Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt

÷ 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