Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt

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the Dakhla area . . . bears implications for the question of early Egyptian relations with Sudanese Nubia. It suggests a line or a network of communication across the Eastern Sahara as late as the early third millennium BC. . . . The new evidence supports the scenario that even after 3000 BC the Libyan Desert was not completely void of human activity. In its southern part, cattle keepers could survive as late as the second millennium BC. . . . Apparently, the Egyptian Nile Valley and the oases were connected with these regions and farther African destinations beyond by a network of donkey caravan routes crossing southern Egypt. 32 What Kuper seems to be saying is that prehistoric Black people living in the Egyptian Sahara not only were able to communicate with others as far south as Dongola in Sudan but also were probably still around when the pharaohs of the early dynasties (ca. 2500–2100 BCE) sent their emissaries, such as Harkhuf, into the Sahara. In 1990, German archaeologist G. Burkhard found a small rock mound 30 kilometers (about 19 miles) south of Dakhla that had on it prehistoric petroglyphs of wild animals and also an ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic inscription—“Regnal year 23, the steward Meri he goes up to meet the Oasis Dwellers” 33 —tentatively dated to the sixth dynasty (and thus contemporary with Harkhuf). This discovery prompted Rudolph Kuper to consider the possibility that the ancient Egyptians might have reached the extreme southwest region of the Egyptian Sahara, perhaps as far as Gilf Kebir. 34 The reason for Kuper’s uncanny prediction was his awareness of the existence of a hill some 200 kilometers (about 124 miles) southwest of Dakhla known as Abu Ballas Hill (Father of Pots Hill, or Pottery Hill), which had been discovered in 1918 by the British explorer John Ball. Strewn all along its base were hundreds of large clay pots dated to the Old Kingdom (ca. 2500–2100 BCE) as determined by the hieroglyphic engravings found on the hill. What was the purpose of this place? Why did it have all those large clay pots? Count Almasy had visited Abu Ballas Hill in the 1930s, and he had suggested that it was a very ancient water station or supply outpost, a sort of donkey filling station, along a long-forgotten route that may have linked the oasis of Dakhla to Gilf Kebir and perhaps beyond. 35 As it turned out both Almasy and Kuper would be proved correct by none other than the indefatigable Carlo Bergmann. THE ABU BALLAS TRAIL The mystery of Abu Ballas Hill was finally solved in 1999 by Carlo Bergmann. In the course of a whole year, from March 1999 to March 2000, Bergmann explored on foot the region southwest of Dakhla oasis and discovered some thirty other water stations with similar large, clay pots set almost equidistant to one another, like a hop-skip-and-jump trail or, more poetically, a string of pearls along a 350-kilometer (217 mile) stretch of desert. The midpoint of this trail was Abu Ballas Hill, and the whole created an almost straight highway from Dakhla to Gilf Kebir. The conclusion was inevitable: this was the long-forgotten ancient caravan trail predicted by Almasy. 36 This discovery amounted to an intellectual explosion for the academics, for here was hard, irrefutable evidence that the pharaohs did after all travel into the deep desert and probably even made contact with the descendants of the prehistoric people who lived there. Further, all this was happening forty-five hundred years before Prince Kemal el Din discovered Gilf Kebir. Here is how the pharaohs did it. In ancient times the essential commodities for such a trip were, of course, water and food, as well as water and fodder for the beasts of burden. It is well known that the camel was not introduced into Egypt before 500 BCE, so that the only other means of desert transport in the Old Kingdom was the donkey (Equus asinus). Harkhuf claimed to have taken three hundred donkeys for his journey to Yam, and donkey caravans are also attested on temple and tomb reliefs as early as the first dynasties. Also, on one of the large clay pots at Abu Ballas there is a drawing of a donkey confirming that this animal had carried the pots and presumably other goods to this location in the desert. The donkey is an excellent desert traveler and can easily carry loads of sixty kilograms (about a hundred thirty pounds) and walk 15 kilometers (about 9 miles) per day and can go three days without water. A fully grown and healthy donkey will need about 2 to 3 liters of water and about 3 kilograms of fodder each day, which together will add 5 to 6 kilograms (about 13 pounds) per day to the load he must carry. A one-way trip from Dakhla to the edge of Gilf Kebir will take a minimum of twenty days and thus will require a total load of 120 kilograms (about 265 pounds) for each donkey, to which we must add another 30 kilograms (about 60 pounds) for the containers that carry the water and food as well as basic traveling equipment plus the food and water for the person leading the donkey (estimated at 50 kilograms—about 110 pounds—per load). Conservatively, then, each donkey must be able to carry at the start of the journey at least 200 kilograms (440 pounds). This, of course, is impossible. A donkey walking at normal pace in such grueling conditions can carry only 60 to 80 kilograms without buckling under the load.
