Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt

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also depicted in many different types of scenes such as hunting, herding, domestic, ritual, and so forth (see plates 23 and 24). The fine state of preservation of the images reveals many interesting details about adornment, shoes, clothing, implements, weapons, homes, furnishings, and items used by the prehistoric people. Although the cave extends inward about 8 meters, the deeper reaches are not painted, probably because the ceiling there is too low and dark. Mr. Borda plans to return to the site with a professional photographer to make a composite high-resolution digital montage of the entire painted rock ceiling. A pictorial article will then appear in the SAHARA journal in the middle of 2011. Mr. Borda wished us to also note that Kifah is the name of the first daughter of the Tuareg Salem Ben Yahya, one of Libya’s most renowned desert guides, who Borda has traveled with on several of his expeditions. A day before Borda found the cave, Ben Yahya greeted Borda with the words “your mother was praying you” instead of the usual “good morning.” Ben Yahya then promptly showed Borda a five-inch yellow scorpion that had scurried out from under Borda’s mattress while Ben Yahya was gathering up the sleeping gear. The species is known as the Death Stalker ( Leiurus quinquestriatus). Ben Yahya then related the harrowing story of how, at the tender age of just three months, Kifah was killed in the oasis of Rebbiana after the same species of yellow scorpion had crept into her bed while she slept. With the tragic story still ringing in his ears when he found the cave, Borda was moved to dedicate his discovery to the memory of Kifah. A rock painting of an aardvark We wish to thank Mark Borda for kindly allowing us to report this discovery and also for providing us with some photographs, which he took at the time of the discovery. Mr. Borda has been exploring the Libyan Desert since 2005, his main objective being to seek out possible remains of ancient Egyptian presence in its vast wastes and beyond. Apart from the discovery mentioned above, he has made a number of significant discoveries. We were among the first to visit one of these in 2008, a site that is now rather dryly referred to in the archaeological world as CC21, but which we prefer to call the “Borda Cave” in this book. It is unusually located between Gilf Kebir and Jebel Uwainat, an area previously thought to be devoid of rock art. The cave contains magnificent prehistoric rock paintings, now considered to be one the very finest and best preserved prehistoric rock-art sites of Egypt. Also the now famous “Uwainat Inscriptions” that Borda found in the southern part of Jebel Uwainat proved that the ancient Egyptians of the early Middle Kingdom (ca. 2000 BCE) somehow managed to travel the vast distance from the Nile across the totally arid desert without camels to meet the mysterious “people of Yam and Tekhebet,” yet unidentified kingdoms perhaps located in the once fertile sub-Saharan regions of Africa. Thomas Brophy (left) and Robert Bauval at the Uwainat Inscriptions, April 2008
APPENDIX 1 BACK TO THE FIRST TIME Vega, Sirius, and Orion Agree at Giza One day our descendants will think it incredible that we paid so much attention to things like the amount of melanin in our skin or the shape of our eyes or our gender instead of the unique identities of each of us as complex human beings. FRANKLIN THOMAS I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. In the main chapters of this book we have seen that there is a connection between the astroceremonial culture of the people of the Nabta region in Late Neolithic times and the earliest protodynastic and dynastic Nile astrosymbolism. The tracking of the rising of Sirius with the stars of the circumpolar Bull’s Thigh constellation leads directly from Nabta to the Nile, as does attention to the motion of Orion’s belt. Here, in more detail, is the evidence for continuous astroceremonial culture in the other direction, back in time to the Middle Neolithic *67 and perhaps earlier. We can now trace the astroceremonial evidence back before 5000 BCE. So far, in this journey back in astroceremonial time, we have the Sirius-plus–Bull’s Thigh–Alkaid megalithic alignment of 6100 BCE and alignments to the vernal equinox heliacal risings of Orion’s belt stars plus the autumnal equinox heliacal rising of Vega—and all are within a few hundred years of that same epoch. In addition, the Calendar Circle Orion’s belt observing feature stretches back to about 6300 BCE—and the Calendar Circle suggests a method for imagining the entire precession cycle of the sky. The circle draws our attention to two time periods—circa 5000 BCE and, half a precession cycle before this, circa 16,500 BCE. That cycle brackets the time circa 12,000 BCE, which was the era referred to by the ancient Egyptians as Zep Tepi, or the First Time. The pyramids at Giza refer back to that time via their reflection of the Orion’s belt stars in the layout of the Giza monuments. In terms of the precession cycle of a star, if Zep Tepi is the First Time, it is logical that it refers to the culmination time of the star when it is either farthest south or farthest north on its twenty-six-thousand-year cycle. Nabta seems to have been built during the half time or middle time to the Zep Tepi cycle or the precession cycle and also reflects representations from the sky of the earlier time as well as the time when Nabta was built. (Thus if Giza is the place of the First Time, Nabta may be the place of the center of time.) If there is a symbolic connection between Nabta and Giza, it may be possible to find more representation of the First Time at Giza by digging deeper into the findings at Nabta, which might tell us what to look for at Giza. VEGA AND THE SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGE As we have seen, the primary stars that were tracked ceremonially at Nabta are Sirius, the stars of Orion’ belt, and the circumpolar stars, including Vega (Alpha Lyrae), which is a very bright star. At visual brightness magnitude 0.0, Vega, since Hellenistic times, defined the brightest portion of the stellar brightness scale. It is essentially equal to the variable star Arcturus as the brightest star in the Northern Hemisphere. *68 Further, it is by far the brightest star that is ever near the long-term path of the celestial pole, and so for several centuries around 12,000 BCE, Vega was the brightest North Star ever. In the Great Pyramid at Giza, the two internal chambers, the King’s Chamber and the Queen’s Chamber, are connected to shafts oriented up and out along the meridian, the north–south line in the sky. Though they were previously determined to be air shafts, a number of authors have discussed that they probably indicate stars. Today it is generally
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For my daughter, Candice, and my so
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book was not a
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More Mysteries at Nabta Playa The S
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INTRODUCTION ANCIENT EGYPT REBORN N
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1 STRANGE STONES In Nabta there are
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desert” emerge from the surroundi
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stage the CPE anthropologists were
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arguments—and especially on the B
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This time, some archaeologists took
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who’s who of famous men: it inclu
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huge rocky massif sprouting out of
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Almasy planned an expedition to Gil
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of Setu and Irtet after having expl
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Sahara, and their bones were brough
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Djedefre Water Mountain, as Bergama
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Figure 2.5. Abu Ballas Pottery Hill
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can imagine how these scholars felt
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followed by the same determinative
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The surface of the now-covered bedr
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indeed, one of the main objectives
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In addition to tumuli tombs of catt
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since fallen. The largest ones were
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ALIGNMENTS TOWARD THE STARS: WHEN A
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elated not only to the gates of the
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dates within thousands of years of
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the largest stone. Again, the dista
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thus sent in an order to Quickbird
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Finally, to our relief, the light f
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degrees and azimuth 22.5 degrees an
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associated with the heleical rising
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ight angle. After that date, Nabta
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also note that several megalithic a
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ceremonial complex of Nabta Playa.
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Figure 4.14. Bagnold Circle in, top
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have been placed by humans, possibl
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5 THE BIBLE, THE HAMITES, AND THE B
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Even allowing that scholars tend to
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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 and 120: esynchronized every 1,460 years—t
Page 121 and 122: ÷ 10 = 3.9 years for the calendar
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: POSTSCRIPT DISCOVERY OF THE KIFAH C
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
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