Black Genesis (33 page)
For more than twenty-five years we have been on the quest for the origins of the ancient Egyptian civilization, yet we never suspected that it would be such a thrilling and rewarding intellectual adventure. We have tried our very best to pass the barrage of entrenched interests and to tell the general public of the many scattered clues that we have found in the alignments of pyramids and temples, all of which have led us to piece together a giant historical puzzle. Slowly but surely a completely new picture of our past emerges, revealing a lost and forgotten world, which extended from the Nile to the borders of Sudan and Chad and which told a very different story of the origins of ancient Egyptâa tale much more thrilling than that which any Egyptologist or anthropologist had previously led us to believe. We now can look with even greater awe at the wonderful legacy of ancient Egyptâespecially at those imposing pyramids and templesâand see in them a very ancient message that was written in the stars, a message that directed us to faraway places in the desert and to a time when hardy and intelligent black-skinned men planted a seed that grew in the Nile Valley to give rise to a wonderful civilization. We know that from now on Egypt will never be the same for us, for when a Black Nubian or African passes us by, we will see in him or her, as surely as we see in ourselves, the reflection of a common Black genesis.
POSTSCRIPT
DISCOVERY OF THE KIFAH CAVE
On November 26, 2010, while this book was receiving the final editing at our publisher, we got news from Mark Borda (the Maltese desert explorer who back in 2007 had found the hieroglyphic inscriptions at Jebel Uwainat) that he had just returned from one of his daring solo expeditions in the Sahara and had made a new and stunning discovery, this time at Jebel Arkenu, the “sister-mountain” of Jebel Uwainat (located within the Libyan border some 50 kilometers northwest of Uwainat):
a massive prehistoric rock-art site, perhaps the largest known in Libya!
The reader will note that the main events discussed in our book occurred in the vast eastern segment of the Sahara Desert known as the Libyan Desert. The area is bounded on the west by various mountain ranges that extend down the center of Libya, in the east by the River Nile, in the north by the Mediterranean Sea, and in the south by the Tibesti and Ennedi mountains. Measuring some 1,100,000 square kilometers, this area is ten times dryer than the rest of the Sahara and is the world's largest hyper arid hot desert. Harsh, inhospitable, and waterless, its dune belts, sand sheets, bare rocky plateaus, and mountains are almost completely void of life of any kind, and the little of it that exists is mostly concentrated into a handful of oasis scattered throughout the region. The reader will also recall that in the early to mid-Holocene period (roughly ten to five thousand years ago) the picture was very different. The area was relatively moist with plants, wild animals, and human settlements in considerable abundance.
Today this vast area is teeming with prehistoric remains that date from this period. The Sahara has long been noted for its rock art, primarily in the more accessible and thus more explored Western Sahara. But in recent years a handful of modern-day explorers, equipped with GPS devices and satellite maps are now also penetrating the less accessible wastes of the Eastern Sahara. From their numerous discoveries over the past ten years it now appears that the area contains an immensely rich treasure trove of prehistoric paintings, engravings, and other archaeological remains, ranking it as one of the most important rock-art regions in the world. The distinctively different rock-art styles at the various sites, without the need for tedious and lengthy archaeological excavations, immediately impart a wealth of information about the distribution and movements of the ancient cultures that created them. The ever-growing inventory of sites is gradually building up a map that is revealing the geographical extent of the areas occupied in various ages. It is hoped that more detailed scientific investigation of the rock-art sites will eventually establish the chronological movements of the various groups of people as their populations expanded, contracted, mixed, and migrated, and thus providing a clearer picture of why, how, and when these mysterious desert people impacted the area of the Nile Valley and the later Pharaonic civilization. These discoveries, therefore, have a direct bearing on the various themes discussed in our book.
The “Kifah Cave” is a most dramatic and impressive example of these ongoing recent discoveries and was found by Borda in a previously unexplored area of Mount Arkenu. Mr. Borda, who, as we have seen, had already impressed the archaeological world in 2007 by finding Pharaonic hieroglyphs at Jebel Uwainat, the “sister mountain” of Arkenu, found the cave on the morning of November 13, 2010, while exploring the chasms and spires of the much broken sandstone plateau that straddles the northeast of Arkenu. The cave, which is 28 meters wide and only a little more than a meter high at the opening, has the appearance of a horizontal slit sitting atop a series of ledges at the base of a cliff face. The Kifah cave is the most conspicuous of a group of shelters that attracted Borda's attention from a considerable distance. Being on the highest part of the ridge, where the shelters are located, the Kifah site was one of the last he inspected. The shelters lower down had proved to contain some rock paintings but in spite of the large size of these shelters, as well as the good headroom, light conditions, and ideal and ample rock surfaces on the ceiling, the rock art there consisted only of three cows and a single human figure. Based on this, Borda did not hold much expectations of finding anything more substantial as he proceeded farther up the ridge. When he got onto the final ledge, he could see from a distance of about 20 meters many dark markings on the ceiling of the cave, and within a few moments he was stunned to note that across its entire width, the shelter was filled with painted rock art! His immediate reaction was one of astonishment at the existence of such a large site at Arkenu, mixed with wonderment at the quality and details of the paintings he was seeing!
