Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt

THE EGYPTIAN TEACHER AND THE MALTESE BUSINESSMAN
Mahmoud Marai is an Egyptian chemistry lecturer who, like Carlo Bergmann, dropped his career in the classroom for a
more adventurous career in the desert. He set up a tour-operating business, taking tourists and adventurers into the deep
desert, eventually specializing in trips dedicated to exploration. Mahmoud’s infatuation with the desert began when he
was stationed at the oasis of Siwa during his military service. There, roaming the golden dunes at the edge of the Great
Sand Sea, he was hit by the explorer’s bug, and his experience with the desert was love at first sight. Mahmoud just had to
become involved with its barren beauty, its haunting and alluring isolation, and, of course, its many mysteries. Like
others before him, he dreamed of finding the legendary lost oasis of Zarzora and going to places that were still
unexplored. This strange pull that the desert has on some people is not uncommon. There is an inexplicable attraction to
being alone in its vast emptiness where earth and sky seem to meet and become one. Somehow, the isolation from human
habitation brings us closer to the essence of our humanity. There is an old Arab saying that God lives in the desert. To put
it slightly differently, it feels as if it is not us but our soul that is alive when we roam the open desert, for it provokes a
strange and very strong sensation that God is standing near us when we are alone in its vastness.
At any rate, Marai’s enthusiasm for daring and challenging desert trips attracted the attention of many explorers. In
the winter of 2007 a Maltese businessman, Mark Borda, hired Mahmoud Marai for a desert trek 39 to Uwainat. The
permits for this expedition were issued via Mahmoud Marai as a registered tour operator by the Ministry of Interior and
the Egyptian military authorities, who are responsible for the safety of travelers and tours in the Western Desert. Borda
and Marai had met the previous year through the intermediary of Carlo Bergmann. Borda’s objective was to search
unexplored areas for anything that might be of scientific interest to scholars of geology, botany, archaeology, and
anthropology. By carefully studying satellite imagery before the trip, Borda had drawn up an extensive list of targets.
Upon his arrival at Jebel Uwainat, Borda immediately set about the task of surveying these targets systematically, very
often with Marai accompanying him on his treks. They combed many areas in the lower slopes, wadis, and plateaus
mainly southeast of the Uwainat massif. Each day they trekked about 15 to 20 kilometers (9 to 12 miles), checking every
nook, crack, and cave they encountered. This method paid off, and they found the locations of dozens of unreported
prehistoric works of art.
PHARAONIC INSCRIPTIONS! A CARTOUCHE OF A KING!
By November 27, Marai and Borda had already been walking and searching for nine days. On that day, just as they were
about to arrive back at camp for lunch, Borda scanned with his powerful binoculars the last remaining section of
boulders that lay strewn on a slope. They were in a region at the southern rim of Jebel Uwainat—which is some 50
kilometers (about 31 miles) into Sudanese territory—an area into which it is dangerous to venture. (In September 2008 a
group of Italian tourists was kidnapped at Jebel Uwainat by rebels, and they endured a two-week ordeal before they were
freed after a gunfight between the rebels and the Egyptian military.) As Borda panned with his binoculars, he suddenly
saw an unmistakable shape on the surface of one of the larger boulders some 100 meters (about 328 feet) from where he
stood. It was a shape that he had seen many times before—but only hundreds of kilometers from Jebel Uwainat.
He exclaimed to Marai in disbelief, “There is a pharaonic cartouche on that boulder!” As he moved closer, focusing
his eyepiece with growing excitement, he began to see hieroglyphic inscriptions inside and outside the cartouche (see
plate 3). The two men could barely contain their excitement, for there it was, after decades of speculation, incontestable
evidence that the ancient Egyptians managed to reach this remote place after all! The whole geography of ancient Egypt
suddenly changed before their eyes. They immediately took dozens of digital photographs and carefully recorded the
coordinates of the location with GPS. After leaving Jebel Uwainat, Borda also decided to check various prominent hills
and rocky outcrops and managed to discover a magnificent cave with exquisite prehistoric art in a region previously
considered void of such work. The images were not engraved but painted in bright colors. There were scenes showing
slender Black men and women tending cattle, performing daily chores, and dancing and acting out rituals. The details and
colors were so vivid that it was difficult to accept that they were thousands of years old. These works and the pharaonic
inscriptions were by far more than Marai and Borda had dreamed of finding. Now they could return to Cairo with this
historical trophy and an amazing story to tell.
Upon their return, Mark Borda immediately flew to London to get a quick translation of the Uwainat Inscriptions, as
they are now known. At the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, Borda showed the photographs to
Maltese Egyptologist Aloisia de Trafford and British ancient languages specialist Joe Clayton of Birkbeck College. We