Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt

Recommendations

Info

There are no less than 192 recesses and protrusions, 14 false doors, 4 corner bastions, and a main monumental entrance. On all of these features there are vertical panels, each some 20 centimeters (8 inches) wide, 3 centimeters (about 1 inch) deep, and several meters high, some cut into the wall, others flush with it. The west wall contains 1,461 panels and the east side contains 1,458 or 1,459 panels. The south side and north side each contain 732 panels, thus a total of 366 × 4 = 1,464. These numbers, to say the least, speak of calendrical meaning that is specifically related to Sirius, which is very near the Sothic cycle duration (1460 - 1), and 366 implies the sidereal year. *58 Let us see why. Sufi Tradition and the Wall We can note that the design of this massive temple complex enclosure recalls the words of one of our teachers of the ancient meditation technique of sufi zikr: the design of all Persian rugs harks back to a very ancient spiritual tradition. If we look at the design of any Persian rug, it always consists of a gardenlike complex enclosed by a very elaborate wall with many recesses and complex meanderings. This design, the sufi said, is a representation of the primordial garden enclosed by a wall with 125,000 doors—and each door, it is said, represents a new way to enter the garden, which opens up each time another human becomes fully enlightened (through sufi or any other yogic practice). The sufi tradition, it is claimed, originates from extremely ancient times. It is interesting to speculate that the geniuspriest Imhotep designed the giant Djoser complex enclosure wall as astronomical-calendrical and developmental-spiritual—thus symbolizing the connection among humans, mind, and cosmos on both a subtle level and in enormous monumental architecture that exists out in plain sight. First, and most obviously, we consider the number 1,461. As we’ve noted, the solar year is not exactly 365 days, but has an extra 0.242 day or, approximately, an extra quarter day (as does the Julian year we use today—which is exactly 365.25 years). A peculiarity of the star Sirius, which was apparently known to the ancient Egyptians, was that its yearly cycle was nearly 365.25 days during Old Kingdom times, thus making a Sothic cycle of 365.25 × 4 = 1,461, 68 the same length as the solar-year return cycle and also the number of panels on the west side of the boundary wall of the step pyramid complex. 69 What, however, of the east wall of the step pyramid complex, which has 1,458 or 1,459 panels, and the north and south walls, which each have 732 panels? The answer emerges if we look in more detail at Sothic cycles. Many historians of astronomy and Egyptian chronologists have often pointed out that the length of the true astronomical Sothic cycle for the heliacal rising of Sirius to return to the exact point in the sidereal year varies slightly, and, according to the British astronomer M. F. Ingham, it ranged during dynastic Egyptian times from 1,450 years to 1,460 years. 70 In appendix 2 we see the nature of Sothic cycles and calculate the length of the Sothic cycles in Old Kingdom times, independently testing Ingham’s values by using a slightly different method: we set the year 2781 BCE, the day of summer solstice, as the starting point for a Sothic cycle and to constrain a definition for heliacal rising of Sirius. We then find that the Sothic cycle immediately preceding 2781 BCE was 1,459 Egyptian civil calendar years (1,458 Julian years), and the Sothic cycle starting at 2781 BCE was 1,457 Egyptian civil calendar years. Both those values essentially agree with Ingham’s calculations. We conclude, then, that the east wall represents the exact Sothic cycle duration up to the design and construction of the complex, which itself commemorates or inaugurates the correspondence of the heliacal rising of Sirius with the summer solstice (an event that happens only once every twenty-six thousand years). Thus the 1,461-panel wall may reflect a standardized or general public knowledge cycle, and the 1,459-panel wall could reflect the esoteric knowledge of the exact natural cycle known only to initiates such as Imhotep. Was the Calendar Secret? Mathematician James Lowdermilk argues that there is evidence that an esoteric or secret tradition did exist. Evidence of knowledge of the workings of the calendar being held secret is also found in the Reisner papyrus, circa 1900 BCE. If the Egyptian calendar year of 365 days is 10 /39 of a day short of a sidereal year, then it takes 39
