Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt

Recommendations

Info

The memory of the ancient lands must have lasted for a long time, and was perhaps progressively mythified, following a process that has been well documented in ethnology in many other places in Africa. Perhaps the rituals even demanded a periodic return to ancient cult places . . . like the great shelter of the Wadi Sura. In this way the memory of the ancient vision of the land of the dead, as well as the land of origins, would have been preserved. 58 The recent finding of Bergmann and Borda fully support this hypothesis, and to which we also agree. Central to the cave ceiling was a domestic scene, with bags or gourds probably filled with milk or grain, hanging from the roof of a house. There were three types of cows: black and white, all white, and white and brown with black spots. These were drawn in very realistic postures—walking, grazing, or being herded to a watering hole. We took photographs from every angle in order to have a detailed record for our own files. Oddly, outside the cave there were no visible signs of human presence as far as we could make out. *42 Figure 5.5. Cattle and people at Uwainat cave It is likely that any such evidence lay buried under the sand that had filled the floor of the cave, drifting in and out over the millennia. Our imaginations ran wild: we conjured images of the hardy people who must have lived here thousands of years ago and who, perhaps, hailed originally from the Tibesti Mountains. The rock art they left behind made it easy for us to visualize their women milking cows or grinding seeds and cereals while their men went hunting or chipped stones to make knives and arrow or spear heads and the elderly sat outside at night, pondering the stars. The most thrilling part of this experience was finally to see with our own eyes those mysterious black-skinned ancestors that once navigated the desert, learned the art of husbandry, followed basic agriculture, practiced the rudiments of astronomy and timekeeping, and then finally moved eastward toward the Nile, toward Egypt, carrying their precious cargo: knowledge, which was to spawn a great civilization. We resumed our journey, skirting the eastern flank of Uwainat Mountain, reaching the Sudanese border early in the afternoon. On our way south we steered clear of a small sign fixed on a metal pole (we examined the sign and saw that it said, in Arabic, misr [Egypt] on one side and sudan on the other, and our handheld GPS indicated it was a few kilometers off the actual border). Continuing south, we drove across the border and around the mountain and found ourselves on the south flank of Uwainat late in the afternoon. Here, the remoteness and utter mystery of this strange place took hold of us. The landscape was otherworldly, and we felt as though we were astronauts landing on an alien planet for the first time. It was very tempting to start exploring, but night was falling fast, so we decided to camp in a sandy bowl set against a rocky mound some 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the mountain. We hardly slept that night; the excitement was too great. We refrained from lighting a fire in order not to attract SLA rebels that may have been roaming the region. Just a few weeks before, a group of foreign tourists had been kidnapped in this area, and our unarmed military escort was extremely nervous about being here on the Sudanese side of the border. In the morning, at the first break of light, we quickly lifted camp, packed our gear, and set off toward the massif of Uwainat. We headed for the twin peaks that dominated the ridge and toward the place where Marai and Borda had seen the pharaonic inscriptions a few months before. As we drove there, one of the drivers suddenly let out a shout. He had apparently spotted part of a human skeleton sticking out of the sand. We stopped and rushed to examine the shallow burial. It was not prehistoric but was much younger, probably less than a century old. Likely the skeleton belonged to a Tebu nomad or Bedouin. Our drivers could tell he was a Muslim from the way the body was laid. As Muslims
themselves, our drivers uttered a brief prayer and covered the exposed part of the skeleton with more sand. We resumed our drive toward the twin peaks and parked the vehicles at the foot of a rocky slope. Then we all walked in silence, following Marai, still under the somber mood of seeing the lonely burial a few minutes before. After a trek of ten minutes or so, Marai stopped and pointed to a large boulder that rested precariously halfway up the rocky slope. We recognized the boulder from the photographs that Mark Borda had sent us in December. We quickly clambered up the slope, and finally, there they were: pharaonic inscriptions carved on the south face of the boulder. After Marai and Borda, we were the first modern visitors actually to see them after some unknown ancient Egyptian scribe had crudely carved them thousands of years ago. It was a thrilling and rewarding feeling—perhaps a bit like Howard Carter must have felt when he discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb. We knew from the translations that had been made by the Egyptologists in London that the inscriptions dated from about 2000 BCE and likely belonged to an envoy sent by King Mentuhotep II to rendezvous here with people from the kingdoms of Yam and Tekhebet. It was truly exciting to see with our own eyes this extremely ancient message carved thousands of years ago. It was rather like finding a message in a bottle in a vast ocean of sand. We felt privileged and, in a curious way, humbled. We knew the difficulty of such a trip from the Nile Valley, even in our well-equipped, four-wheel-drive vehicles, and we marveled at those unknown