Black Genesis

by Robert Bauval

  Like many figures in the past who have proposed important advances in knowledge and new ways of thinking about ancient history, he seemed to have ruffled many academic feathers in his time. As one writer on Scaliger puts it, he wanted to “revolutionize perceived ideas of ancient chronology—to show that ancient history is not confined to that of the Greeks and Romans, but also comprises that of the Persians, the Babylonians and the Egyptians . . .”4 He wanted to push beyond the academically popular Eurocentricnotions of Greeks and Romans being the source of all important modern knowledge in order to include more ancient roots, including sources from Egypt. Scaliger believed that much of the astronomical and calendrical knowledge that we tend to ascribe to discovery by ancient Greeks actually came from earlier Babylonian, Akkadian, and Egyptian sources that were transcribed, translated, and studied by Greek conquerors. That debate—rediscovery versus discovery—continues among scholars. As we will see later in this book, the earliest roots of discovery of that knowledge may keep moving back in time, past those pre-Greek sources toward even the people who built Nabta Playa. It is a curiosity that the dates of the Nabta Playa Calendar Circle turn out to be just a bit earlier than Julian date Zero.

  CALENDAR CIRCLE RESOLVED

  In order to accurately calculate ancient star locations, we were able to employ some methods related to our own doctoral dissertation work using computers to simulate certain planetary astrophysics motions.5 We wrote a brief computer program to calculate very ancient star locations using the generally accepted mathematical equations for the long-term motions of Earth.6 We then tested our method against the SkyMapPro astronomy software as far back in time as it could go in order to verify the accuracy of this method, which turned out to be very precise. Satisfied that we were well within the accuracy required for our purpose, we then examined the angle of the Orion’s belt asterism with the meridian as seen from the latitude of Nabta Playa in epoch 4800 BCE, and we quickly realized that we had hit the bulls-eye with our hypothesis.

  The natural place to stand when using the Calendar Circle as an observatory or observing diagram is at the north gate looking south—that is, toward the south meridian of the sky. By mentally registering the image of the nearest set of three upright stones inside the Calendar Circle and then looking up at the sky, the observer in circa 4800 BCE would have seen the three stars of Orion’s belt in almost exactly the same configuration. In other words, the three upright stones on the ground are a representation of the three stars of Orion’s belt in the sky.

  According to our calculations, the perfect match occurs in 4940 BCE, which is well within the margin of error obtained by the CPE’s radiocarbon dating. This sky-ground correlation is unlikely to be a coincidence. What additionally supports this conclusion is the fact that the distance—that is, altitude—of the stars measured from the horizon matches the distance of the stones measured from the north rim of the Calendar Circle.

  But there was more: Using our computer program and calculations, we established that in 4940 BCE, Orion’s belt could be seen at meridian for approximately six months each year, from summer solstice sunrise to winter solstice sunset. These two extreme points in the sun’s annual cycle were in fact marked by the Calendar Circle with the line passing through the northeast gate and southwest gate, with one direction pointing northeastward toward the summer solstice sunrise and the opposite direction pointing southwestward toward the winter solstice sunset. To put it more simply, the set of gates of the Calendar Circle, as well as the set of upright stones inside it, worked together to delineate the annual cycle of Orion’s belt around 4940 BCE. The ancient astronomer-priests had designed an extremely clever and very simple device to track the cycle of this important stellar asterism throughout the year. We also noted that although 4940 BCE was the best sky-ground fit between the stones and the stars, a similar fit was visible from about 6400 BCE to 4800 BCE.*11 In practice, then, the Calendar Circle could have been operational for this span of time.

  Figure 4.2. Orion’s belt matching a diagram of the central stones of the Calendar Circle in 4940 BCE.

  Figure 4.3. Diagram of Orion’s belt matching Calender Circle stones at altitude, azimuth, and date.