÷ 10 = 3.9 years for the calendar to lose one day to the sidereal year, not exactly 4 calendar years. In the Reisner papyrus, a hired scribe wrote the approximation 39 ÷ 10 = 4 even though elsewhere in the papyrus he has correctly worked the problems 30 ÷ 10 and 9 ÷ 10, which when added together give the correct value of 39 ÷ 10, proving his ability (Gillings 1972: 221). Apparently the author of the Reisner papyrus knew or was told that the calculation 39 ÷ 10 was not to be performed in such a profane location as the official registers of a dockyard workshop. Furthermore, when the geographer Strabo (second century CE) wrote of Plato’s and Eudoxus’s studies in Egypt in the 4th century BCE, he tells us that the Egyptian priests “did teach them the fractions of the day and the night which, running over and above the 365 days, fill out the time of the true year” (Strabo, Geography, pp. 83–85). These priests understood that the “true year” contains 10 /39 of a day more than the 365-day calendar year they used, but they were “secretive and slow to impart” this knowledge. (From “Unit Fractions: Inception and Use,” in The Ostracon, Journal of the Egyptian Study Society, vol. 14, no. 2, Summer 2003. [Note that 365 days plus 10 /39 day gives the length of the sidereal day to within 4 seconds, whereas the crude approximation 365 days plus ¼ day is off by more than 9 minutes.]) The difference, then, of two years represented on the walls progressing in time from east to west could also reflect the changing Sothic cycle—the next one will be two years shorter. Further, the difference between the east and west wall representations, two years, appears to be reflected in the north and south walls, each of which has 732 panels. Two years equal 730 solar days or 732 sidereal days. *59 Egyptologists agree that Imhotep lived in the reign of King Djoser during the third dynasty, which, they say, began in the year 2630 BCE. They openly admit, however, that a margin of error of at least one hundred fifty years must be allowed for the early dynasties, thus placing Imhotep as living anytime between 2780 and 2480 BCE. 71 The date 2780 BCE, which could well have been the start of Djoser’s reign, now also rings a bell, for it was the year when the summer solstice coincided with the heliacal rising of Sirius and also when, most chronologists strongly suspect, the official civil calendar was set in motion. 72 Therefore, we see that both the calculated value of 1,461 years and the actual value of 1,459 years of the Sothic cycle (which is a combination of the solar and stellar cycles) are expressed on the east and west sides of the boundary wall. Further, the precise difference between these two durations is expressed by the walls that connect them in terms of the number of sidereal days (or star days), which also is a combination of solar and stellar times. Finally, the whole step pyramid complex and the small stone cubicle/serdab are aligned with the Big Dipper to mark the reappearance of Sirius in the east at the one time in twenty-six thousand years that this occurs on summer solstice. All of these facts taken together cannot be a coincidence. The entire complex appears to announce the long-term cosmic cycles of Sirius—how they are measured and predicted and connected to the human-made cycles of the civil calendar, all constructed around the very special time when heliacal reappearance of Sirius coincided with the summer solstice. Of course, this interpretation addresses not only the elegant calendar and cosmic meanings of the wall panel design but also the reason why the step pyramid complex was built at that precise time. If we accept that Imhotep knew not only that an approximation to the Sothic cycle was 1,461 Egyptian civil years but also the precise duration of the previous Sothic cycle and that this cycle is a combination of solar and sidereal motions, and if we also accept that he had a concept of the difference between the sidereal day and the solar day, then it is highly likely that he was informed by careful observations going back at least one Sothic cycle—that is, back to 4241 BCE, to the period of heavy activity at Nabta Playa. OTHER EVIDENCE OF THE LONG-TERM TRACKING OF SIRIUS We have seen that as early as 3200 BCE, the star Sirius was tracked at Elephantine with the changing axes of the multitiered temple of Satis. Yet there are shrines in Egypt other than the step pyramid complex and the Giza pyramid complex that also tracked this special star. In the area of ancient Thebes (modern Luxor) are the remains of a small temple commonly known as Thoth Hill. The temple was built on a high point in the Theban hills overlooking the Nile Valley below, with a clear view of the eastern horizon. Discovered by George Sweinfurth in 1904 and studied by Sir Flinders Petrie in 1909, the temple has been confirmed to have been built under the reign of King Mentuhotep of the eleventh dynasty. Extensive investigations between 1995 and 1998 by a Hungarian team from Eotvos Lorand University under the directorship of Dr. Gyozo Voros
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 and 100: Figure 5.3. Numerous prehistoric ha
Page 101 and 102: themselves, our drivers uttered a b
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: esynchronized every 1,460 years—t
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?