Black Genesis (26 page)

THE SACRED ISLAND OF ELEPHANTINE

The region of Aswan is some 250 kilometers (155 miles) northeast of Nabta Playa. A party traveling from Nabta Playa toward the rising sun at summer solstice would have reached Aswan after a journey of four to five days. This region is without doubt the choicest place to settle in the Nile Valley. The climate is perfect, with sunshine throughout the year, and at Aswan the river is at its very best—wide with clean, clear water dotted with beautiful islands, the most beautiful being the island of Elephantine.

Elephantine, as far as islands go, is rather small. It is 1.2 kilometers (.75 mile) long and 0.5 kilometer (.3 mile) wide and is located downriver within sight of the first cataract
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and opposite the modern town of Aswan. Today half of the island has been developed into a tourist resort, but the remainder is an archaeological wonderland that contains the great temple of Khnum and the lovely temple of the goddess Satis, as well as many other ancient vestiges from the entire age of ancient Egypt. There are no bridges that link the island to the mainland; it can be accessed only by boat or ferry. On the east of the island and across the river is the lush Nile Valley, to the west are high sand dunes, and beyond them is the open desert. The Nile here is at its widest, about 1 kilometer (.62 mile), and the water is clear, cool, and wonderfully refreshing. The banks are lined with palm and banana trees, and there are many colorful bougainvillea and oleander trees. Sunset brings hundreds of white egrets to perch on the trees, and there they look like winged snowflakes or angels. At daybreak the water buffaloes, Egypt's most ancient and strongest beasts of labor, graze in the shallows while local women do their laundry. Here, life is as it has always been for thousands of years: peaceful, serene, and timeless. An enthusiastic seventeenth-century English traveler, George Sandys, wrote of this place:

. . . than the waters whereof there is none more sweete: being not unpleasantly cold, and of all others the most wholesome. Confirmed by that answer of Pescenius Niger unto his murmuring soldiery, “What? Crave you wine and have Nilus to drinke of?” . . . So much it nourisheth, as that the inhabitants thinke that it forthwith converteth into bloud. . . . Besides it procureth liberall urine, cureth the dolour of the veins, and is most soveraigne against that windy melancholy arising from the shorter ribs, which so saddeth the mind of the
diseased.
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In very ancient times, Elephantine was the capital of the First Nome (district) of Upper Egypt. It was considered a place sacred to Khnum, the ram-headed creator god who is said to have fashioned humankind on his potter's wheel. Khnum's consort was the goddess Satet—also known as Satis. The notoriety of Elephantine rested on the belief that it was here where the floodwaters emerged from the underworld, or Duat, to rejuvenate the land of
Egypt.
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The goddess Satis was regarded as the protector of Egypt's southern frontier, and as such she was depicted holding a bow and arrows. She was also the guardian of the source of the flood and, as such, was identified with the star Sirius, whose heliacal rising occurred in conjunction with the beginning of the flood
season.
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The goddess Satis is attested in ancient texts as early as 2700 BCE, and her name is found on pottery as far north as Saqqara, nearly 900 kilometers (559 miles) from Elephantine. We also find her name inscribed in pyramids of the fourth and fifth dynasties (ca. 2300 BCE), where she is said to purify the body of the dead king with the rejuvenating flood waters brought in jars from
Elephantine.
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Satis is depicted as a tall, slender woman wearing the White Crown of Upper Egypt with antelope horns. In Egypt the antelope lives in the desert, which may symbolize the origins of Satis. On the crown is often drawn a five-pointed star, which represents Sirius. Her many epithets—Lady of Stars, Mistress of the Eastern Horizon of the Sky at Whose Sight Everyone Rejoices, The Great One in the Sky, Ruler of the Stars, Satis Who Brightens the Two Lands with her Beauty—are clearly allusions to her important identification with the star
Sirius.
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Her beautiful, small temple on Elephantine is just north of the much larger temple of her consort, Khnum. Excavation and restoration of the Satis temple by the German Archaelogy Institute of Cairo has been ongoing since 1969, and although the restored temple that is seen today dates from the Ptolemaic
period,
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beneath it are the remains of several earlier temples, stacked one atop the other like tiers on a wedding cake, going back to the predynastic period. In all, there are seven temples, the lowest being a simple shrine that dates from about 3200 BCE. Above it are two Old Kingdom shrines that date to around 2250 BCE, and above these are two Middle Kingdom temples that date to circa 1950 BCE. These are surmounted by a New Kingdom shrine built by Queen Hatshepsut, around 1480 BCE, and finally, at the very top, is the restored Ptolemaic temple, which dates to the second century BCE.
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In 1983 the American astronomer Ron Wells of the University of California took an interest in the alignments of the many superimposed Satis
temples.
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Working under the aegis of the Swiss Archaeological Institute in Cairo, Wells was permitted to take azimuth measurements of all the temples that were stacked on top of each other. It quickly became obvious to him that the azimuths of the temples differed slightly from one another, progressively changing in a counterclockwise direction. To a trained astronomer, this implied that the ancient builders were tracking the rising point of a celestial object, which changed azimuth proportionally. Ron Wells knew of the symbolic links between the goddess Satis and the star Sirius and thus had a hunch that the changing azimuths of the temple's axes through the epoch may have something to do with the changing azimuths of the rising of Sirius. Making use of the pole star Polaris (Alpha Canis Minor) to establish true north, Wells calculated the azimuth of the topmost (Ptolemaic) temple and found it to be 114.65 degrees. He then calculated the azimuth of the earlier (New Kingdom) temple beneath it and found it to be 120.60 degrees. The 5.95-degree difference in azimuth exactly matched the difference in azimuth of Sirius for the same two
epochs!
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The azimuth changes of the axes of the temples implies an awareness of the precessional shift. Skeptics have argued that successive ancient surveyors were not aware that the older axis was no longer directed to Sirius, and they simply oriented a new temple's axis without being conscious of the change. This may perhaps be an explanation, however, if only one change had taken place; but the original axis was changed at least four times. The ancient surveyors surely must have known that the temple was dedicated to Satis, goddess of the flood linked to the heliacal rising of Sirius, and it seems inconceivable that they did not notice the change in azimuth of the axes of the various temples that were aligned to this star.