  We can note that we have now completed only half of our solution to the Calendar Circle puzzle: we have identified the function of one of the sets of three upright stones. Next, we turned our attention to the other set, which was placed closer to the southern rim of the Calendar Circle. Now that it was made clear to us that Orion’s belt was the key to this prehistoric machine, we could not help noticing that the stars that make up the head and shoulders of the human figure of Orion can also be correlated to these three stones, but at another, more ancient time than 4940 BCE. We calculated that the best fit for the stars of Orion’s head and shoulders was in 16,500 BCE (see p. 106). What made this fit an unlikely coincidence was also the fact the angle of the shoulder stars reached their maximum point during the autumnal equinox in the same epoch, and furthermore, in this interpretation, the brightest star in Orion, Betelgeuse, matched the position of the largest stone. Again, the distance (altitude) of these stars as measured from the horizon matched the distance of the corresponding stones measured from the rim of the Calendar Circle.

  If our conclusions are correct, then the Calendar Circle becomes far more than a snapshot of a single observation of Orion in the night sky. Instead, it is an elegant and profound device to show the change caused by precession on the stars of Orion over vast periods of time. In other words, the Calendar Circle becomes a teaching instrument that demonstrates the precession of the stars. We are not proposing that the Calendar Circle was constructed eighteen thousand years ago*12 but rather that it commemorates two important dates in the precession cycle of Orion—4900 BCE and 16,500 BCE—with the former date being the actual date of its construction and use as indicated by the radiocarbon dating and the latter date being some sort of memorial of an important event, perhaps a beginning in the history of those sub-Saharan herders who came to Nabta Playa in prehistoric times. In additon, the two dates bracket symbolically the two sides of the whole twenty-six-thousand-year precession cycle.

  Figure 4.4. Orion’s head and shoulders matching the Calender Circle stones at altitude, azimuth, and date

  This, of course, presupposes an ability to predict the effect of precession on the stars, namely the cyclical changes in angular tilt and altitude of the constellations over the centuries and millennia. The usual opposition to this is the modern belief that ancient cultures were too primitive and did not have the knowledge or ability to accomplish these predictions. In fact, however, predicting the effects of precession—even without telescopes and sophisticated mathematical knowledge—is not as difficult as it seems to be. This is because the apparent motion of precession is essentially the same as the yearly apparent motion of the sun across the sky—except not in one year but over twenty-six thousand years. An intelligent mind of either today or thousands of years ago that was attuned to careful observation of the changes in the sky and privy to records kept over many generations need only have made a conceptual link in order to create such a device as the Calendar Circle at Nabta Playa and enable it to work with the yearly cycle as well as the precession cycle.

  In other words, there are essentially two ways to grasp the effects of precession on constellations: (1) adding together incremental measures over many years and building up a mathematical model for how the sky moves gradually (as it is generally believed the ancient Greeks did), or (2) making a sort of vision-logic mental leap that suddenly grasps the geometric shifting of the whole cycle. Of course, such a conceptual mental leap required a particularly subtle and astute mind, but the Neolithic human’s brain was perfectly able to perform such an intellectual task. Albeit, the design of the Calendar Circle involved a stroke of genius—indeed, probably many such strokes over many generations—but once constructed, the Calendar Circle was so user-friendly that all those who chanced upon it could easily have realized it
s meaning, especially those who had been avidly observing and studying the night sky, as did the ancient dwellers of the Sahara. In addition, it is likely that as part of the whole ceremonial complex at Nabta Playa, the Calendar Circle was understood and used by generations of astronomer-priests not merely in isolation, but as part of a broader context of the other structures in the area. We can see that some of the stones, especially those from the north gate, are composed of finely worked and shaped hard stone, which further indicates a refined sense of design and significant effort on the part of the Calendar Circle builders. We can discern in the Calendar Circle the product of minds that were keenly attuned to the subtleties of annual cycles and the long-term cycles of the heavens, and to the ability to represent such awareness elegantly in a stone diagram. Indeed, after people today see animated graphics of how the Calendar Circle works, they immediately understand and appreciate the plausibility of these conclusions. We have presented similar graphic animation7 at meetings of professional scholars in Atlanta, Georgia,8 and Rhodes, Greece,9 in 2004, as well as at meetings and public conferences in San Diego, California, in 2007; in Dubai, UAE, in 2008; and in Rome, Italy, in 2009—and the audiences immediately grasped how and why the Calendar Circle was used by the ancients. Regarding the scholars, however, although they easily grasp the idea, their academic conditioning often blocks them from changing their own preconceived beliefs about the Nabta Playa ancient people. Others who are more skeptical suggest that the data of field archaeologists, especially having to do with the astronomy that matches the stones, may have been in error.*13

