Black Genesis

by Robert Bauval

  Bearing this in mind, we can note another intriguing term found in the letter written to Harkhuf by the young King Pepi II. In this letter, Pepi II refers to Yam as ta-akhet-iu, which Egyptologists translate as “land of the horizon dwellers.” In hieroglyphs it is written thus:

  “Land of the horizon dwellers” implies that Yam was a very distant place—so distant that its people were deemed to live in the horizon. The historian A. J. Arkell even suggested that Yam was as far in the southwest as Darfur in the Sudan.20 Where exactly was Yam, however, and who or what were the mysterious horizon dwellers?

  We know with absolute certainty that, millennia before Harkhuf went to Yam, the southwest corner of the Egyptian Sahara either was inhabited or visited regularly by a Black people as attested by the rock art found at Gilf Kebir and Jebel Uwainat. Since 2003 we have known that these Black people were also in the Nabta Playa region, thanks to the CPE’s discovery of a prehistoric cemetery only 20 kilometers (about 12 miles) from Nabta Playa near a large sand dune called Jebel Ramlah.

  [T]he anthropological and forensic analysis] . . . show that two different populations—Mediterranean and sub-Saharan—co-existed here [at Gebel Ramlah near Nabta Playa] . . . [T]he people who inhabited the shores of the Gebel Ramlah lake were not cut off from the rest of the world. Their contacts sometimes stretched very far, as is evidenced by unearthed objects made of raw materials that were not to be found in the vicinity, and must have been brought in from outside. The best example of such long-distance imports is a nose plug made of turquoise, the closest sources of which are located 1000 km. to the north on the Sinai Peninsula. Shells were brought in either from the Nile, 100 km. away, or from the Red Sea much further to the east. . . . Ivory was brought from the south, since elephants, which belonged among the Ethiopian fauna, could not survive in such dry savanna. . . . The typical beliefs of the ancient Egyptians [to preserve the body so that the spirit could rest in peace in the afterworld] may indeed have originated with the Neolithic peoples inhabiting the ever-drier savannah in what is today the Western Desert, only centuries prior to the emergence of ancient Egypt. In the basin of the dried-up Nabta Playa lake, located only 20 km. away, the same people who left behind the graveyards at the foot of Gebel Ramlah, erected gigantic clusters of stelae, extending over many kilometers. . . . Perhaps it was indeed these [prehistoric] people who provided the crucial stimulus towards the emergence of state organization in ancient Egypt.21

  Here, at the foot of the dune, the CPE found three burial areas that contained human skeletons of sixty-seven individuals dated to six thousand years ago. According to Fred Wendorf and Romuald Schild of the CPE, “physical anthropology of rare skeletal remains . . . suggests racial association of the populations with the Sub-Saharan or Black groups.”22 In many burials, the bones of several individuals were placed together, thrown pell-mell, as if they had been brought to the grave in bags. This suggested to the anthropologists that the individuals may have died elsewhere in the Sahara, and their bones were brought back to their home settlement for burial near their ancestors. From this evidence, it seems that the Black people of Jebel Ramlah and Nabta Playa ventured far and wide in the Sahara when the climate was humid and the desert fertile. Could these people be the same as those of Jebel Uwainat and Gilf Kebir? Further, could they all have originated in the mysterious land of Yam?

  If such thoughts were held by Fred Wendorf and Romuald Schild, then they kept them to themselves as far as we know. At this stage we cannot help but recall that, in 1923, Ahmed Hassanein encountered a colony of black-skinned people at Jebel Uwainat, and we can also recall the Tebu man who claimed that the prehistoric art that was found there was his ancestors’. According to the Sahara historian J. L. Wright, these people that Hassanein encountered were Tebu refugees from the Goran tribe who originally had come from the Tibesti Mountains in northern Chad.23 Hassanein was able to confirm this when he wrote, “The southern portion of the Libyan Desert is inhabited by tribes of blacks—Tebu, Goran, and Bidiat—who are rather more refined in features than the central African negroes.”24

  Unfortunately, before anyone could determine from where these Black people at Jebel Uwainat had originated, they left the region sometime after Hassanein’s visit, never to be seen again. It is probable they returned to the oasis of Kufra, where, from time immemorial some of the ancient Tebu lived until the Arab conquest in the eighth century.25 Were the ancestors of the Tebu, then, those people who were called Temenu by the ancient Egyptians and who, as Harkhuf reported, were chased by the “Chief of Yam” to the “western corner of heaven”? Further, could their true place of origin have been far in the southwest, into the highlands of northern Chad? Until recently, the answer from Egyptologists and anthropologists would have been a resounding no—that is, until there came another aficionado of the desert to join the ranks of Egyptian Sahara explorers such as Rohlfs Gerhard, Ahmed Hassanein, and Count Lazlo Almasy.

