Black Genesis

by Robert Bauval

  The step pyramid complex of Djoser was named Horus Is the Star at the Head of the Sky,66 which alone implies some cosmic function related to the principal or brightest star in the sky, which can be only Sirius. This is confirmed by the fact that the god Horus, in very early times, was also identified with this star.67 The most impressive feature of the step pyramid complex other than the pyramid itself is the huge 10-meter-high (33-feet-high) boundary wall that once enclosed the entire complex. It is a rectangle 550 meters (1,804 feet) long and 220 meters (722 feet) wide, and even today it would be considered a masterpiece of architecture. Rather than simply making the wall with a smooth face, Imhotep incorporated in its design an elaborate system of recesses and protrusions, massive bastions and false doors. There are no less than 192 recesses and protrusions, 14 false doors, 4 corner bastions, and a main monumental entrance. On all of these features there are vertical panels, each some 20 centimeters (8 inches) wide, 3 centimeters (about 1 inch) deep, and several meters high, some cut into the wall, others flush with it. The west wall contains 1,461 panels and the east side contains 1,458 or 1,459 panels. The south side and north side each contain 732 panels, thus a total of 366 × 4 = 1,464. These numbers, to say the least, speak of calendrical meaning that is specifically related to Sirius, which is very near the Sothic cycle duration (1460 - 1), and 366 implies the sidereal year.*58 Let us see why.

  Sufi Tradition and the Wall

  We can note that the design of this massive temple complex enclosure recalls the words of one of our teachers of the ancient meditation technique of sufi zikr: the design of all Persian rugs harks back to a very ancient spiritual tradition. If we look at the design of any Persian rug, it always consists of a gardenlike complex enclosed by a very elaborate wall with many recesses and complex meanderings. This design, the sufi said, is a representation of the primordial garden enclosed by a wall with 125,000 doors—and each door, it is said, represents a new way to enter the garden, which opens up each time another human becomes fully enlightened (through sufi or any other yogic practice). The sufi tradition, it is claimed, originates from extremely ancient times. It is interesting to speculate that the geniuspriest Imhotep designed the giant Djoser complex enclosure wall as astronomical-calendrical and developmental-spiritual—thus symbolizing the connection among humans, mind, and cosmos on both a subtle level and in enormous monumental architecture that exists out in plain sight.

  First, and most obviously, we consider the number 1,461. As we’ve noted, the solar year is not exactly 365 days, but has an extra 0.242 day or, approximately, an extra quarter day (as does the Julian year we use today—which is exactly 365.25 years). A peculiarity of the star Sirius, which was apparently known to the ancient Egyptians, was that its yearly cycle was nearly 365.25 days during Old Kingdom times, thus making a Sothic cycle of 365.25 × 4 = 1,461, 68 the same length as the solar-year return cycle and also the number of panels on the west side of the boundary wall of the step pyramid complex.69

  What, however, of the east wall of the step pyramid complex, which has 1,458 or 1,459 panels, and the north and south walls, which each have 732 panels? The answer emerges if we look in more detail at Sothic cycles. Many historians of astronomy and Egyptian chronologists have often pointed out that the length of the true astronomical Sothic cycle for the heliacal rising of Sirius to return to the exact point in the sidereal year varies slightly, and, according to the British astronomer M. F. Ingham, it ranged during dynastic Egyptian times from 1,450 years to 1,460 years.70 In appendix 2 we see the nature of Sothic cycles and calculate the length of the Sothic cycles in Old Kingdom times, independently testing Ingham’s values by using a slightly different method: we set the year 2781 BCE, the day of summer solstice, as the starting point for a Sothic cycle and to constrain a definition for heliacal rising of Sirius. We then find that the Sothic cycle immediately preceding 2781 BCE was 1,459 Egyptian civil calendar years (1,458 Julian years), and the Sothic cycle starting at 2781 BCE was 1,457 Egyptian civil calendar years. Both those values essentially agree with Ingham’s calculations. We conclude, then, that the east wall represents the exact Sothic cycle duration up to the design and construction of the complex, which itself commemorates or inaugurates the correspondence of the heliacal rising of Sirius with the summer solstice (an event that happens only once every twenty-six thousand years). Thus the 1,461-panel wall may reflect a standardized or general public knowledge cycle, and the 1,459-panel wall could reflect the esoteric knowledge of the exact natural cycle known only to initiates such as Imhotep.