  We, however, have double-checked the source of the Calendar Circle data and have ourselves examined the remains of the circle. Further, with regard to the nearby megalithic structures, we also have undertaken measurements and have relied on both the field maps provided by archaeologists as well as very accurate satellite photography of Nabta Playa. What clinches our interpretation and conclusions that the ancient Nabta Playa astronomer-priests paid significant attention to Orion’s belt as part of a unified system of tracking the changes in the sky is the fact that similar astronomical activities are also attributed to the other megalithic structures in the ceremonial complex.

  SPACE AGE MEETS STONE AGE

  In chapter 3 we saw how the ceremonial complex at Nabta Playa consists essentially of two major features: large stones, many of which are shaped and placed on the sediments of the ancient dry lake; and large, sculpted rocks and sculpted lumps of bedrock beneath the sediments. The 1998 Nature letter and other early CPE reports on Nabta Playa dealt only with the astronomy of the Calendar Circle; they did not attempt to interpret the astronomy of the megalithic alignments, although they did report some of these megaliths’ various orientations. Finally, however, in 2001 the CPE published their report and in it gave their tentative interpretation of the megalithic alignments and the GPS coordinates of each megalith. They determined that the twenty-two megaliths formed six alignments that radiated out from Complex Structure A, and they proposed that these alignments were intended to designate the rising locations of two important stars, Dubhe and Sirius, and also the stellar asterism of Orion’s belt. Three alignments (A1, A2, A3) pointing north aligned to Dubhe at three different dates in the fifth millennium BCE; a fourth alignment (C1) pointed, also in the fifth millennium BCE, toward Sirius; and two alignments (B1 and B2) pointed toward Orion’s belt at two different dates in the fourth and fifth millennium BCE.

  Yet a serious problem with their data invalidated the dates they gave for these alignments. It is an understandable fact that most people do not question or verify the data and conclusions given in a technical or scientific publication by university professors of the caliber of Fred Wendorf, Kim Malville, and Romuald Schild of the CPE. Having already developed our own interpretation for the Calendar Circle before the CPE’s 2001 site report was published, we were keenly interested in their alignment data for the megaliths. In order to verify the link among the alignments of the six rows of megaliths and the rising point of stars on the horizon, it was necessary to convert into azimuths the GPS coordinates of the megaliths given in the 2001 report and then to match them to the calculated azimuths of the proposed stars. Yet when we tried to convert these GPS readings into azimuths, we found that they did not match the published azimuths in the 2001 report! This meant that the dates for the stars’ rising were also off. Only the azimuth given for Orion’s belt was more or less the same as ours—but those given for Sirius and Dubhe differed radically from our calculations, which were in fact based on the GPS readings published in the 2001 report. Something clearly was not right. To make matters worse, the azimuths for the six megalithic alignments in the 2001 report were significantly different from those previously given in the 1998 Nature letter. Further, some of the CPE’s calculations of ancient star locations differed from our calculations, even before they were matched to rising azimuths.

