Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt
Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt
Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
Anne-Sophie von Bomhard, “was the most essential preoccupation <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Egypt</strong>ian civilization.” 43 <strong>The</strong> ancient <strong>Egypt</strong>ians<br />
sought eternity through understanding <strong>of</strong> the long-term cycles <strong>of</strong> the sun and stars. Everything the ancient <strong>Egypt</strong>ians did<br />
—all monuments they built, all ceremonies and rituals they performed, all art and writings they created—were inspired by<br />
the idea <strong>of</strong> eternity and how they could become part <strong>of</strong> it. We need only look at the pyramids to feel their inspiration.<br />
Yet if the pyramids are a monumental legacy to eternity, then surely the ever-flowing Nile and its annual flood are<br />
the living expression <strong>of</strong> it. Herodotus said that <strong>Egypt</strong> was “the gift <strong>of</strong> the Nile,” and the <strong>Egypt</strong>ians themselves saw the<br />
Nile as a sacred river, which had its source in heaven among the stars. 44 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Egypt</strong>ologist Jean Kerisel writes, “the<br />
mystery <strong>of</strong> the distant sources <strong>of</strong> the Nile and the inability to explain the mechanism behind the flooding <strong>of</strong> the river<br />
which followed a regular calendar . . . must have nourished the image <strong>of</strong> divinity and the sense <strong>of</strong> eternity.” 45<br />
<strong>The</strong> source <strong>of</strong> the Nile is the great lakes in the distant south, thousand <strong>of</strong> kilometers away, in central Africa and<br />
Ethiopia. As we have seen, the annual flood is the direct product <strong>of</strong> the heavy monsoon rains that occur in midsummer,<br />
which cause these great lakes to overflow and discharge their waters into the Nile. <strong>The</strong>se very same monsoons once<br />
reached the south <strong>of</strong> <strong>Egypt</strong> and created temporary lakes such as the one at Nabta Playa. According to standard<br />
<strong>Egypt</strong>ology, however, the ancient <strong>Egypt</strong>ians never knew this. Indeed, the source <strong>of</strong> the Nile—and thus the cause <strong>of</strong> the<br />
annual flood—were not known to modern humans until the late nineteenth century. Given our new evidence, however,<br />
we can question to what extent we can say that the ancient <strong>Egypt</strong>ians never knew that the monsoon flooding in the south<br />
was the source <strong>of</strong> the annual Nile floods. Perhaps the ancient <strong>Egypt</strong>ians did not know as we today think <strong>of</strong> knowing, but<br />
in addition to the astronomical evidence, their origin stories suggest they did have some sort <strong>of</strong> awareness.<br />
<strong>The</strong> ancient <strong>Egypt</strong>ians represented the Nile as the god Hapy, a plump man with drooping breasts and a belly that<br />
implied contentment and fulfillment. <strong>The</strong>y imagined that its source was a cave leading into the underworld, the Duat. Yet<br />
the Duat was also a starry world near the Milky Way. <strong>The</strong> Lord <strong>of</strong> the Duat was the god Osiris, with whom the dead<br />
pharaohs were identified. Thus according to the <strong>Egypt</strong>ologist J. Gwyn Griffiths, “Osiris is especially associated with the<br />
Duat, a watery celestial region where he consorts with Orion and Sothis [Sirius], heralds <strong>of</strong> inundation and fertility. He is<br />
also Lord <strong>of</strong> Eternity . . .” 46 And Mark Lehner writes that “the word for ‘Netherworld’ was Duat, <strong>of</strong>ten written with a<br />
star in a circle, a reference to Orion, the stellar expression <strong>of</strong> Osiris in the underworld. Osiris was the Lord <strong>of</strong> the Duat,<br />
which, like the celestial world (and the real Nile Valley) was both a water world and an earthly realm.” 47 <strong>The</strong> seemingly<br />
contradictory fact that there was a celestial Duat and an underworld Duat can be explained by the observation <strong>of</strong> what<br />
actually happens in the sky: the stars journey in the sky after they rise from east to west, and they journey in the<br />
underworld—that is, below the horizon—from west to east, after they set. What added to this earth-sky connection for<br />
the Duat was the visible feature <strong>of</strong> a celestial Nile near Orion. As the historian and astronomer Alan Chapman aptly puts<br />
it: “was not the life-giving Nile itself reflected in the very heavens themselves, in the form <strong>of</strong> the Milky Way?” 48 <strong>The</strong><br />
American <strong>Egypt</strong>ologist Mark Lehner also points out that “the Milky Way was the ‘beaten path <strong>of</strong> the stars,’ although it<br />
was also a watery way. . . . In fact, the vision is that <strong>of</strong> the Nile Valley at inundation.” 49 Further, the mythologist Lucie<br />
Lamy adds: “If <strong>Egypt</strong> is a reflection <strong>of</strong> the sky, then divine beings sail on the waters <strong>of</strong> the Great River which animate the<br />
cosmos: the Milky Way.” 50 Robert Bauval had published the same idea in 1989 when he wrote, “a major feature <strong>of</strong> the<br />
After-world <strong>of</strong>ten mentioned in the Pyramid Texts is the ‘Winding Waterway,’ which was, in all probability, seen as a<br />
celestial counterpart <strong>of</strong> the Nile.” 51<br />
THE SACRED YEARLY INUNDATION<br />
Each year, the Nile started to swell in mid-June and spilled its water on the adjacent valley. Herodotus, who journeyed in<br />
<strong>Egypt</strong> in the fifth century BCE, commented: “about why the Nile behaves precisely as it does I could get no information<br />
from the priests nor yet from anyone else. What I particularly wished to know is why the water begins to rise at the<br />
summer solstice, continues to do so for a hundred days, and then falls again at the end <strong>of</strong> that period, so that it remains<br />
low throughout the winter until the summer solstice comes round again in the following year.” 52<br />
What Herodotus wanted to know, and what the <strong>Egypt</strong>ians could not or would not tell him, was that the reason the<br />
Nile behaved in its mysterious way was because <strong>of</strong> the monsoon rains in the distant south, which, in a sense, regulate the<br />
flow and level <strong>of</strong> the river. Even after the monsoons receded south out <strong>of</strong> <strong>Egypt</strong> and the rains that had once drenched the<br />
dry Sahara each summer came to an end, much <strong>of</strong> the downpour <strong>of</strong> the rainwaters did, in fact, still reach <strong>Egypt</strong> via the<br />
Nile.