Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt

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