  We calculate the shadowing effect in nuclear photoabsorption at low photon
energies (1-3 GeV) within a multiple scattering approach. We avoid some of the
high energy approximations that are usually made in simple Glauber theory like
the narrow width and the eikonal approximation. We find that the main
contribution to nuclear shadowing at low energies stems from $\rho^0$ mesons
with masses well below their pole mass. We also show that the possibility of
scattering in non forward directions allows for a new contribution to shadowing
at low energies: the production of neutral pions as intermediate hadronic
states enhances the shadowing effect in the onset region. For light nuclei and
small photon energies they give rise to about 30% of the total shadowing
effect.
