Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt
Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt
Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt
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the distant past. Around ten thousand years from now, Earth will be closest to the sun in midsummer, as it was about ten<br />
thousand years ago. This approximate twenty thousand–year perihelion cycle is caused essentially by the precession <strong>of</strong> the<br />
equinox cycle, and it is shortened somewhat by the change in the eccentricity cycle.<br />
This brings us back to Peter deMenocal, for while studying the sediment layers <strong>of</strong> the eastern Atlantic Ocean bed, he<br />
found that specifically in the Sahara region the climate had switched from wet to dry every twenty thousand years or so<br />
over hundreds <strong>of</strong> thousands <strong>of</strong> years, and that such switches had taken place quite suddenly. Searching for the causes <strong>of</strong><br />
these sudden switches, it occurred to deMenocal that the Milankovitch Cycle matched very well the wet-dry cycle. 9<br />
DeMenocal found that the most recent switch from wet to dry occurred around 3500 BCE 10 in a time frame that could<br />
be “felt within one lifetime.” 11 Let us immediately highlight the fact that 3500 BC is when, according to anthropologists,<br />
the prehistoric people <strong>of</strong> Nabta Playa abandoned their ceremonial site and departed from the Sahara . . . and also when,<br />
according to <strong>Egypt</strong>ologists the predynastic phase <strong>of</strong> the ancient <strong>Egypt</strong>ian civilization is supposed to have begun.<br />
TRACKING THE STARS<br />
Living all their lives in the open desert under the clear, cloudless sky, the prehistoric people <strong>of</strong> the Sahara were highly<br />
tuned to changes in the position <strong>of</strong> the celestial bodies, and the evidence at Nabta Playa shows that they were not only<br />
aware <strong>of</strong> the long-term motion <strong>of</strong> precession but also that they must have placed great importance on this stellar cycle,<br />
because it seemed to affect the climate <strong>of</strong> the Sahara and, consequently, their ability to survive in this region that<br />
depended so much on suitable seasonal wet conditions.<br />
We are fully aware, <strong>of</strong> course, that scholars and historians <strong>of</strong> astronomy attribute the knowledge <strong>of</strong> precession—and<br />
even the awareness <strong>of</strong> it—not to ancient cultures, but rather to the Greeks when Hipparchus <strong>of</strong> Nicaea supposedly<br />
discovered this phenomenon in 120 BCE. As we will see in chapter 6, however, this consensus no longer stands to close<br />
scrutiny, and the new evidence shows, if not proves, that the ancient pre-Hellenic cultures were aware <strong>of</strong> precession and<br />
may even have recorded its long effect in the astronomical alignments <strong>of</strong> their megalithic monuments. To put it more<br />
bluntly, Hipparchus did not discover precession; he rediscovered it. It is now a fact and not a theory that humid periods<br />
occurred every twenty thousand years or so during the past two hundred thousand years, which directly affected the<br />
movements and the culture <strong>of</strong> the people living in the <strong>Egypt</strong>ian Sahara region. It is also a fact and not a theory that these<br />
humid periods were directly linked to precession and the apparent displacement <strong>of</strong> the stars during these twenty thousand<br />
years or so. In addition, it is a fact that the Sahara in <strong>Egypt</strong> is now generally regarded by paleoanthropologists as one <strong>of</strong><br />
the crucibles, indeed if not the principal crucible, <strong>of</strong> civilization.<br />
Is it possible, then, that the ancient megalith builders <strong>of</strong> Nabta Playa somehow knew that there was a correlation<br />
between the cycle <strong>of</strong> the climate and the cycle <strong>of</strong> the stars? It may seem to us that this is entirely possible for a people that<br />
lived for millennia in a region where the conditions forced them to perform daily and nightly observations <strong>of</strong> the sun and<br />
stars and develop a great knowledge <strong>of</strong> the celestial cycles and, eventually, incorporate this knowledge into the<br />
ceremonial complexes at Nabta Playa.<br />
TEXTUAL EVIDENCE?<br />
A curious verse from the Qur’an speaks <strong>of</strong> a primeval mind coping with climate changes over the millennia: “And [in]<br />
the variation <strong>of</strong> the night and the day, and [in] what Allah sends down <strong>of</strong> sustenance from the cloud, then gives life<br />
thereby to the earth after its death, and [in] the changing <strong>of</strong> the winds, there are signs for a people who understand<br />
(45:5).” 12<br />
Although we cannot assume that ancient religious scriptures such as the one cited here can be taken as evidence <strong>of</strong><br />
knowledge <strong>of</strong> precession and climatic changes by ancient people, they may be faint echoes <strong>of</strong> ancient memories that<br />
eventually found their way into religious records in this same region <strong>of</strong> the world. Another such example comes from the<br />
Russian mystic G. I. Gurdjieff, whose esoteric teachings attracted a wide following in Europe in the early part <strong>of</strong> the<br />
twentieth century. Gurdjieff journeyed extensively in <strong>Egypt</strong>, and he claimed that much <strong>of</strong> the inspiration for his teachings<br />
came from what he saw on a secret and very ancient map <strong>of</strong> “pre-sands <strong>Egypt</strong>” that he discovered in a remote Asian<br />
monastery. This map showed that the <strong>Egypt</strong>ian Sahara was a lush and humid environment in very remote times. 13 Of<br />
course, such stories cannot be used to bolster the scientific argument for ancient knowledge <strong>of</strong> precession and cyclical<br />
climate changes in the Sahara, but perhaps we are now able to corroborate such stories with modern science. This is,