ancient Egyptians who had braved the journey on foot with their caravan of donkeys, traveling several months in such conditions. They must have stayed here for some time, because, lower down the slope, we could see some stone rings that might be the leftover rims of habitations. How many ancient Egyptians had come here? Did the intrepid Harkhuf also come here? Who were the mysterious people from Yam and Tekhebet that they had met here, and from where had they come? Had they come from the Tibesti-Ennedi highlands of Chad some 700 hundred kilometers (435 miles) farther to the southwest? More important: Did the ancient Egyptians know that they were meeting their own ancestors? Figure 5.6. The April 2008 expedition team anticipating the first showers in eight days upon seeing the tarmac road again. Left to right: Robert Bauval, Dustin Donaldson, Michele Bauval, Mahmoud Marai, Bryan Hokum, Lyra Marble, Thomas Brophy, and soldier Muhammad. Drivers Muhammad and Aziz are taking the photo. All these questions formed a tantalizing web of hints and clues in our minds, but we knew it was time to return to the Nile Valley to look more closely at the place where Egyptologists say the ancient Egyptian civilization supposedly began.
Page 3 and 4:
For my daughter, Candice, and my so
Page 5 and 6:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book was not a
Page 7 and 8:
More Mysteries at Nabta Playa The S
Page 9 and 10:
INTRODUCTION ANCIENT EGYPT REBORN N
Page 11 and 12:
1 STRANGE STONES In Nabta there are
Page 13 and 14:
desert” emerge from the surroundi
Page 15 and 16:
stage the CPE anthropologists were
Page 17 and 18:
arguments—and especially on the B
Page 19 and 20:
This time, some archaeologists took
Page 21 and 22:
who’s who of famous men: it inclu
Page 23 and 24:
huge rocky massif sprouting out of
Page 25 and 26:
Almasy planned an expedition to Gil
Page 27 and 28:
of Setu and Irtet after having expl
Page 29 and 30:
Sahara, and their bones were brough
Page 31 and 32:
Djedefre Water Mountain, as Bergama
Page 33 and 34:
Figure 2.5. Abu Ballas Pottery Hill
Page 35 and 36:
can imagine how these scholars felt
Page 37 and 38:
followed by the same determinative
Page 39 and 40:
The surface of the now-covered bedr
Page 41 and 42:
indeed, one of the main objectives
Page 43 and 44:
In addition to tumuli tombs of catt
Page 45 and 46:
since fallen. The largest ones were
Page 47 and 48:
ALIGNMENTS TOWARD THE STARS: WHEN A
Page 49 and 50: elated not only to the gates of the
Page 51 and 52: dates within thousands of years of
Page 53 and 54: the largest stone. Again, the dista
Page 55 and 56: thus sent in an order to Quickbird
Page 57 and 58: Finally, to our relief, the light f
Page 59 and 60: degrees and azimuth 22.5 degrees an
Page 61 and 62: associated with the heleical rising
Page 63 and 64: ight angle. After that date, Nabta
Page 65 and 66: also note that several megalithic a
Page 67 and 68: ceremonial complex of Nabta Playa.
Page 69 and 70: Figure 4.14. Bagnold Circle in, top
Page 71 and 72: have been placed by humans, possibl
Page 73 and 74: 5 THE BIBLE, THE HAMITES, AND THE B
Page 75 and 76: Even allowing that scholars tend to
Page 77 and 78: May 11, 2001, vol. 292, no. 5519, p
Page 79 and 80: egions: the Nile Valley and the vas
Page 81 and 82: At any rate, suffice it to say that
Page 83 and 84: perspective. We must also acknowled
Page 85 and 86: Plate 2. Djedefre Water Mountain, c
Page 87 and 88: Plate 8. Robert Bauval with herder
Page 89 and 90: Plate 15. Models of cows, Eleventh
Page 91 and 92: Plate 22. The rock-cut tomb of Hark
Page 93 and 94: wagging tail. We found them on the
Page 95 and 96: BCE to 2500 BCE. What she found odd
Page 97 and 98: eassure us that all is not lost, af
Page 99: Figure 5.3. Numerous prehistoric ha
Page 103 and 104: arely kill their cattle for food ex
Page 105 and 106: to study the stars, perhaps even na
Page 107 and 108: pointed star, which represents Siri
Page 109 and 110: In the first century, some half-cen
Page 111 and 112: Egyptologists have established that
Page 113 and 114: Like the Nabta Playa prehistoric st
Page 115 and 116: y the astronomer Sir Norman Lockyer
Page 117 and 118: In appendix 1 we look in detail at
Page 119 and 120: esynchronized every 1,460 years—t
Page 121 and 122: ÷ 10 = 3.9 years for the calendar
Page 123 and 124: ole, he was known as Hor-Akhti, Hor
Page 125 and 126: The rounded planisphere that is see
Page 127 and 128: topped mound whose midpoint and end
Page 129 and 130: POSTSCRIPT DISCOVERY OF THE KIFAH C
Page 131 and 132: APPENDIX 1 BACK TO THE FIRST TIME V
Page 133 and 134: TAKE A WALK AT THE FIRST TIME WITH
Page 135 and 136: alignment is part of a symbolic sys
Page 137 and 138: Pyramid at Zawiyet el-Aryan) is ass
Page 139 and 140: APPENDIX 2 SOTHIC CYCLES AND IMHOTE
Page 142 and 143: APPENDIX 3 SAVING NABTA PLAYA Will
Page 144 and 145: Figure A2. Rubbish dumps in the cen
Page 146 and 147: a huge pumping station (the Mubarak
Page 148 and 149: In actual practice, though, the dev
Page 150 and 151:
are not now capable of this percept
Page 152 and 153:
*53. Actually, it is 365.242 days,
Page 154 and 155:
Endnotes CHAPTER 1. STRANGE STONES
Page 156 and 157:
Mentioning Yam and Tekhebet,” Sah
Page 158 and 159:
13. J. M. Malville, R. Schild, F. W
Page 160 and 161:
41. Thomas Brophy, The Mechanism De
Page 162 and 163:
34. G. A. Wainwright, “Seshat and
Page 164 and 165:
100. The story is told in the Westc
Page 166 and 167:
Bibliography Abed, Wael T. The Othe
Page 168 and 169:
Genzlinger, Neil. “Chasing Mummie
Page 170 and 171:
Millennium: A Reassessment.” Jour
Page 172 and 173:
About the Authors Egyptian-born Rob
Page 174 and 175:
BOOKS OF RELATED INTEREST Lost Know
Page 176:
Electronic edition produced by ePub
show all

Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?