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Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt

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pointed star, which represents Sirius. Her many epithets—Lady <strong>of</strong> Stars, Mistress <strong>of</strong> the Eastern Horizon <strong>of</strong> the Sky at<br />

Whose Sight Everyone Rejoices, <strong>The</strong> Great One in the Sky, Ruler <strong>of</strong> the Stars, Satis Who Brightens the Two Lands with<br />

her Beauty—are clearly allusions to her important identification with the star Sirius. 15 Her beautiful, small temple on<br />

Elephantine is just north <strong>of</strong> the much larger temple <strong>of</strong> her consort, Khnum. Excavation and restoration <strong>of</strong> the Satis<br />

temple by the German Archaelogy Institute <strong>of</strong> Cairo has been ongoing since 1969, and although the restored temple that<br />

is seen today dates from the Ptolemaic period, 16 beneath it are the remains <strong>of</strong> several earlier temples, stacked one atop the<br />

other like tiers on a wedding cake, going back to the predynastic period. In all, there are seven temples, the lowest being a<br />

simple shrine that dates from about 3200 BCE. Above it are two Old Kingdom shrines that date to around 2250 BCE,<br />

and above these are two Middle Kingdom temples that date to circa 1950 BCE. <strong>The</strong>se are surmounted by a New<br />

Kingdom shrine built by Queen Hatshepsut, around 1480 BCE, and finally, at the very top, is the restored Ptolemaic<br />

temple, which dates to the second century BCE. *49 17<br />

In 1983 the American astronomer Ron Wells <strong>of</strong> the University <strong>of</strong> California took an interest in the alignments <strong>of</strong> the<br />

many superimposed Satis temples. 18 Working under the aegis <strong>of</strong> the Swiss Archaeological Institute in Cairo, Wells was<br />

permitted to take azimuth measurements <strong>of</strong> all the temples that were stacked on top <strong>of</strong> each other. It quickly became<br />

obvious to him that the azimuths <strong>of</strong> the temples differed slightly from one another, progressively changing in a<br />

counterclockwise direction. To a trained astronomer, this implied that the ancient builders were tracking the rising point<br />

<strong>of</strong> a celestial object, which changed azimuth proportionally. Ron Wells knew <strong>of</strong> the symbolic links between the goddess<br />

Satis and the star Sirius and thus had a hunch that the changing azimuths <strong>of</strong> the temple’s axes through the epoch may have<br />

something to do with the changing azimuths <strong>of</strong> the rising <strong>of</strong> Sirius. Making use <strong>of</strong> the pole star Polaris (Alpha Canis<br />

Minor) to establish true north, Wells calculated the azimuth <strong>of</strong> the topmost (Ptolemaic) temple and found it to be 114.65<br />

degrees. He then calculated the azimuth <strong>of</strong> the earlier (New Kingdom) temple beneath it and found it to be 120.60<br />

degrees. <strong>The</strong> 5.95-degree difference in azimuth exactly matched the difference in azimuth <strong>of</strong> Sirius for the same two<br />

epochs! 19<br />

<strong>The</strong> azimuth changes <strong>of</strong> the axes <strong>of</strong> the temples implies an awareness <strong>of</strong> the precessional shift. Skeptics have argued<br />

that successive ancient surveyors were not aware that the older axis was no longer directed to Sirius, and they simply<br />

oriented a new temple’s axis without being conscious <strong>of</strong> the change. This may perhaps be an explanation, however, if<br />

only one change had taken place; but the original axis was changed at least four times. <strong>The</strong> ancient surveyors surely must<br />

have known that the temple was dedicated to Satis, goddess <strong>of</strong> the flood linked to the heliacal rising <strong>of</strong> Sirius, and it<br />

seems inconceivable that they did not notice the change in azimuth <strong>of</strong> the axes <strong>of</strong> the various temples that were aligned to<br />

this star.<br />

More recently, in 2004, the Spanish astronomer Juan Belmonte, along with the <strong>Egypt</strong>ian astronomer Mossalam<br />

Shaltout, undertook a new study <strong>of</strong> the orientations <strong>of</strong> the superimposed Satis temples and confirmed Wells’s<br />

measurements as well as the orientation <strong>of</strong> the lowest, and thus oldest, shrine: “<strong>The</strong> archaic sacred precinct <strong>of</strong> Satet<br />

[Satis] at Elephantine: this area was enclosed on three sides by three large boulders <strong>of</strong> granite and opened roughly<br />

towards the south-eastern area <strong>of</strong> the horizon, where the sun rises at the winter solstice and where Sirius rose heliacally<br />

in 3200 B.C. <strong>The</strong> shrine is preserved in a cellar below the concrete terrace where the temple <strong>of</strong> Satet, erected by<br />

Hatshepsut, has been reconstructed.” 20<br />

Interestingly, Wells also determined that the topmost Satis temple had been aligned to other star systems. One set <strong>of</strong><br />

alignments was toward Orion’s belt and another set was toward the Big Dipper. <strong>The</strong>se were the very same constellations<br />

and stars to which the various alignments <strong>of</strong> the ceremonial complex at Nabta Playa had been directed thousands <strong>of</strong> years<br />

before. This was too much <strong>of</strong> an actual coincidence to be merely accidental. We can recall that it was, indeed, from this<br />

location that the ancient <strong>Egypt</strong>ian governor <strong>of</strong> Aswan and Elephantine, the explorer Harkhuf, launched his epic journeys<br />

to the kingdom <strong>of</strong> Yam. Harkhuf ’s tomb, where are inscribed the stories <strong>of</strong> his journeys, is located on the west bank <strong>of</strong><br />

the Nile in the hills almost directly opposite Elephantine Island. It is very tempting to suppose that Harkhuf knew the<br />

location <strong>of</strong> Yam before he set <strong>of</strong>f on his first expedition, because he knew that his ancestors had come from there. <strong>The</strong><br />

earliest date for the Satis temple is about 3200 BCE, a date that uncannily coincides with the departure <strong>of</strong> the cattle<br />

people from Nabta Playa. Had the latter come here and brought along with them the astronomical ideas that were<br />

incorporated into the multileveled temples <strong>of</strong> Satis?<br />

At Elephantine, in about 3200 BCE, it was not the monsoon rains that brought renewal and regeneration <strong>of</strong> the land<br />

but the Nile’s flood, which was the direct result <strong>of</strong> the monsoon rains that no longer occur in this part <strong>of</strong> <strong>Egypt</strong>, but<br />

instead occur much farther south, in central Africa. In other words, the same system <strong>of</strong> astronomical knowledge that was

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