  FROM FORD COMPANY TRAINEE TO CAMEL DRIVER

  Carlo Bergmann arrived in Egypt in the mid-1980s. He was sent there by the Ford Motor Company to complete a management-training course. After a visit to the camel market in Cairo, Bergmann was so fascinated by these “ships of the desert” that he resigned from his job then and there and bought his first camel in order to become a desert explorer. He set up a base in the oasis of Dakhla, increased his camel fleet to twelve, and roamed the desert in search of lost oases. Bergmann was eventually solicited by Dr. Rudolf Kruper of the Heinrich Barth Institute to assist him in his explorations southwest of Dakhla. Carlo, however, was not impressed with the way the archaeologists explored from the comfort of their four-wheel-drive vehicles. He believed that moving by camel or on foot radically increases the chances of spotting something of value. With the desert’s blinding sunlight and a landscape that is much the same everywhere, an explorer could easily miss seeing even the entrance to a cave unless he vigilantly checked every rock and mound along the way. Carlo Bergmann also had the advantage of a sixth sense regarding where to look for prehistoric artifacts—an ability he developed after years of exploring the desert on foot.

  Bergmann knew that Bedouins in the past told stories about a lost temple in the open desert a few days’ march from Dakhla oasis. They told the British archaeologist Sir Gardner Wilkinson in 1835, “Some ruins of uncertain date [were] discovered about nine years ago by an Arab in search of stray camels . . . [and that their ancient] inhabitants are blacks.”26 Bergmann also knew that Wilkinson had not attempted to verify the story, probably because he discounted it as a tall tale told by imaginative Arabs. The same happened in 1910 to the British engineer and explorer W. J. Harding King, who was also told by Bedouins of a stone temple that existed “eighteen hours journey west of Gedida in Dakhla Oasis,”27 but much like Wilkinson before him, Harding King dismissed the story as twaddle. Carlo Bergmann, however, took these stories seriously, and, in 2000, after six attempts to locate the alleged stone temple, he did, in fact, find something that matched the description and location given to Wilkinson and Harding King.

  The “stone temple” revealed itself as a conical hill about 30 meters [about 98 feet] high and 60 meters [about 197 feet] in length. On its eastern side there is a natural terrace. This platform, which has an average width of 3 meters [about 10 feet] and a length of approximately 35 meters [about 115 feet] is about 7 meters [23 feet] above the ground and fenced by a dry wall of stone slabs. From the distance the place has some resemblance with the Nabataean rock-palaces and -tombs at Petra. When setting my foot onto the terrace my eyes glanced over a breathtaking arrangement of hieroglyphic texts, of cartouches of Khufu [Cheops] and of his son Djedefre, of short notes from stone-masons, of two figures of a pharaoh smiting the enemies and of enigmatic signs [water mountain symbols] evidently placed on the rock-face in wilful order. All these engravings were depicted in the midst of representations of animals and human figures from Prehistoric and Old Kingdom times. As pharaoh Djedefre´s name first caught my eye, I christened the
site Djedefre´s water-mountain.28

  There are hieroglyphic texts carved on the east face of the DWM that report that the pharaoh Khufu (fourth dynasty and builder of the Great Pyramid at Giza) ordered two “overseers of recruits” called Iymeri and Bebi to take an expedition of about 400 men (two regiments) into this “desert region” to collect a substance named “mefat,” which, according to Egyptologists, was probably a mineral powder used for making red paint. The expedition took place in “the year of the thirteenth count of cattle,” which Egyptologists reckon to be the twenty-sixth year of reign of Khufu. The inscription reads:

  the year after the 13th occasion of the census of all large and small cattle of the North and the South of the Horus Medjedu (Khufu) given life eternally, the overseers of the recruits of the escort, Imeri and Bebi, they came with two regiments of recruits under their command, to make “Mefat” from the pigments of the desert district.