  All this was very confusing, for it was impossible to tell from these reports whether the raw GPS readings taken on location were in error or that the CPE calculations to convert these into azimuths was in error. We determined that it was best to ask the CPE about this. The lead author replied that we should contact another author who was responsible for the data in the relevant 2001 report. While we waited for the response, as luck would have it, the Space Age provided us with another and better way to clear up this confusion: DigitalGlobe, a high-tech corporation, was in the process of developing the first high-resolution satellite-imaging system for commercial use. In November 2000 they twice attempted to launch their Quickbird 1 satellites from Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia, but both rockets failed and the satellites were destroyed. On October 18, 2001, however, the Quickbird 2 satellite was successfully launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, and after testing and calibration, DigitalGlobe began making commercially available 60-centimeter, high-resolution imagery from space. With this kind of resolution, we estimated that we could probably identify the Nabta Playa megaliths from space and obtain for ourselves the coordinates for our calculations. We thus sent in an order to Quickbird to task the satellite for us and obtain an image of Nabta Playa with their high-resolution data. As it turned out, we were likely the first to use Quickbird for archaeoastronomy. On December 31, 2002, Quickbird flew directly over Nabta Playa on a cloudless day and snapped the image with the coordinates we had supplied. After receiving and preparing the Quickbird data for analysis, we were thrilled to find that the Nabta Playa megaliths could be seen in the satellite image. Using the descriptions of individual megaliths given in the 2001 CPE report alongside some ground-based photographs published by Fred Wendorf, we were able to identify in the satellite image all the megaliths as well as Complex Structures A and B (and also other intriguing features, which we will discuss later). After georectifying the image and then correlating it to latitude and longitude, we were able to measure latitude and longitude coordinates for each of the megaliths. These coordinates were similar to those published by Wendorf and Malville in the 2001 report. This suggested, of course, that it was not the GPS readings obtained by them that were incorrect but rather that the CPE had made errors in their calculations. Because there was still a shift in our satellite-determined measurements, in order to be absolutely sure of our results we decided to go to Nabta Playa and take our own GPS measurements. The stakes were too high to rely only on the data we had thus far compiled, and we felt that a journey to Nabta Playa was well worth the cost and effort.

  Figure 4.5. Zooming into the Nabta Playa satellite image (Digital Globe, Quickbird). Complex Structure A is labeled CSA. Also labeled are megalith lines B1 and B2, megalith X-1, and Complex Structure B (CSB). Note that that circular rings near CSA and CSB are the detritus left after excavation of these structures, not their original formation. The bright features in the center of the playa (seen in the upper two images) are actively moving sand dunes.

  In October 2003 we used the service of a British safari tour company to secure the ne
cessary permits from the Egyptian government to visit Nabta Playa, and we arranged for a very small safari tour to make a deviation from their route and deliver us to the site. Egyptian regulations also required that we be accompanied by an Egyptian military officer as well as an inspector from the Egyptian antiquities department, a Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) Egyptologist. After a long trek by jeep from Cairo via the desert oases route, we arrived in the evening near Nabta Playa and set up camp 5 kilometers (about 3 miles) away in order not to cause any environmental disturbance of the important archaeological site. Before leaving from Cairo, we had coded into our handheld GPS receiver the coordinates of the megaliths obtained from the Quickbird satellite data. Now, some two hours before dawn, we were ready to walk from camp to the Nabta Playa ceremonial complex. As we prepared to set out alone, however, the SCA Egyptologist who had come along asked if he could accompany us, perhaps out of curiosity but also to educate himself, because we were amazed to find that he knew nothing about Nabta Playa.

  Figure 4.6. The excavation debris from CSA, in satellite image, with one of the megaliths as seen on the ground in April 2008

  Wondering what the ancient people who had once lived there would have thought of us, on a chilly dawn carrying a handheld GPS, we set out on foot from our campsite to the world’s oldest astronomical site. It seemed to us that the ancients would have been totally at ease moving around in the dark, using the stars for navigation, while we, with all our technological know-how, moved clumsily in the dark, clinging to our GPS tracking device in order not to get lost in this no-man’s-land of empty desert. Five kilometers (about 3 miles) can seem a very long way to those trekking on foot and in the dark in one of the most vast and hostile environments on Earth. After a while, when we lost complete sight of our camp, and as we surveyed the horizon as a backup to our GPS navigation, the Egyptian inspector began to get somewhat nervous. He wrongly interpreted that we were totally lost, but we quickly reassured him that, with our GPS navigation, we knew exactly where we were. As we continued to trek in the dark, however, our reassurances failed to calm the inspector, and he began insisting that we should walk in a different direction. A serious dispute ensued. We stopped listening to the inspector’s lament and decided to focus on our GPS indicator. We told him that he could go in a different direction if he wanted to or follow us with our GPS. After some deliberation, he decided to follow us, but with the caveat that his protest had been duly registered.