More recently, in 2004, the Spanish astronomer Juan Belmonte, along with the Egyptian astronomer Mossalam Shaltout, undertook a new study of the orientations of the superimposed Satis temples and confirmed Wells's measurements as well as the orientation of the lowest, and thus oldest, shrine: “The archaic sacred precinct of Satet [Satis] at Elephantine: this area was enclosed on three sides by three large boulders of granite and opened roughly towards the south-eastern area of the horizon, where the sun rises at the winter solstice and where Sirius rose heliacally in 3200 B.C. The shrine is preserved in a cellar below the concrete terrace where the temple of Satet, erected by Hatshepsut, has been
reconstructed.”
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Interestingly, Wells also determined that the topmost Satis temple had been aligned to other star systems. One set of alignments was toward Orion's belt and another set was toward the Big Dipper. These were the very same constellations and stars to which the various alignments of the ceremonial complex at Nabta Playa had been directed thousands of years before. This was too much of an actual coincidence to be merely accidental. We can recall that it was, indeed, from this location that the ancient Egyptian governor of Aswan and Elephantine, the explorer Harkhuf, launched his epic journeys to the kingdom of Yam. Harkhuf 's tomb, where are inscribed the stories of his journeys, is located on the west bank of the Nile in the hills almost directly opposite Elephantine Island. It is very tempting to suppose that Harkhuf knew the location of Yam before he set off on his first expedition, because he knew that his ancestors had come from there. The earliest date for the Satis temple is about 3200 BCE, a date that uncannily coincides with the departure of the cattle people from Nabta Playa. Had the latter come here and brought along with them the astronomical ideas that were incorporated into the multileveled temples of Satis?

At Elephantine, in about 3200 BCE, it was not the monsoon rains that brought renewal and regeneration of the land but the Nile's flood, which was the direct result of the monsoon rains that no longer occur in this part of Egypt, but instead occur much farther south, in central Africa. In other words, the same system of astronomical knowledge that was developed in the Sahara in prehistoric times could have been used in the Nile Valley, because the time of arrival of the monsoon rains exactly matched the time of arrival of the flood, with both occurring at the summer solstice. To be more specific, the flooding of the Nile is caused by the same monsoon rains that flooded Nabta Playa every year, except that the monsoon wind pattern has moved south and is now inundating the great lakes at the source of the Nile, which sends the flood north to the lower Nile. In light of this new evidence, we can therefore see why it was at about 3200 BCE that Elephantine began to acquire great religious importance as the source of the
flood.
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In 1890, on the small island of Sahal a few kilometers upstream from Elephantine, the American traveler Charles Wilbour discovered hieroglyphic inscriptions on a large boulder protruding from the Nile. Today the boulder is known as the Famine Stele, and the boulder's inscriptions speak of a terrible drought that struck Egypt for seven years due to a series of bad floods in the reign of the pharaoh Djoser, first ruler of the third dynasty (ca. 2650 BCE). In the text of the Famine Stele, King Djoser asks the high official of the region, Mater, from where rose the water of the Nile. Mater replied,

. . . the Nile flood came forth from the Island of Elephantine whereon stood the first city that ever existed; out of it rose the Sun when he went forth to bestow life upon man, and therefore it is also called Doubly Sweet Life, and that the very spot on the island out of which the flood waters rose from was the double cavern called Querti, which was likened to two breasts from which all nourishment poured forth; here the Nile God lay on a “couch” and waited for the coming of Akhet [the season of inundation], after which he rushed out of the cavern like a vigorous youth and filled the whole
country.
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From the Famine Stele at Aswan

Year 18 of Horns: Neterkhet; the King of Upper and Lower Egypt: Neterkhet; Two Ladies: Neterkhet; Gold-Horus: Djoser, under the Count, Prince, Governor of the domains of the South, Chief of the Nubians in Yebu, Mesir. There was brought to him this royal decree. To let you know: There is a town in the midst of the deep, Surrounded by Hapy [the Nile; the Nile God], Yebu by name [Elephantine]; It is first of the first, First nome to Wawat, Earthly elevation, celestial hill, Seat of Re when he prepares To give life to every face. Its temple's name is “Joy-of-life,” “Twin Caverns” is the water's name, They are the breasts that nourish all. It is the house of sleep of Hapy. He grows young in it in [his time], [lt is the place whence] he brings the flood: Bounding up he copulates, As man copulates with woman, Renewing his manhood with joy; Coursing twenty-eight cubits high, He passes Sema-behdet at seven. Khnum is the god [who rules] there, He is enthroned above the deep . . . His sandals resting on the flood; He holds the door bolt in his hand, Opens the gate as he wishes. He is eternal there as Shu, Bounty-giver, Lord-of-fields, So his name is called. He has reckoned the land of the South and the North, to give parts to every god. It is he who governs barley, [emmer], Fowl and fish and all one lives on. Cord and scribal board are there, The pole is there with its beam. . . . His temple opens southeastward, Re rises in its face every day; Its water rages on its south for an iter, A wall against the Nubians each day. There is a mountain massif in its eastern region, With precious stones and quarry stones of all kinds, All the things sought for building temples In Egypt, South and North, And stalls for sacred animals, And palaces for kings, All statues too that stand in temples and in
shrines.
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