  Was the Calendar Secret?

  Mathematician James Lowdermilk argues that there is evidence that an esoteric or secret tradition did exist.

  Evidence of knowledge of the workings of the calendar being held secret is also found in the Reisner papyrus, circa 1900 BCE. If the Egyptian calendar year of 365 days is 10/39 of a day short of a sidereal year, then it takes 39 ÷ 10 = 3.9 years for the calendar to lose one day to the sidereal year, not exactly 4 calendar years. In the Reisner papyrus, a hired scribe wrote the approximation 39 ÷ 10 = 4 even though elsewhere in the papyrus he has correctly worked the problems 30 ÷ 10 and 9 ÷ 10, which when added together give the correct value of 39 ÷ 10, proving his ability (Gillings 1972: 221). Apparently the author of the Reisner papyrus knew or was told that the calculation 39 ÷ 10 was not to be performed in such a profane location as the official registers of a dockyard workshop. Furthermore, when the geographer Strabo (second century CE) wrote of Plato’s and Eudoxus’s studies in Egypt in the 4th century BCE, he tells us that the Egyptian priests “did teach them the fractions of the day and the night which, running over and above the 365 days, fill out the time of the true year” (Strabo, Geography, pp. 83–85). These priests understood that the “true year” contains 10/39 of a day more than the 365-day calendar year they used, but they were “secretive and slow to impart” this knowledge. (From “Unit Fractions: Inception and Use,” in The Ostracon, Journal of the Egyptian Study Society, vol. 14, no. 2, Summer 2003. [Note that 365 days plus 10/39 day gives the length of the sidereal day to within 4 seconds, whereas the crude approximation 365 days plus ¼ day is off by more than 9 minutes.])

  The difference, then, of two years represented on the walls progressing in time from east to west could also reflect the changing Sothic cycle—the next one will be two years shorter. Further, the difference between the east and west wall representations, two years, appears to be reflected in the north and south walls, each of which has 732 panels. Two years equal 730 solar days or 732 sidereal days.*59

  Egyptologists agree that Imhotep lived in the reign of King Djoser during the third dynasty, which, they say, began in the year 2630 BCE. They openly admit, however, that a margin of error of at least one hundred fifty years must be allowed for the early dynasties, thus placing Imhotep as living anytime between 2780 and 2480 BCE.71 The date 2780 BCE, which could well have been the start of Djoser’s reign, now also rings a bell, for it was the year when the summer solstice coincided with the heliacal rising of Sirius and also when, most chronologists strongly suspect, the official civil calendar was set in motion.72 Therefore, we see that both the calculated value of 1,461 years and the actual value of 1,459 years of the Sothic cycle (which is a combination of the solar and stellar cycles) are expressed on the east and west sides of the boundary wall. Further, the precise difference between these two durations is expressed by the walls that connect them in terms of the number of sidereal days (or star days), which also is a combination of solar and stellar times. Finally, the whole step pyramid complex and the small stone cubicle/serdab are aligned with the Big Dipper to mark the reappearance of Sirius in the east at the one time in twenty-six thousand years that this occurs on summer solstice. All of these facts taken together cannot be a coincidence. The entire complex appears to announce the long-term cosmic cycles of Sirius—how they are measured and predicted and connected to the human-made cycles of the civil calendar, all constructed around the very special time when hel
iacal reappearance of Sirius coincided with the summer solstice. Of course, this interpretation addresses not only the elegant calendar and cosmic meanings of the wall panel design but also the reason why the step pyramid complex was built at that precise time.

  If we accept that Imhotep knew not only that an approximation to the Sothic cycle was 1,461 Egyptian civil years but also the precise duration of the previous Sothic cycle and that this cycle is a combination of solar and sidereal motions, and if we also accept that he had a concept of the difference between the sidereal day and the solar day, then it is highly likely that he was informed by careful observations going back at least one Sothic cycle—that is, back to 4241 BCE, to the period of heavy activity at Nabta Playa.

