Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt

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will return to this intriguing issue in chapter 5. Meanwhile, we must examine the Uwainat Inscriptions regarding another issue, which was either not noticed or deemed unimportant by Clayton and de Trafford. This involves the form of the writing of the words Yam and Tekhebet. In both names is presented the same ideogram , which is usually translated as “hill land” or “foreign land” (that is, a place outside Egypt). Although these translations are basically correct, we must now consider them alongside the quasi-similar ideogram of “water mountain” that is found at Abu Ballas Hill and Muhattah Jaqub (the two main water refueling stations between Dakhla and Uwainat). These main water stations can hardly be described as mountains: Abu Ballas Hill is only 30 meters (about 98 feet) high, and Muhattah Jaqub is barely 25 meters (82 feet) high. On the other hand, the Tibesti-Ennedi highlands have the tallest mountains in the Sahara (3,450 meters; about 11,320 feet), and they are known to receive 120 millimeters (about 5 inches) of rain each year. These highlands in Chad, which are directly southwest of Jebel Uwainat and which would define an extension of the Abu Ballas Trail, are clearly befitting of the name Water Mountain. The ideogram for “mountain” is a two-peaked mound ( ), but we have seen that when a circle (solar disk) is placed between the two peaks ( ) it denotes the idea of “horizon,” known as akhet in ancient Egyptian. Now the sign to denote “land” is a flattened ellipse ( ), so when it is combined with the akhet sign ( ) the meaning is “land of the horizon.” Furthermore, by adding the sign for “people” ( ) the ideograms denote “the people of the land of the horizon,” or, more simply, “the horizon dwellers.” We can now recall that King Pepi II, in his letter to Harkhuf, uses the word akhet in connection to the land of Yam so that he refers to it as ta-akhet-iu (literally, “the people of the land of akhet”). Although many Egyptologists also translate this as “the horizon dwellers,” this is not actually correct, because in the letter of Pepi II, the word ta-akhet (the land of Akhet) is not written with the signs( ), but with the combination of four signs: (1) crested ibis, (2) circle, (3) half circle, and (4) flattened ellipse ( ). Further, it is true that when these four signs are combined, they produce the phonetic sound akhet, but the meaning is quite different. However subtle, this difference provides a vital clue to the whereabouts of Yam. Let us see why. The crested ibis sign ( ), akh in ancient Egyptian, is an ideogram that denotes a supernatural being or entity of light or, more simply, a “light spirit.” So when ta-akhet-iu (people of the land of Akhet) is written with this akh sign coupled with the sign for “land” and the ideogram of three squatting divinities wearing an ostrich feather ( ), we must read it as “land of the akh” or “land of the light spirits,” or, simply, “land of spirits.” Indeed, both the American Egyptologist Henry Breasted and the British Egyptologist Wallis Budge, in their independent translations of Pepi II’s letter to Harkhuf, rendered the term ta-akhet-iu as “land of spirits.” 42 Even though “spirits” in this context implies inhabitants of a cosmic or imaginary land, the same cannot be said for the land of Yam, which is a geographical reality somewhere southwest of Egypt. Could the akh people also mean “ancestor spirits”? If so, who were these mysterious people whom Pepi II claimed populated the kingdom of Yam? A detailed study of the letter of Pepi II was made by the French Egyptologist and philologist Charles Kuentz, 43 who reminds us that in Egyptian hieroglyphs the general idea of a divinity or spirit is given by the sign of a human figure donning the typical tress beard and squatting ( ). Yet this was not the case in Harkhuf ’s time, when a different sign— the falcon on a standard ( )—was used to denote “divinity.” Thus, the sign used in the letter of Pepi II as the ideogram in “land of the akh/spirits” ( ) must therefore mean something else—something that should fit this geographical context of the region. One of Kuentz’s colleagues, the German philologist A. Wiedemann, noted that this sign ( ) appears in the Pyramid Texts to denote an African people. This is also confirmed by Kuentz, who wrote: “The determinative which is placed after , denotes in the Unas Inscriptions the names of Negroes.” 44 Kuentz also noted that in both the Harkhuf inscriptions and the letter of Pepi II, the names of African peoples are
