Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt

mythical kings, the British Egyptologist Henri Frankfort says this of the Shemsu-Hor:
The designation [Shemsu-Hor/Followers of Horus] was reserved for rulers of the distant past. The texts leave no
doubt that the term referred to earlier kings. An inscription of a king Ranofer, just before the Middle Kingdom,
contains the phrase “in the time of your forefathers, the kings, Followers of Horus [Shemsu-Hor].” Texts of
Tuthmosis I and Tuthmosis III refer to them in the same manner. The first mentions fame the like of which was not
“seen in the annals of the ancestors since the Followers of Horus”; the other states that, in rebuilding a temple, an
old plan was used and proceeds: “The great plan was found in Denderah in old delineations written upon leather of
animal skin of the time of the Followers of Horus.” From these quotations it appears that “Followers of Horus” is a
vague designation for the kings of a distant past. Hence the Turin Papyrus places them before the first historical king
. . . 86
From the Turin Papyrus we can work out that the Shemsu-Hor ruled for 13,420 years before the first historical
pharaoh, who was identified as Menes. Egyptologists place the reign of Menes about 3000 BCE. This means that the start
of the Shemsu-Hor lineage was about 16,420 BCE—which can be rounded to 16,500 BCE. Could it be a coincidence
that this very date of 16,500 BCE is found in the astronomy of the Calendar Circle at Nabta Playa, as we have seen in
chapter 4? 87
We now return to the alleged plans for the temple of the cow goddess Hathor at Dendera and the claim that the
temple’s original plans were from the time of the Shemsu-Hor. If we assume that the original plans were from Nabta
Playa, then we would expect to find the same kind of astronomy at Dendera that was dominant at Nabta Playa. This,
unquestionably, is the astronomy defined by the focal point of the ceremonial complex at Nabta Playa, CSA, which
contained the cow stone. We recall that from CSA there emanate a series of megalithic lines toward the star Dubhe in the
north and a series of lines toward the east, directed toward the rising of Sirius.
Could the same be found at Dendera?
HATHOR, ISIS, THE BIG DIPPER, AND SIRIUS
The entrance to the temple of the cow goddess Hathor at Dendera faces north. The huge gate is flanked by six imposing
columns whose four sided capitals are decorated with faces of Hathor, here a woman’s face with cow’s ears. Beyond the
entrance is the hypostyle hall with a further eighteen similar columns, thus equaling a total of twenty-four columns. The
whole temple is a maze of rooms, chapels, corridors, underground crypts, and stairs leading to the roof. On the roof, in
one of the chapels, was found the famous Zodiac of Dendera, which we encountered in chapter 1, and which is now at the
Louvre Museum in Paris. 88
The Zodiac of Dendera
The main Hathor temple is famous for having housed the so-called round Zodiac of Dendera (as well as a lesser known
rectangular zodiac located on the ceiling of the first hypostyle hall). The round Zodiac is really more a planisphere, or
sky map, that shows the whole celestial landscape from the perspective of having the north celestial pole near its center.
The actual zodiac, which was fixed on the ceiling of a chapel on the upper floor of the temple, is made from the twelve
familiar Babylonian-Greek astrological signs, which are scattered in a rough loop around the celestial pole. In a larger
loop are scattered the thirty-six decans of ancient Egypt, which were used for timekeeping and rebirth rites (because
they contain Orion and Sirius). It is worth reminding ourselves that the decans were known from at least the pyramid age,
which suggests that the Dendera planisphere has incorporated elements of great antiquity. Here, Orion-Osiris is
represented by a striding man who wears the royal crown, and Sirius-Isis is shown as a recumbent cow with a fivepointed
star above her horns. Interestingly, behind the Isis-Sirius cow is the figure of a woman holding a bow and arrow,
almost certainly Satis of Elephantine, whom, as we have already seen, was also identified with Sirius (particularly with its
heliacal rising and the Nile flood). Very near the center of the zodiac is the figure of a small jackal on what looks like a
hoe. To its left is a large standing hippopotamus that represents the constellation Draconis, and to its right is the familiar
bull’s thigh that represents the Big Dipper. These last two constellations, as we have already seen, can be traced back
to the pyramid age, again giving the Dendera planisphere links to the distant past.