  OTHER EVIDENCE OF THE LONG-TERM TRACKING OF SIRIUS

  We have seen that as early as 3200 BCE, the star Sirius was tracked at Elephantine with the changing axes of the multitiered temple of Satis. Yet there are shrines in Egypt other than the step pyramid complex and the Giza pyramid complex that also tracked this special star.

  In the area of ancient Thebes (modern Luxor) are the remains of a small temple commonly known as Thoth Hill. The temple was built on a high point in the Theban hills overlooking the Nile Valley below, with a clear view of the eastern horizon. Discovered by George Sweinfurth in 1904 and studied by Sir Flinders Petrie in 1909, the temple has been confirmed to have been built under the reign of King Mentuhotep of the eleventh dynasty. Extensive investigations between 1995 and 1998 by a Hungarian team from Eotvos Lorand University under the directorship of Dr. Gyozo Voros has led to the conclusion that this temple was sacred to the star Sirius. The structure stands on a terraced platform facing east. After excavating the foundations, the Hungarian team found that this eleventh-dynasty temple was actually built on top of the ruins of an archaic-period temple dating from probably about 3200–3000 BCE, which had a similar floor plan but had an axis 2 degrees farther south: “The Hungarian team that excavated these structures believes this difference may be attributed to the shift in astronomical alignments over the intervening centuries. Their research indicates that the later brick temple was aligned to Sirius. In the archaic period the same star would have appeared just over 2 degrees farther south in the eastern sky—exactly the difference visible in the orientation of the earlier building. Thus, rather than simply follow the physical orientation of the earlier sacred structure, the Middle Kingdom architects had carefully adjusted the temple’s orientation in order to align the new building once more precisely to Sirius.73

  We can recall from chapter 2 that the name of the pharaoh Mentuhotep (ca. 2010 BCE) was found in the inscriptions at Jebel Uwainat in the Egyptian Sahara, which were discovered by Mark Borda and Mahmoud Marai in 2007. If the Black prehistoric people of Nabta Playa were the same people that once occupied Uwainat, and if these people came to the Nile Valley around 3200 BCE and brought along their astronomical knowledge of tracking the stars, especially Sirius, then it is not at all surprising to us now to find that King Mentuhotep knew of an archaic temple at Thebes, which was aligned with Sirius, and, consequently, that he built his own temple above it and knew that its axis had to be 2 degrees farther north.

  The whole historical puzzle seems slowly to be taking shape, revealing a remarkable scenario that flows from the astronomical alignments of Nabta Playa as mentioned in the 1998 Nature letter of Malville and Wendorf. Before we look at possible conclusions, however, let us examine further evidence that the tradition of the long-term tracking of the star Sirius persisted throughout the whole of pharaonic civilization until its closure around 30 BCE, when it fell under the dominion of Rome.

  THOSE WHO FOLLOWED THE SUN

  One of the greatest and most magnificent temples of ancient Egypt is the temple of Hathor at Dendera, located on the west side of the Nile near the modern town of Qena, some 60 kilometers (37 miles) north of Luxor. The temple complex stands at the edge of the desert and is so well preserved that from a short distance it looks as though it was built only a few years ago. In fact, the temple is more than two thousand years old, and its origins may even hark back to earliest times.

  The cult of the cow goddess Hathor goes back to the archaic period and ranked very high in the Egyptian religion. Evidence of her cult has been detected from the very early dynasties, and many Egyptologists believe that it was even much older than this. Her name, Hat-Hor, literally means House of Horus.*60 74