followed by the same determinative ( ) used in the name for “the people of the Ahket land” (that is, the people of Yam). There can be no doubt, therefore, that these people were regarded as black-skinned. We will discuss this issue in more detail in chapter 5. Meanwhile, let us see what Carlo Bergmann has to say about the newly discovered Uwainat Inscriptions of Marai and Borda. THE ROAD TO YAM AND TEKHEBET Bergmann agreed with the Egyptologists who studied the Uwainat Inscriptions: they revealed two geographical locations, Yam and Tekhebet. Here is what he says of the Yam location: . . . [I]ts geographical position has been misleadingly assigned to a “location between the first and second cataracts . . . further south than . . . Tumas, most likely also west of the Nile or . . . on either side of it . . . and south of the oases. 45 One reason for this misconception may be that, due to their social backgrounds, which are mainly upper or upper middle class, Egyptologists have for a century confused their own physically exhausting experiences in this region with the fitness levels of the ancients (e.g., Harkhuf or Weni and their followers) and have considerably underestimated the abilities of these people to travel to far away destinations even under unfavourable environmental conditions. 46 Bergmann then asserts that the final destination of the Abu Ballas Trail he discovered in 1999, . . . continues from Gebel Uweinat further to the southwest [a fact that] is already indicated by the geographical position of the Mentuhotep II inscription site which is located on the south of Gebel Uweinat. Where does it lead to? Most probably to Yam and/ or to Tekhebet! Although it is a prominent muhattah [water station] along the route, the pottery hill of Abu Ballas, from which the trail gets its name, must be viewed as just one amongst many of the road’s way [water] stations. So in the light of the new discoveries, the current name of the ancient road is neither appropriate nor accurate. In fact, it has definitely become obsolete. Therefore, a more suitable name is suggested: “The Road to Yam and Tekhebet.” 47 With all this in mind, we must now return to Nabta Playa and review in greater detail what the astronomer Kim Malville discovered there. This is crucial to our investigation, because much hinges—indeed, perhaps everything hinges —on his interpretation of the alignments of the megaliths that are found there.
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 and 32: Djedefre Water Mountain, as Bergama
Page 33 and 34: Figure 2.5. Abu Ballas Pottery Hill
Page 35: can imagine how these scholars felt
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
Page 95 and 96:
BCE to 2500 BCE. What she found odd
Page 97 and 98:
eassure us that all is not lost, af
Page 99 and 100:
Figure 5.3. Numerous prehistoric ha
Page 101 and 102:
themselves, our drivers uttered a b
Page 103 and 104:
arely kill their cattle for food ex
Page 105 and 106:
to study the stars, perhaps even na
Page 107 and 108:
pointed star, which represents Siri
Page 109 and 110:
In the first century, some half-cen
Page 111 and 112:
Egyptologists have established that
Page 113 and 114:
Like the Nabta Playa prehistoric st
Page 115 and 116:
y the astronomer Sir Norman Lockyer
Page 117 and 118:
In appendix 1 we look in detail at
Page 119 and 120:
esynchronized every 1,460 years—t
Page 121 and 122:
÷ 10 = 3.9 years for the calendar
Page 123 and 124:
ole, he was known as Hor-Akhti, Hor
Page 125 and 126:
The rounded planisphere that is see
Page 127 and 128:
topped mound whose midpoint and end
Page 129 and 130:
POSTSCRIPT DISCOVERY OF THE KIFAH C
Page 131 and 132:
APPENDIX 1 BACK TO THE FIRST TIME V
Page 133 and 134:
TAKE A WALK AT THE FIRST TIME WITH
Page 135 and 136:
alignment is part of a symbolic sys
Page 137 and 138:
Pyramid at Zawiyet el-Aryan) is ass
Page 139 and 140:
APPENDIX 2 SOTHIC CYCLES AND IMHOTE
Page 142 and 143:
APPENDIX 3 SAVING NABTA PLAYA Will
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Figure A2. Rubbish dumps in the cen
Page 146 and 147:
a huge pumping station (the Mubarak
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In actual practice, though, the dev
Page 150 and 151:
are not now capable of this percept
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*53. Actually, it is 365.242 days,
Page 154 and 155:
Endnotes CHAPTER 1. STRANGE STONES
Page 156 and 157:
Mentioning Yam and Tekhebet,” Sah
Page 158 and 159:
13. J. M. Malville, R. Schild, F. W
Page 160 and 161:
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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