By the 6th millennium BC, evidence of a prehistoric religion or cult appears, with a number of sacrificed cattle buried in stone-roofed chambers lined with clay.[2] It has been suggested that the associated cattle cult indicated in Nabta Playa marks an early evolution of Ancient Egypt‘s Hathor cult. For example, Hathor was worshipped as a nighttime protector in desert regions (see Serabit el-Khadim). To directly quote professors Wendorf and Schild:[2]
… there are many aspects of political and ceremonial life in the Predynastic and Old Kingdom that reflects a strong impact from Saharan cattle pastoralists…
Nevertheless, though the religious practices of the region
involving cattle suggest ties to Ancient Egypt,[2] Egyptologist Mark Lehner[1] cautions:
It makes sense, but not in a facile, direct way. You can’t go straight from these megaliths to the pyramid of Djoser.
Other subterranean complexes are also found in Nabta Playa, one of which included evidence of perhaps an early Egyptian attempt at sculpture.[2] One of the world’s earliest known examples of archeoastronomy Circular chromlech at Nabta
By the 5th millennium BC these peoples had fashioned one of the world’s earliest known archeoastronomical devices (roughly
contemporary to the Goseck circle in Germany and the Mnajdra megalithic temple complex in Malta), about 1000 years older than but comparable to Stonehenge[2] (see sketch at right). Research suggests that it may have been a prehistoric calendar which accurately marks the summer solstice.[3]
The research done by the astrophysicist Thomas G. Brophy
suggests that these monoliths might tell much more. The calendar circle itself is made up of one doorway that runs north-south, a second that runs northeast-southwest marking the summer solstice, and six center stones (see sketch above). Brophy’s hypothesis proposes first that the southerly line of three stones inside the calendar circle represented the three stars of Orion’s Belt and the other three stones inside the calendar circle
represented the shoulders and head stars of Orion as they
appeared in the sky. These correspondences were for two dates — circa 4,800 BC and at precessional opposition — representing how the sky “moves” long term. Brophy proposes that the circle was constructed and used circa the later date, and the dual date representation was a conceptual representation of the motion of the sky over a precession cycle.
Near by the calendar circle, which is made of smaller stones, there are alignments of large megalithic stones. The southerly lines of these megaliths, Brophy shows, aligned to the same stars as represented in the calendar circle, all at the same epoch, circa 6270 BC. The calendar circle correlation with Orion’s belt occurred between 6400 BC and 4900 BC, matching the radio-carbon dating of campfires around the circle.[5]
Brophy found that the lines made to these megaliths match the spots in the sky where the various stars rose in vernal equinox
heliacal rising. In analyzing the varying distances, mulling
through assumptions such as that they represented the brightness of the stars, he inadvertently found that they matched the distance of the stars from Earth on a scale of roughly 1 meter = .8 light
years within the margin of error for astronomical distances calculated today.[6].
The purpose hear is to show that the Ancient Nubians had a high order of civilization including science.
From The Nubia Salvage Project NUBIA – “Its glory and its people”
1987 EXHIBITION: BROCHURE FEBRUARY 1 thru 28, 1987
Presented by: THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO and the OAK WOODS CEMETERY ASSOCIATION In the Tower of Memories, Oak Woods Cemetery, Chicago
An Early Kingdom in the Land of the Bow: Nubia The A-Group, 3800-3100 B.C.
The first continuous agricultural tradition in Africa, the Sudanese-Saharan Neolithic, developed almost ten thousand years ago in country west of Nubia that is now desert.
The Nile Valley in Egypt had been inhospitable, but in the seasonally dry channels of the Second Cataract, early farmers learned to manage parts of the river’s annual flood. This
knowledge could then be applied in Egypt’s wide floodplain, giving rise to the great sequence of Upper Egypt’s early
civilizations.
Upper Egypt soon grew wealthy and its culture expanded again into Nubia, where renewed southern contacts gave rise to the first of Nubia’s trading cultures, called the A-Group. Incense, copper, gold, objects of shell, and semiprecious stones were traded
northward in return for manufactured articles and probably agricultural produce.
Most surprising, evidence that early pharaohs ruled in A-Group Nubia was discovered by the Oriental Institute at Qustul, almost at the modern Sudanese border. A cemetery of large tombs
contained evidence of wealth and representations of the rulers and their victories. Other representations and monuments could then be identified, and in the process, a lost kingdom, called Ta-Seti or Land of the Bow, was discovered. In fact, the cemetery at Qustul leads directly to the first great royal monuments of Egypt in a progression. Qustul in Nubia could well have been the seat of Egypt’s founding dynasty.
The Land of Wawat: C-Group Lower Nubia, 2300-1550 B.C.
Life in Nubia between 3100 and about 2300 B. C. differed greatly from the prosperous times of A-Group. We know of only a few inhabitants and one substantial town, where copper was smelted for export.
About 2300 B.C., during the Egyptian Sixth Dynasty, a new culture appeared, which archaeologists call C-Group. Cattle
played an important role in this culture, as they have in many other African societies since. Nevertheless, the C-Group was settled permanently along the Nile, from Aswan to the Second Cataract, and a closely related culture was established in northern Sudan, especially at Kerma, south of the Third Cataract. As Egypt fragmented politically, C-Group people entered the country to the north, as herdsmen and soldiers. They sometimes rose very high in Egyptian society and they played an important role in the
struggles that founded the Egyptian Middle Kingdom, about 2050 B.C.
From biographies of Egyptian governors at Aswan, about 2300 B.
C., we learn that the peoples to the south were concentrated in four principalities. One, Wawat, later gave its name to all of Lower Nubia, the land between the First and the Second Cataracts.
Another, Yam, may have been a predecessor of Kush. In the Egyptian period of disunity, about 2250 B. C., Lower Nubia had its own pharaohs.
C-Group is well known for its tightly packed cemeteries of high stone circles. Next to these circles were placed stelae, some with pictures of cattle incised on them, and pottery, some of Nubia’s finest art. Three major cemeteries and a house of this culture were excavated by the Oriental Institute at Adindan and Serra East.
Kerma and the Rise of Kush, ca. 2000-1550 B. C.
Egypt conquered Lower Nubia about 1950 B. C., and retained it until about 1700. C-Group kept its cultural identity under
Egyptian rule, but the land of Kush to the south and the Medjay people of the Eastern Desert remained independent. Kush, much influenced by the Medjay, became a major power in the south, and as Egypt fell into disunity again, about 1700 B. C., Kush took over Lower Nubia with its C-Group population and Egyptian
garrisons. The allegiance of people and soldiers was transferred to the southern ruler who was represented as a pharaoh.
Most archaeology of the Kerma culture or early Kush is found south of the Second Cataract, especially at the great capital at
Kerma, with its central temples, elaborate smelter, manufacturing installations, houses and enormous royal mound tombs. Its
magnificent pottery was sometimes exported as far north as the Egyptian Delta, and sometimes carried north by travelling
officials and soldiers.