Borda describes the paintings in the Kifah cave as being from “the Uweinat Pastoralist period.” It is concentrated in the front ceiling area of the cave to a depth of around 4 meters, yielding a continuous painted area of roughly 100 square meters, which makes it one of the largest, if not the largest, rock-art shelter in Libya. The evenness of the ceiling and the unbroken progression of paintings give the impression of a single vast mural. The many hundreds of motifs mainly portray cattle, goats, and other animals such as giraffes (see image of an aardvark on p. 277). Hundreds of humans are also depicted in many different types of scenes such as hunting, herding, domestic, ritual, and so forth (see plates 23 and 24). The fine state of preservation of the images reveals many interesting details about adornment, shoes, clothing, implements, weapons, homes, furnishings, and items used by the prehistoric people. Although the cave extends inward about 8 meters, the deeper reaches are not painted, probably because the ceiling there is too low and dark. Mr. Borda plans to return to the site with a professional photographer to make a composite high-resolution digital montage of the entire painted rock ceiling. A pictorial article will then appear in the
SAHARA
journal in the middle of 2011. Mr. Borda wished us to also note that Kifah is the name of the first daughter of the Tuareg Salem Ben Yahya, one of Libya's most renowned desert guides, who Borda has traveled with on several of his expeditions. A day before Borda found the cave, Ben Yahya greeted Borda with the words “your mother was praying you” instead of the usual “good morning.” Ben Yahya then promptly showed Borda a five-inch yellow scorpion that had scurried out from under Borda's mattress while Ben Yahya was gathering up the sleeping gear. The species is known as the Death Stalker (
Leiurus quinquestriatus
). Ben Yahya then related the harrowing story of how, at the tender age of just three months, Kifah was killed in the oasis of Rebbiana after the same species of yellow scorpion had crept into her bed while she slept. With the tragic story still ringing in his ears when he found the cave, Borda was moved to dedicate his discovery to the memory of Kifah.
A rock painting of an aardvark
We wish to thank Mark Borda for kindly allowing us to report this discovery and also for providing us with some photographs, which he took at the time of the discovery. Mr. Borda has been exploring the Libyan Desert since 2005, his main objective being to seek out possible remains of ancient Egyptian presence in its vast wastes and beyond. Apart from the discovery mentioned above, he has made a number of significant discoveries. We were among the first to visit one of these in 2008, a site that is now rather dryly referred to in the archaeological world as CC21, but which we prefer to call the “Borda Cave” in this book. It is unusually located between Gilf Kebir and Jebel Uwainat, an area previously thought to be devoid of rock art. The cave contains magnificent prehistoric rock paintings, now considered to be one the very finest and best preserved prehistoric rock-art sites of Egypt. Also the now famous “Uwainat Inscriptions” that Borda found in the southern part of Jebel Uwainat proved that the ancient Egyptians of the early Middle Kingdom (ca. 2000 BCE) somehow managed to travel the vast distance from the Nile across the totally arid desert without camels to meet the mysterious “people of Yam and Tekhebet,” yet unidentified kingdoms perhaps located in the once fertile sub-Saharan regions of Africa.
Thomas Brophy (left) and Robert Bauval at the Uwainat Inscriptions, April 2008
APPENDIX 1
BACK TO THE FIRST TIME
Vega, Sirius, and Orion Agree at Giza
One day our descendants will think it incredible that we paid so much attention to things like the amount of melanin in our skin or the shape of our eyes or our gender instead of the unique identities of each of us as complex human beings.
F
RANKLIN
T
HOMAS
I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.
M
ARTIN
L
UTHER
K
ING
J
R
.
In the main chapters of this book we have seen that there is a connection between the astroceremonial culture of the people of the Nabta region in Late Neolithic times and the earliest protodynastic and dynastic Nile astrosymbolism. The tracking of the rising of Sirius with the stars of the circumpolar Bull's Thigh constellation leads directly from Nabta to the Nile, as does attention to the motion of Orion's belt. Here, in more detail, is the evidence for continuous astroceremonial culture in the other direction, back in time to the Middle Neolithic
*67
and perhaps earlier. We can now trace the astroceremonial evidence back before 5000 BCE.
