Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt

Figure 4.13. Sunrise over Horizon Hill at Djedefre sun temple, April 2008. Top: the rising azimuths at equinox over the
notch in the hill and the approximate solstice rising azimuth. Lower right: Brophy and Bauval standing, before sunrise, at
Horizon Hill notch and pointing to the east, facing the Djedefre cartouche. Lower left: the three GPS points taken at the
top of Horizon Hill—at the notch and two central hilltop locations—the azimuths to sunrise over the notch from the
Djedefre cartouche, and the solstice sunrises.
It seems very unlikely that the emissaries of the sun king Djedefre, who had come to this place and probably stayed
for extended periods of time, would have failed to note that Horizon Hill functioned as a natural solar calendar. If such a
conclusion is correct, however, it would mean that, in all probability, the same was noted by the prehistoric people who
had also stayed here. Was there any evidence of this? In light of this probability, we must re-examine some of the
inscriptions and engravings on the mound.
Other than the Egyptian hieroglyphs and petroglyphs of fauna and other symbols, there are also arrows carved on the
east face of DWM that conspicuously point upward, as if inviting an observer to look at the zenith of the sky. These
arrows appear to be prehistoric rather than Old Kingdom Egyptian, because of their style of inscription and because near
them are images of animals that could not have been present in Old Kingdom times. Today the site is a little less than 2
degrees north of the Tropic of Cancer, but in ancient times it was a bit closer to the Tropic line, so that each year at
summer solstice the sun would pass almost directly overhead at noon—that is, near the zenith. Could it be that ancient
Egyptians of the Old Kingdom, during the reigns of Khufu and Djedefre, came here and rediscovered a prehistoric sun
temple, which they then transferred to their own solar hieroglyphs? Judging from the evidence, this would seem the most
likely scenario.
Within the central engraving, there is a finely rendered glyph found under the two peaks representing the horizon, or
the Place of Sunrise. The lower part of that glyph appears like hieroglyphic determinative S12 by Gardiner’s system, *31
which indicates gold/white gold/ silver; the upper part of this glyph is composed only of three flag poles or standards,
which we speculate may represent the three stations of the sun on the eastern horizon: the two extreme stations marking
the solstices and the midstation marking the equinoxes. When we view the eastern horizon from DWM, these three
stations are marked by the extreme ends and midpoint (the notch) of Horizon Hill. And visually this rendering of S12
seems reminiscent also of the cosmogonic solar barge said to carry the sun across the sky, and usually carrying one or
more deities, yet here it carries the three stations of the sun—whether the original artists intended this visual metaphor,
we don’t know. Unfortunately, we could stay at DMW only a few hours before moving on to other destinations planned
by our expedition. Still, we hope that our findings there will now encourage anthropologists and Egyptologists to look
for more direct links between this mysterious place and Nabta Playa.
BAGNOLD CIRCLE
We next headed southwest into the deep, open desert. Our destination was a mysterious stone circle discovered in 1930
by Ralph Alger Bagnold and thus known as Bagnold Circle. The stone circle was poorly documented and very little was
known about it, but photographs encouraged us to suppose that it, too, like the Calendar Circle at Nabta Playa, could be
some sort of prehistoric astronomical device.