  A strange word that is found in the inscriptions and previously not known to Egyptologists is Mefat (MefAt). But the term fat or at was known and generally taken to mean “powder” or “dust,” which led many experts to propose that mefat was probably red ocher (ferric oxide), which is used to make red paint. Because the pyramids of Giza and the sphinx are believed to have been originally painted red (partly at least), the suggestion that this expedition was for this purpose is a viable one, although far from being proved. Lending support to this connection with Giza is also several “seals” and “leather bags” dated to the fourth dynasty found at Giza; the “seals” mention expeditions of four hundred men sent to the desert to collect red ocher, and some of this substance was found in the leather bags. But the precise meaning of Mefat is still debated among experts, and Carlo Bergmann, the discoverer of the DWM, has proposed that it may not be “inorganic” but perhaps some organic substance. Here are Bergmann’s views on Mefat:

  According to Kuhlmann, the translator of the fourth-dynasty inscriptions at DWM (Kuhlmann, K., “the Oasis bypath or the issue of desert trade in pharaonic times,” in Tides of the desert, 2002), the Old Kingdom expeditions of Khufu and Djedefre had come to the site (and to Biar Jaqub) in order to produce powder (mefat) from SS’pigments (?) taken from the “desert district.” The term SS’ has not been substantiated in hieroglyphic writing. Despite of scrupulous search for ancient pigment-quarrying activities, which (in a landscape where ancient relics have prevailed undisturbed over long periods of time) would remain conspicuous up to date, not the slightest indication of such works was found. Is, therefore, Kuhlmann’s interpretation of SS’ meaning “pigment” inconsistent with the findings of our investigation? Or was SS’ collected merely from the ground, thence leaving no traces of its removal? Furthermore, is SS’ really an unorganic pigment or is it of organic origin? A trial-trench at DWM has brought to light three hearths, seal impressions, potsherds of cups, bowls, and storage jars characteristic of the early Old Kingdom as well as shale-tempered pottery of the Sheikh Muftah group. In one of the hearths numerous parts of locusts and even complete specimens, which had been roasted on the spot, were found. Most probably insects like these, the former having been radiocarbon dated to about 2600 BC, were part of the daily diet of, at one time, some four hundred followers of Khufu. For such purpose great amounts of locusts must have been collected in the vicinity of DWM. Do their remains attest for sufficient vegetation in Biar Jaqub; “green land,” by which the insects once were attracted? If Biar Jaqub has to be envisaged as a florishing oasis during Old Kingdom times, the probabilty of SS’ being a much-esteemed organic substance should be estimated high. An investigation of the hill in ½ kilo-metre distance to the stonecircle settlement revealed no traces of ancient mining operations. If, in one way or the other, SS’ was obtained from here (as a pigment incorporated in the sandstone or in layers of variegated shales fused into the rock), would it then not have made sense for the ancients to errect their settlement at the foot of the prominent landmark? During all of the winter such considerations occupied my mind. Later, back in Germany (in early summer of 2005), Friedrich Berger and Giancarlo Negro called my attention to a press release, which reported the discovery of fourth dynasty seals and leather bags containing ferric oxide. According to inscriptions on pieces of pottery belonging to the find, the expedition, which consisted of more than four hundred men, had been sent to the “desert district” in search of red paint to decorate the pyramids. The discovery was made by Egyptian archaeologists in the region of the Giza pyramids.29

  Djedefre Water Mountain, as Bergamann now called it, is 80 kilometers (about 50 miles) southwest of Dakhla oasis and is now under the supervision of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA). Until recently, however, it was investigated by the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo and the Heinrich Barth Institute of the University of Cologne. The German team reported that the hieroglyphic inscriptions found on the east side of the mound mention several expeditions during the twenty-fifth and twenty-seventh years of the reign of the pharaoh Khufu, builder of the Great Pyramid at Giza (ca. 2450 BCE). They noted, too, that the name of Khufu’s son and successor, Djedefre, is more prominent and appears alongside (and also within) the so-called water mountain sign, which Bergmann describes as “a pack of horizontal zigzag lines framed by a sharply incised and slightly rounded rectangle, the upper corner of which ending in two small humps.”30

  Figure 2.4. Aerial view of Giza pyramids. Note the eastern offset of the third/smaller pyramid.