So far, in this journey back in astroceremonial time, we have the Sirius-plusâBull's ThighâAlkaid megalithic alignment of 6100 BCE and alignments to the vernal equinox heliacal risings of Orion's belt stars plus the autumnal equinox heliacal rising of Vegaâand all are within a few hundred years of that same epoch. In addition, the Calendar Circle Orion's belt observing feature stretches back to about 6300 BCEâand the Calendar Circle suggests a method for imagining the entire precession cycle of the sky. The circle draws our attention to two time periodsâcirca 5000 BCE and, half a precession cycle before this, circa 16,500 BCE. That cycle brackets the time circa 12,000 BCE, which was the era referred to by the ancient Egyptians as Zep Tepi, or the First Time. The pyramids at Giza refer back to that time via their reflection of the Orion's belt stars in the layout of the Giza monuments. In terms of the precession cycle of a star, if Zep Tepi is the First Time, it is logical that it refers to the culmination time of the star when it is either farthest south or farthest north on its twenty-six-thousand-year cycle. Nabta seems to have been built during the half time or middle time to the Zep Tepi cycle or the precession cycle and also reflects representations from the sky of the earlier time as well as the time when Nabta was built. (Thus if Giza is the place of the First Time, Nabta may be the place of the center of time.) If there is a symbolic connection between Nabta and Giza, it may be possible to find more representation of the First Time at Giza by digging deeper into the findings at Nabta, which might tell us what to look for at Giza.
VEGA AND THE SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGE
As we have seen, the primary stars that were tracked ceremonially at Nabta are Sirius, the stars of Orion' belt, and the circumpolar stars, including Vega (Alpha Lyrae), which is a very bright star. At visual brightness magnitude 0.0, Vega, since Hellenistic times, defined the brightest portion of the stellar brightness scale. It is essentially equal to the variable star Arcturus as the brightest star in the Northern Hemisphere.
*68
Further, it is by far the brightest star that is ever near the long-term path of the celestial pole, and so for several centuries around 12,000 BCE, Vega was the brightest North Star ever. In the Great Pyramid at Giza, the two internal chambers, the King's Chamber and the Queen's Chamber, are connected to shafts oriented up and out along the meridian, the northâsouth line in the sky. Though they were previously determined to be air shafts, a number of authors have discussed that they probably indicate stars. Today it is generally accepted that the shafts were, in fact, associated with starsâand that specifically the King's Chamber southern shaft was oriented to Orion's belt and the Queen's Chamber southern shaft was oriented to Sirius during the fourth-dynasty era completion of the pyramid.
Yet the pyramid complex contains another major shaft that is oriented along the meridian: the subterranean passage that cuts in a straight line from the original entrance of the pyramid, down through the bottom courses of masonry on the north side of the pyramid, then deep under ground into the bedrock to the subterranean chamber beneath the center of the pyramid. This other major meridianal shaft of the pyramid has never been successfully associated with a star. The subterranean passage is 1.2 meters (about 4 feet) high and 1.04 meters (3.4 feet) wide and runs 105 meters (344 feet) down into the bedrock. It is surprisingly uniform and straight, descending at an angle of 26.52
degrees.
2
Given the latitude of the Great Pyramid, the subterranean passage points to a declination of 86.54 degrees in the sky, 3.46 degrees directly south of the celestial pole. It is precisely aligned over its entire length, “without deviating more than a centimeter in angle or orientation,” as Mark Lehner puts
it.
3
The meticulous pyramid surveyor Sir Flinders Petrie notes for
2
/5 of its length an even greater precision, requiring “readings to
1
/100 inch or to 1" [one arc second] on the longer
distances.”
4
It is one of the most astonishingly precise features of the whole Great Pyramid complex, which itself is a wonder of precisionâand it points to the sky, for what could be more of an intended orientation than a star? The passage is cut so consistently straight, and other aspects of the Great Pyramid, such as its cardinal orientation, are so accurate that it is likely that whoever cut the subterranean passage probably did not intend it to align with the celestial North Pole, because if that were indeed the target, it surely would have been hit more accurately.
To what, then, could the subterranean passage have been oriented? Given Nabta's megalith alignments toward Vega, we decided to test Vega against the Giza subterranean passage. Employing the most recent measures for Vega's proper
motion
5
into the long-term calculations for its motion in the sky, we see that Vega achieved its highest declination of 86.54 degrees around 12,070 BCE. Vega matched the subterranean passage not simply at some passing date, but exactly when the star was at its northern culmination, the closest it comes to the celestial pole in its twenty-six-thousand-year precession cycle. In addition, the precision with which Vega seems to have matched the center of the shaft is surprising. Given the height and length of the shaft, its viewing angle actually includes a range of declination angles from 86.22 degrees to 86.87 degrees, centered on 86.54 degrees, and Vega appears to have hit it directly in the middle,
*69
exactly at culmination. Therefore, if these calculations and measures for Vega prove to be accurate,
â 70
Vega began shining down to the bottom of the subterranean passage around 12,320 BCE, when Vega's declination rose above 86.22 degrees, and around 12,070 BCE, Vega shone down the center of the shaft until ca. 11,820 BCE, when Vega sank below 86.22 degrees declination again and no longer shone to the bottom of the shaft.