Figure 2.5. Abu Ballas Pottery Hill discovered in 1918. Photographs courtesy of Carlo Bergmann and Mark Borda. Theoretically, the payload can be reduced by taking extra donkeys, but there are an optimum number of donkeys for the trip, because each extra donkey will also require water and food. The optimum number of donkeys per person is three to four. Sharing the load makes the total load for each about 185 kilograms, which is still not possible for a donkey to carry. It should be clear, then, that in order to undertake this journey, the donkey can start off with a load of only 60 to 80 kilograms, and then, when the water and food are used up, there must be refueling stations along the way—at least two spread equidistant along the way to Gilf Kebir. This assessment explains the need for the large Abu Ballas Hill watering station and also another large one that was discovered by Carlo Bergmann, which he named Muhattah Jaqub (Jacob’s Station), located between Dakhla oasis and Abu Ballas Hill. These principal watering stations had to be kept fully supplied with water and food when a donkey caravan expedition was planned, which also explains the need for the thirty small stations that Bergmann discovered in between. In other words, the small stations along the trail were used only for the resupply of the Muhattah Jaqub and Abu Ballas Hill main stations. It was these last two that serviced the caravans and ensured that there was a supply of water and food all the way to the final destination. “But what was the final destination of the caravans?” asked the anthropologist Frank Förster. Certainly not Gilf Kebir. The nearest places with permanent water are the Kufra Oasis in modern Libya some 350 km [more than 200 miles] to the northwest of the eastern fringes of the southern Gilf Kebir, and Gebel Uwainat some 200 km [about 124 miles] to the southwest. Kufra, however, surrounded by seas of sand is rather isolated. . . . Therefore, and for other reasons, it is to be assumed that the next leg of the route led towards Gebel Uwainat, the island-like most elevated feature in the whole of the eastern Sahara, which is provided with a number of rain-fed wells at its foot (in Arabic, Uwainat means “the small fountains”). From here it would be possible to reach more southern regions in the territory of modern Sudan or Chad. To date, however, no evidence has been found in the Gebel Uwainat, nor in the Gilf Kebir proper, that attests to an Egyptian presence there. 37 The German anthropologists Stefan Kröpelin and Rudolph Kuper had the same hunch as Förster, namely that the Abu Ballas Trail went on beyond Gilf Kebir, perhaps to Jebel Uwainat and also even beyond to Chad. “Its [the Abu Ballas Trails] final destination is still unknown . . . the nearest locality with permanent ground water lies at distances of 600 kilometers [373 miles] . . . in Jebel Uwainat, from where the trail might have continued to the ecologically superlative Ennedi Plateau or the outstanding lake region of Ounianga in Northeast Chad.” 38 Förster, Kröpelin, and Kuper wrote these words in early 2007. Little did they know that their hunch about Jebel Uwainat being a farther destination along the trail would be confirmed in just a few months. Such are the strange laws of synchronicity in human lives.
Page 3 and 4: For my daughter, Candice, and my so
Page 5 and 6: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book was not a
Page 7 and 8: More Mysteries at Nabta Playa The S
Page 9 and 10: INTRODUCTION ANCIENT EGYPT REBORN N
Page 11 and 12: 1 STRANGE STONES In Nabta there are
Page 13 and 14: desert” emerge from the surroundi
Page 15 and 16: stage the CPE anthropologists were
Page 17 and 18: arguments—and especially on the B
Page 19 and 20: This time, some archaeologists took
Page 21 and 22: who’s who of famous men: it inclu
Page 23 and 24: huge rocky massif sprouting out of
Page 25 and 26: Almasy planned an expedition to Gil
Page 27 and 28: of Setu and Irtet after having expl
Page 29 and 30: Sahara, and their bones were brough
Page 31: Djedefre Water Mountain, as Bergama
Page 35 and 36: can imagine how these scholars felt
Page 37 and 38: followed by the same determinative
Page 39 and 40: The surface of the now-covered bedr
Page 41 and 42: indeed, one of the main objectives
Page 43 and 44: In addition to tumuli tombs of catt
Page 45 and 46: since fallen. The largest ones were
Page 47 and 48: ALIGNMENTS TOWARD THE STARS: WHEN A
Page 49 and 50: elated not only to the gates of the
Page 51 and 52: dates within thousands of years of
Page 53 and 54: the largest stone. Again, the dista
Page 55 and 56: thus sent in an order to Quickbird
Page 57 and 58: Finally, to our relief, the light f
Page 59 and 60: degrees and azimuth 22.5 degrees an
Page 61 and 62: associated with the heleical rising
Page 63 and 64: ight angle. After that date, Nabta
Page 65 and 66: also note that several megalithic a
Page 67 and 68: ceremonial complex of Nabta Playa.
Page 69 and 70: Figure 4.14. Bagnold Circle in, top
Page 71 and 72: have been placed by humans, possibl
Page 73 and 74: 5 THE BIBLE, THE HAMITES, AND THE B
Page 75 and 76: Even allowing that scholars tend to
Page 77 and 78: 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
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Plate 22. The rock-cut tomb of Hark
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wagging tail. We found them on the
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BCE to 2500 BCE. What she found odd
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eassure us that all is not lost, af
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Figure 5.3. Numerous prehistoric ha
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themselves, our drivers uttered a b
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arely kill their cattle for food ex
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to study the stars, perhaps even na
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pointed star, which represents Siri
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In the first century, some half-cen
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Egyptologists have established that
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Like the Nabta Playa prehistoric st
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y the astronomer Sir Norman Lockyer
Page 117 and 118:
In appendix 1 we look in detail at
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esynchronized every 1,460 years—t
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÷ 10 = 3.9 years for the calendar
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ole, he was known as Hor-Akhti, Hor
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The rounded planisphere that is see
Page 127 and 128:
topped mound whose midpoint and end
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POSTSCRIPT DISCOVERY OF THE KIFAH C
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APPENDIX 1 BACK TO THE FIRST TIME V
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TAKE A WALK AT THE FIRST TIME WITH
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alignment is part of a symbolic sys
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Pyramid at Zawiyet el-Aryan) is ass
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APPENDIX 2 SOTHIC CYCLES AND IMHOTE
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APPENDIX 3 SAVING NABTA PLAYA Will
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Figure A2. Rubbish dumps in the cen
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a huge pumping station (the Mubarak
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In actual practice, though, the dev
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are not now capable of this percept
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*53. Actually, it is 365.242 days,
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Endnotes CHAPTER 1. STRANGE STONES
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Mentioning Yam and Tekhebet,” Sah
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13. J. M. Malville, R. Schild, F. W
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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:
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