Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt

Sahara, and their bones were brought back to their home settlement for burial near their ancestors. From this evidence, it
seems that the Black people of Jebel Ramlah and Nabta Playa ventured far and wide in the Sahara when the climate was
humid and the desert fertile. Could these people be the same as those of Jebel Uwainat and Gilf Kebir? Further, could
they all have originated in the mysterious land of Yam?
If such thoughts were held by Fred Wendorf and Romuald Schild, then they kept them to themselves as far as we
know. At this stage we cannot help but recall that, in 1923, Ahmed Hassanein encountered a colony of black-skinned
people at Jebel Uwainat, and we can also recall the Tebu man who claimed that the prehistoric art that was found there
was his ancestors’. According to the Sahara historian J. L. Wright, these people that Hassanein encountered were Tebu
refugees from the Goran tribe who originally had come from the Tibesti Mountains in northern Chad. 23 Hassanein was
able to confirm this when he wrote, “The southern portion of the Libyan Desert is inhabited by tribes of blacks—Tebu,
Goran, and Bidiat—who are rather more refined in features than the central African negroes.” 24
Unfortunately, before anyone could determine from where these Black people at Jebel Uwainat had originated, they
left the region sometime after Hassanein’s visit, never to be seen again. It is probable they returned to the oasis of Kufra,
where, from time immemorial some of the ancient Tebu lived until the Arab conquest in the eighth century. 25 Were the
ancestors of the Tebu, then, those people who were called Temenu by the ancient Egyptians and who, as Harkhuf
reported, were chased by the “Chief of Yam” to the “western corner of heaven”? Further, could their true place of origin
have been far in the southwest, into the highlands of northern Chad? Until recently, the answer from Egyptologists and
anthropologists would have been a resounding no—that is, until there came another aficionado of the desert to join the
ranks of Egyptian Sahara explorers such as Rohlfs Gerhard, Ahmed Hassanein, and Count Lazlo Almasy.
FROM FORD COMPANY TRAINEE TO CAMEL DRIVER
Carlo Bergmann arrived in Egypt in the mid-1980s. He was sent there by the Ford Motor Company to complete a
management-training course. After a visit to the camel market in Cairo, Bergmann was so fascinated by these “ships of
the desert” that he resigned from his job then and there and bought his first camel in order to become a desert explorer.
He set up a base in the oasis of Dakhla, increased his camel fleet to twelve, and roamed the desert in search of lost oases.
Bergmann was eventually solicited by Dr. Rudolf Kruper of the Heinrich Barth Institute to assist him in his explorations
southwest of Dakhla. Carlo, however, was not impressed with the way the archaeologists explored from the comfort of
their four-wheel-drive vehicles. He believed that moving by camel or on foot radically increases the chances of spotting
something of value. With the desert’s blinding sunlight and a landscape that is much the same everywhere, an explorer
could easily miss seeing even the entrance to a cave unless he vigilantly checked every rock and mound along the way.
Carlo Bergmann also had the advantage of a sixth sense regarding where to look for prehistoric artifacts—an ability he
developed after years of exploring the desert on foot.
Bergmann knew that Bedouins in the past told stories about a lost temple in the open desert a few days’ march from
Dakhla oasis. They told the British archaeologist Sir Gardner Wilkinson in 1835, “Some ruins of uncertain date [were]
discovered about nine years ago by an Arab in search of stray camels . . . [and that their ancient] inhabitants are blacks.” 26
Bergmann also knew that Wilkinson had not attempted to verify the story, probably because he discounted it as a tall tale
told by imaginative Arabs. The same happened in 1910 to the British engineer and explorer W. J. Harding King, who was
also told by Bedouins of a stone temple that existed “eighteen hours journey west of Gedida in Dakhla Oasis,” 27 but
much like Wilkinson before him, Harding King dismissed the story as twaddle. Carlo Bergmann, however, took these
stories seriously, and, in 2000, after six attempts to locate the alleged stone temple, he did, in fact, find something that
matched the description and location given to Wilkinson and Harding King.
The “stone temple” revealed itself as a conical hill about 30 meters [about 98 feet] high and 60 meters [about 197
feet] in length. On its eastern side there is a natural terrace. This platform, which has an average width of 3 meters
[about 10 feet] and a length of approximately 35 meters [about 115 feet] is about 7 meters [23 feet] above the
ground and fenced by a dry wall of stone slabs. From the distance the place has some resemblance with the
Nabataean rock-palaces and -tombs at Petra. When setting my foot onto the terrace my eyes glanced over a
breathtaking arrangement of hieroglyphic texts, of cartouches of Khufu [Cheops] and of his son Djedefre, of short
notes from stone-masons, of two figures of a pharaoh smiting the enemies and of enigmatic signs [water mountain
symbols] evidently placed on the rock-face in wilful order. All these engravings were depicted in the midst of
representations of animals and human figures from Prehistoric and Old Kingdom times. As pharaoh Djedefre´s