  As such, Hathor was very closely associated with the goddess Isis, mother of Horus. Indeed, so closely identified with each other were these two goddesses that in Ptolemaic times, when the extant temple at Dendera was built, their names were often fused or interchangeable.75 At Dendera there are tombs that date to the first dynasties, indicating that the site was sacred in very remote, perhaps even prehistoric, times. The temple we see today, however, was founded by Ptolemy XII Auletes in 54 BCE. It is known with certainty that at the same place stood an older temple built under Tuthmoses III around 1450 BCE. In additon, there are inscriptions at Dendera that refer to Pepi I of the sixth dynasty, circa 2350 BCE. More intriguing still, there are inscriptions in a crypt that refer to the Shemsu-Hor, or Followers of Horus,76 whom the pharaohs regarded as their remote ancestors, although Egyptologists tend to consider these as mythical ancestors.77 One of these inscriptions actually claims that the original blueprint of the temple was provided by the Shemsu-Hor and was later preserved on the temple walls by Pepi I:

  King Tuthmoses III has caused this building to be erected in memory of his mother, the goddess Hathor, the Lady of Dendera, the Eye of the Sun, the Heavenly Queen of the Gods. The ground plan was found in the city of Dendera, in archaic drawing on a leather roll of the time of the Shemsu-Hor [Followers of Horus]; it was [also] found in the interior of a brick wall in the south side of the temple in the reign of king Pepi.78

  According to the so-called Royal Papyrus of Turin, also known as the Turin Canon, Egypt was ruled in prehistoric times by the Shemsu-Hor kings (and Shemsu-Hor is commonly translated as the Followers of Horus). Horus was the solar deity par excellence of the Egyptians; he personified the sun, especially when it rose on the horizon. In this specific role, he was known as Hor-Akhti, Horus of the Horizon, and later, when the cult of Ra, the Heliopolitan sun god, came to power in the fourth dynasty, the two solar deities were united as Ra-Hor-Akhti—literally, Sun God Horus of the Horizon. This union was specific to the morning sun, leading Egyptologists such as Richard Wilkinson to assert that when Ra was “coalesced” with the more primitive Hor-Akhti, this caused the combined deities to become “Ra-Horakhti as the morning sun.”79

  From the many mentions of Hor-Akhti in the Pyramid Texts and other ancient texts, it is clear that the time at which this sun disk was most observed and venerated was not merely at sunrise, but especially at sunrise at summer solstice. This is confirmed in the Pyramid Texts, which say that Horakhti is in the “eastern side of the sky . . . the place where the gods are born [that is, the place where they rise].”80 It was at the summer solstice, as we have already seen, that the flood season began. The very existence of Egypt depended on the flood—its agriculture, its ecology, and the survival of its people. It is therefore totally understandable that the sunrise at summer solstice would have a very special meaning to the ancient Egyptians—as it had thousands of years before to the prehistoric people of Nabta Playa, who lived by the monsoon rains. If the floodwaters were too low or worse, failed to come, strife and eventually famine would follow. The flood was, quite literally, the jugular vein of Egypt. Nothing frightened the pharaohs more than the possibility that the gods would fail to bring forth the flood. The early warning signal came from Elephantine, where the nilometer was carefully monitored at the time of the summer solstice. As Egyptologists Peter Shaw and Paul Nicholson explain: “Egypt’s agricultural prosperity depended on the annual inundation of the Nile. For crops to flourish it was desirable that the Nile should rise about eight meters [26 feet] above a zero point at the first cataract near Aswan.
A rise of only seven meters [23 feet] would produce a lean year, while six meters [20 feet] would lead to famine.”81

  There was, however, another factor that required careful observation: the heliacal rising of Sirius, which also occurred around the time of the summer solstice.*61

  The ancient astronomer-priests paid avid attention to the celestial events that took place at dawn at this important time of year, and they waited for the heliacal rising of Sirius. We get a glimpse of the importance of this event—the conjunction of the summer solstice, the heliacal rising of Sirius and the summer solstice—in some passages of the Pyramid Texts.

  The reed-floats of the sky are set in place for sungod Ra that he may cross on them to the horizon; the reed-floats are set in place for Horakhti that he may cross on them to Ra; the reed-floats of the sky are set in place for me that I may cross on them to Ra; the reed-floats are set in place for me that I may cross on them to Horakhti and to Ra. The Fields of Rushes are filled [with water] and I ferry across on the Winding Waterway; I [the Osiris-king] am ferried over to the eastern side of the horizon, I am ferried over to the eastern side of the sky, my sister is Sothis [Sirius] . . . 82