Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt

itualistic and symbolic in this shape, a meaning we now find elusive. The Egyptians clearly found this meaning to
be important. The craftsmanship of the Bent Pyramid achieves a high level, and the entire structure is beautifully
wrought. Clearly Sneferu and the Egyptians of his time were using architecture to express something of great
importance, and they were giving this work their all. 16
The Bent Pyramid is the first true giant pyramid created by the ancient Egyptians †77 under the reign of Sneferu, the
founder of the fourth dynasty. Evidence suggests that it was located on a site that included preexisting symbolic
architecture, such as the Zep Tepi Vega shaft that was revered and extremely ancient even in the time of Sneferu. The
duality symbolism repeatedly built into the Bent Pyramid may represent the dual times—Zep Tepi (the First Time), and
the second time of the revival of monumental astroceremonial architecture in Sneferu’s fourth dynasty. This dual
astroceremonial architecture is also present at Giza and was present at Nabta Playa. We can note that these two
monumentalized epochs—Zep Tepi and the initiation of giant pyramid complex construction in Old Kingdom times—
also represent two stations of the Great Year cycle of the ages: the southern culmination of Sirius at summer solstice
midnight and the heliacal reappearance of Sirius at summer solstice dawn.
We can note that when we find a new interpretation, one that will endure the test of time, for an ancient monument
or set of monuments, there tends also to be found some bits of folklore, mythology, or story from the past, often ignored
or dismissed by moderns, that points toward the same interpretation. Thus, once these alignments to Vega at Zep Tepi
were determined, we searched the literature and indeed found that Manly P. Hall writes in 1928, “In the light of the secret
philosophy of the Egyptian initiates, W. W. Harmon, by a series of extremely complicated yet exact mathematical
calculations; determines that the first ceremonial of the Pyramid was performed 68,890 years ago on the occasion when
the star Vega for the first time sent its ray down the descending passage into the pit.” 17 W. W. Harmon, an esoteric
Theosophist, seems to have claimed to have received somehow, from an ancient initiatory tradition, the basic idea of
Vega shining down the subterranean passage as the first use of the Giza complex for ritual initiatory purposes. He then
attempts to calculate a date on his own. It is interesting that he seems to have been correct about Vega and the
subterranean passage but is completely wrong about the date. (Even going back to earlier precession cycles does not yield
Harmon’s date.) Quite opposite Harmon, we first suspected Vega for purely astronomical reasons based on calculations,
then we researched the cultural and contextual evidence in order to find that an intended Vega alignment does indeed fit
into the historic-cultural sequence.
There seems to be mounting evidence that there was some symbolic architecture at Giza and Dashur during Zep Tepi
and that it referenced Vega and Sirius, because these stars represented the First Time, the beginning of the Great Year of
precession. At this point defenders of the orthodox view may object along the traditional line of thinking that there was
nothing at Giza before the Old Kingdom and that, therefore, it is not plausible that several millennia earlier there was
monumental architecture. As Zahi Hawass, director of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, states, “But no single piece
of material culture, not a single object nor piece of an object, has been found at Giza that can be interpreted as coming
from a lost civilization [before the Egyptian Dynasties].” 18 The Great Sphinx, however, must qualify as a piece of
material culture. Further, though the Sphinx may not have been in existence as far back as Zep Tepi, and perhaps it was,
or is, only seven thousand years old, the minimum age required by geophysical weathering. In either case, the Sphinx is
strong evidence that there was monumental symbolic architecture at Giza long before the pharaonic Old Kingdom times.
In the orthodox view, of course, the physical evidence for the ancient Sphinx could be dismissed on the basis that it is an
anomaly—the only piece of evidence—and, therefore, it doesn’t count. The Vega shafts and Sirius platform Zep Tepi
findings can also be dismissed by some as anomalies based on the fact that this evidence is astroceremonial, rather than
proved by radiocarbon or other traditional dating methods. At some point, however, enough anomalies from enough
different disciplines add up to an overwhelming body of evidence. *78 19
So the developmental sequence may have been thus: The Black African star people of the Sahara developed the
forerunner of the Egyptian civilization and, in the process, built the astroceremonial complex at Nabta Playa. When the
extreme dryness of the region finally set in, they moved to the Nile Valley and developed the archaic temple of Satis at
Elephantine Island. They then spread throughout the Nile Valley, assimilating the existing populations into dynastic
Egypt and increasing their megalithic building activities. By the third dynasty, King Djoser, with his astronomer-priest
Imhotep, built at Saqqara the first major monumental complex of dynastic Egypt. Then fourth-dynasty founder King
Sneferu, and Sneferu’s son, King Khufu, built the Bent Pyramid at Dashur, followed by the Great Pyramid at Giza, both
constructed on top of much more ancient sacred subterranean passages and platforms from Zep Tepi. Thus, all the truly
monumental pyramid architecture of the dynastic period (with the exception, perhaps, of the fourth-dynasty Unfinished