grapes which he turned into wine and then sold on to passing merchants. What's more, because he could control the amount of irrigation, his grapes and therefore his wine were of a very high standard.

When the Royal Inspector bought this information, together with a sample of the Tunisian wines back to Egypt it aroused considerable interest. Cleopatra herself, who was known to like nothing better than a quiet night in getting sloshed with her mates was particularly keen. If it could be put into use, the new technology could increase the annual agricultural yield significantly. With benefits in quality as well as quantity.
The inspector who had first come across the Tunisian water tank was told to submit plans to the nation's Master Builders, in order that half a dozen huge water tanks be constructed close to the Nile.

If the Egyptians had an Achilles heel it was the written word. At the time hieroglyphics were the normal method of recording and distributing information, and as a writing form it is notoriously vague and inaccurate. The famous ancient slate of Alexandria bears this out. For many years it was thought that the Alexandria slate with its hieroglyphics was a shopping list, and only recently has it been proved that it is actually a poem about socks.
So when the Master Builders received the plans there was some confusion over some of the technical aspects. In particular which way up the plans were supposed to be. As a huge structure that was not only open to the elements, but with its foundations so small in relation to the rest of the building as to make it inherently unstable, it was not surprising that the water holders or pyramids as they were called in Egyptian were subsequently built upside down.
Had Cleopatra been sober enough to remember what they were supposed to look like, the work would probably have been stopped half-way into the project. As it was, the pyramids took so long to build that by the time they were finished, everyone had forgotten why they had been built in the first place. The cost of the project had also been so high, that on completion the Kingdom of Egypt was effectively bankrupt. The only people who had any money were the owners of the large building firms who bought back the structures at knock down prices to use as storage, offices, publicity sites and even family tombs. The body of Billy Tutankhamen of Tutankhamen Bros Builders was discovered interred in one some years later. 

Should you be thinking of spending a holiday in Egypt, make time to visit the ancient inverted water towers by the Nile, and remember that for all of their magnificence the pyramids are what bought ancient Egypt to its knees.