â¡71
These Vega subterranean passage dates are consistent with the general Zep Tepi we can estimate from the fact that Orion's belt matches the layout of the three pyramids on the Giza plateau.
§72
It is important that Sirius culminated at about the same time. In
The Egypt Code,
Bauval notes that around Zep Tepi, Sirius would have been just visible on the horizon, as seen from the Giza plateau. In light of this new information of the bright pole star, Vega, shining down the subterranean passage when it was at precessional culmination, we can now look in even more detail at the astrophysics of the Sirius connection. Again, employing the latest measures for Sirius's proper
motion,
6
as we did for Vega, we see that Sirius reached its southern culmination around 12,280 BCE at a declination of -60.43 degrees. That declination is noteworthy because the declination of the geometric horizon at Giza looking south is -60.02 degrees, and the visual horizon is thus -60.5
degrees,
7
essentially identical to the southern culmination of Sirius. The Giza plateau, then, is the place on Earth (the only latitude) where Sirius, at the southernmost point of its twenty-six-thousand-year precession cycle, just barely eclipsed the earth.
Visual Horizon versus Geometric Horizon
The visual horizon is about 0.5 degrees lower than the geometric horizon, because the light from a star is bent when it passes through Earth's atmosphere. It is thus possible to see starlight from slightly below the geometric horizon. The precise amount of refraction depends on atmospheric temperature and humidity, but, generally, it averages a bit more than 0.5 degree.
TAKE A WALK AT THE FIRST TIME WITH SIRIUS
Sirius is so bright that it is the only star that can sometimes be seen during daylight, and under good conditions at night it can be seen even when the star is just barely above the visual horizon.
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We can imagine that we are living in the region (that is now Egypt) around 12,250 BCE and are so highly attuned to the night sky that we are especially oriented to the brightest star of all, Sirius. It is the time of year that is near the summer solstice, and it is millennia before the monsoons move north to bring life again to the desertâwe are near the life-sustaining waters of the Nile, but we are nomadic, moving north and south each year, following the best conditions for survival. We are traveling north for several days during a hot summer, and we travel about 55 kilometers (34 miles) per dayâa long but feasible day's walk for a well-conditioned wanderer. This distance is half of one-degree latitude on Earth's surface. We are five days' walk south of the place that is now known as Giza. We are aware that the always-easyto-spot three-star asterism of Orion's belt will rise early evening in the far southeast, and it will culminate south, hanging in the sky at a low altitude of around 15 degrees two hours before midnight. We also know that just after Orion's belt transits the meridian to the south, at 110 minutes before midnight, Orion's trailing companion, the starry ruler of the night sky, Sirius, will crack the horizon just 12 degrees east of due south, and Sirius will skim the southern horizon at a very low arc, reaching an altitude of just more than 2 degrees before descending again below the horizon. We know that Sirius is so bright that if we have an unobstructed view of the south horizon, perhaps if we are on a low hill or sand dune in the desert, we will be able to view our old friend in the sky for a couple of hours around midnight. To the north, the brilliant Vega is always up, always visible whenever the sky is dark. Less than 3.5 degrees from the celestial pole in the north, Vega is a restless North Star that cycles up, down, and around the pole each night in a small circle that is 7 degrees across, and when Sirius is high, Vega is low, reaching the bottom part of its circle around the celestial North Pole at just more than an hour after Sirius reaches its height in the south.
As we trek farther north each day, the familiar starry show in the sky each night repeats itself, but Sirius skims the horizon on an even lower and shorter arc each night as we move north. By the time we arrive, a few days walk farther north, at the place now known as Giza, Sirius makes such a low, brief arc on the horizon that viewing it requires perfectly clear conditions, and we must stand on a platform to catch any glimpse of the star. In one more day's walk farther north it will be impossible to glimpse Sirius at all. The tracking of the star is a deeply ancient part of our ancestral lore and our annual life. During the days the angle of the sun in the sky informs us what time of year it is, and during nights, the appearance of Sirius tells us the same information. In this way, our ancestors have kept in tune with the seasons for a very long time. What's more, we know that in the region just a couple of days farther north, at the place we now know as Alexandria, we used to be able to glimpse Sirius only a few generations ago before it disappeared entirely from the night sky. Our ancestors have been studying the sky for so long that they were able to teach us how the sky changes over a very long time. Thus we know that Sirius will again return to the northern regions, and the brilliant Vega will move down, away from the celestial pole, and Sirius will climb higher again in the southern regions. That is why the place in which we are standing now is the place of the First Time, Zep Tepi: Giza.