  Djedefre Water Mountain also has engraved on its walls rock art, which is clearly prehistoric, for it depicts giraffes, elephants, and other creatures that since at least 4000 BCE could be found only thousands of kilometers farther south in Africa but must have been here near Dakhla before that date when the Sahara was fertile. Most of the prehistoric rock art and the pharaonic inscriptions are high up on the east face and about 8 to 10 meters (about 26 to 33 feet) above ground level. They can be reached by an ancient man-made escarpment that leads to a platform cut into the mound. The platform itself faces due east, the direction of sunrise, and it is very evident that at dawn on this platform there is astronomical meaning to this orientation, as we will discuss in chapter 4. The most prominent inscription is found dead center of the east face and, inside a rectangle that has two protrusions or peaks at the top, bears the name of King Djedefre (see plate 2). This stylized hieroglyph denotes a mountain ()The ancient Egyptians used a very similar sign but with a sun disk between the two peaks. This () denoted the idea of a horizon and a sunrise.

  It is thus perhaps relevant to note in passing that Djedefre was the first royal devotee of a new solar cult devised by the priests of Heliopolis, and he was also the first pharaoh to incorporate into his name the word Re (the sun god) and to add Son of Re to his royal titles.31 His (now) truncated pyramid at Abu Ruwash, which stands some 7 kilometers (about 4 miles) north of the Giza plateau, is thought by some to have been the first sun temple and, like his mountain temple in the Sahara, was also made to face the rising sun due east. Clearly, the new symbolism brought into the royal cult by Djedefre is intensely solar and may have been the stimulus for his successors in the fourth dynasty, such as the pharaohs Khafre and Menkaure, builders of the second and third pyramids at Giza, also to add Re to their names. This new solar cult was even more prominent with the kings of the fifth and sixth dynasties, who built sun temples at Abu Ghorab, a few kilometers south of Giza. Oddly, it was the kings of the sixth dynasty whom Harkhuf and his father, Iry, had so diligently served by finding the way to the kingdom of Yam. At any rate, we will take a closer look at all this in chapter 6.

  Meanwhile barely a few years after Carlo Bergmann’s discovery of Djedefre Water Mountain, another chance discovery of a similar water mountain was made by a German team of anthropologists, but this time the site was a staggering 700 kilometers (more than 400 miles) south of Dakhla and deep inside Sudan, adjacent to the town of Dongola. To everyone’s surprise this other water mountain contained prehistoric rock art perfectly mat
ching that of the mysterious Djedefre Water Mountain. This rock art was studied by the German anthropologist Rudoph Kuper.

  [T]he isolated but identical presentation of the water ideograms [near Dongola] more than 700 kilometers south of the Dakhla area . . . bears implications for the question of early Egyptian relations with Sudanese Nubia. It suggests a line or a network of communication across the Eastern Sahara as late as the early third millennium BC. . . . The new evidence supports the scenario that even after 3000 BC the Libyan Desert was not completely void of human activity. In its southern part, cattle keepers could survive as late as the second millennium BC. . . . Apparently, the Egyptian Nile Valley and the oases were connected with these regions and farther African destinations beyond by a network of donkey caravan routes crossing southern Egypt. 32

  What Kuper seems to be saying is that prehistoric Black people living in the Egyptian Sahara not only were able to communicate with others as far south as Dongola in Sudan but also were probably still around when the pharaohs of the early dynasties (ca. 2500–2100 BCE) sent their emissaries, such as Harkhuf, into the Sahara. In 1990, German archaeologist G. Burkhard found a small rock mound 30 kilometers (about 19 miles) south of Dakhla that had on it prehistoric petroglyphs of wild animals and also an ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic inscription—“Regnal year 23, the steward Meri he goes up to meet the Oasis Dwellers”33—tentatively dated to the sixth dynasty (and thus contemporary with Harkhuf). This discovery prompted Rudolph Kuper to consider the possibility that the ancient Egyptians might have reached the extreme southwest region of the Egyptian Sahara, perhaps as far as Gilf Kebir.34 The reason for Kuper’s uncanny prediction was his awareness of the existence of a hill some 200 kilometers (about 124 miles) southwest of Dakhla known as Abu Ballas Hill (Father of Pots Hill, or Pottery Hill), which had been discovered in 1918 by the British explorer John Ball. Strewn all along its base were hundreds of large clay pots dated to the Old Kingdom (ca. 2500–2100 BCE) as determined by the hieroglyphic engravings found on the hill. What was the purpose of this place? Why did it have all those large clay pots? Count Almasy had visited Abu Ballas Hill in the 1930s, and he had suggested that it was a very ancient water station or supply outpost, a sort of donkey filling station, along a long-forgotten route that may have linked the oasis of Dakhla to Gilf Kebir and perhaps beyond.35 As it turned out both Almasy and Kuper would be proved correct by none other than the indefatigable Carlo Bergmann.