Egyptian 'Stonehenge' predates the pyramids
Three metres high, and 7,000 years old.
By Brahm Rosensweig, March 8, 1999This story was published March 8, 1999
Some 20 years ago, in the Egyptian desert about 100 kilometers west of Abu Simbel, Fred Wendorf noticed a group of large stones on the site of an ancient lake bed. Reasoning by their appearance that they must have been brought there some time in the past, he began excavations. What he uncovered were the oldest-known astronomically arranged megaliths, predating Stonehenge by over 1000 years.
The megaliths, and the ancient lake bed they surround, are called Nabta Playa. The term playa refers to a basin that holds water seasonally. From about 11,000 to 5,500 years ago, Nabta Playa was an important ceremonial center for a variety of ancient tribes that lived in this once-habitable desert. Today it is a harsh and unforgiving region, but around 12,000 years ago a shift in the regional monsoon pattern brought a modest but life-giving 10-15 centimeters of rain per year to the region. Playas like Nabta would remain filled with water for months, and tribes of the desert would congregate around them, holding ceremonies and building impressive stone structures. Today there are dozens of archaeological sites located on and around Nabta Playa.
The ceremonial hub of Nabta Playa may have been the nine three-metre tall unshaped sandstone slabs which are aligned north-south. During the rainy season they would have been partially submerged in the lake.
About 300 meters north of these slabs is a "calendar circle", consisting of a set of smaller sandstone slabs arranged in a circle about 4 metres in diameter. Amongst them are four pairs of larger upright slabs, two of which line up north-south, and two of which line up east-northeast to west-southwest. This would have aligned them with the sunrise of the summer solstice about 6,800 years ago. The solstice would have been of great significance to the Nabta people as it marked the beginning of the all-important monsoon season.
A ceremonial burial of a bull.
About 300 metres north of the calender circle, Wendorf and his crew discovered a burial chamber that contained not human remains as expected, but those of a cow. Despite the wealth of human artifacts at Nabta, no human remains have yet been found. The cattle burial, which was in a clay lined chamber and contained a large, ritually killed bull, is an indication that the peoples of Nabta had a cattle herding, nomadic culture a bit like the nomadic people of southern Sudan or northern Kenya today.
The goddess Hathor.
About 4,800 years ago, the weather patterns shifted, and the area returned to its previous hyperarid state. Human habitation ceased, and exactly where the cattle worshippers of Nabta migrated to remains a mystery. However, archaeologists note with interest that religion in the Old Kingdom which rose a few hundred years later in the Nile Valley had a prominent place for cows as never before. Hathor, for example, the ancient Egyptian deity for love and beauty, had a woman's body and a cow's head.
http://exn.ca/egypt/story.asp?id=1999030852&st=Monuments
