Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Nabta Playa, Hieraconopolis and Buto


Let us first look at some wikipedian articles, involving Egyptian chronology:

Nabta Playa, 22°30.5′N 30°43.5′E:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabta_Playa


Nabta Playa was once a large internally drained basin in the Nubian Desert, located approximately 800 kilometers south of modern-day Cairo[1] or about 100 kilometers west of Abu Simbel in southern Egypt,[2] 22.51° north, 30.73° east.[3] Today the region is characterized by numerous archaeological sites.[2] ....

Archaeological findings may indicate human occupation in the region dating to at least somewhere around the 10th and 8th millennia BC.[2] Fred Wendorf, the site's discoverer, and ethno-linguist Christopher Ehret have suggested that the people who occupied this region at that time were early pastoralists, or like the Saami practiced semi-pastoralism (although this is disputed by other sources because the cattle remains found at Nabta have been shown to be morphologically wild in several studies, and nearby Saharan sites such as Uan Afada in Libya were penning wild Barbary sheep, an animal that was never domesticated). The people of that time consumed and stored wild sorghum, and used ceramics[2] adorned by complicated painted patterns created perhaps by using combs made from fish bone and which belong to a general pottery tradition strongly associated with the southern parts of the sahara (e.g., of the Khartoum mesolithic and various contemporary sites in Chad) of that period.[2] Analysis of human remains by Fred Wendorf and reported in "Holocene Settlement of the Egyptian Sahara", based on osteological data suggests a subsaharan origin for the site's inhabitants.[4]} Several scholars also support a Nilo-Saharan linguistic affinity for the Nabta people; including Fred Wendorf and Christopher Ehret.[citation needed]

By the 7th millennium BC, exceedingly large and organized settlements were found in the region, relying on deep wells for sources of water.[2] Huts were constructed in straight rows.[2] Sustenance included fruit, legumes, millets, sorghum and tubers.[2]

Also in the late 7th millennium BC, but a little later than the time referred to above, imported goats and sheep, apparently from Western Asia,[5] appear. Many large hearths also appear.[2] ...

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]

By the 5th millennium BC these peoples had fashioned what may be among the world's earliest known archeoastronomical devices (roughly contemporary to the Goseck circle in Germany and the Mnajdra megalithic temple complex in Malta). These include alignments of stones that may have indicated the rising of certain stars and a "calendar circle" that indicates the approximate direction of summer solstice sunrise.[6] "Calendar circle" may be a misnomer as the spaces between the pairs of stones in the gates are a bit too wide, and the distances between the gates are too short for accurate calendar measurements."[4] An inventory of Egyptian archaeoastronomical sites for the UNESCO World Heritage Convention evaluated Nabta Playa as having "hypothetical solar and stellar alignments."[7] Claims for early alignments and star maps

Astrophysicist Thomas G. Brophy suggests the hypothesis 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 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.[3]

A 2007 article by a team of University of Colorado archaeoastronomers and archaeologists (three members had been involved in the original discovery of the site and its astronomical alignment)[8] has responded to the work of Brophy and Rosen, in particular their claims for an alignment with Sirius in 6088 and other alignments which they dated to 6270, saying that these dates were about 1500 years earlier than the estimated dates. ...

They propose that the area was first used as what they call a 'regional ceremonial centre' around 6100 to 5600 BC with people coming from various locations to gather on the dunes surrounding the playa where there is archaeological evidence for gatherings which involved large numbers of cattle bones, as cattle were normally only killed on important occasions. Around 5500 BC a new, more organised group began to use the site, burying cattle in clay-lined chambers and building other tumuli. Around 4800 BC a stone circle was constructed, with narrow slabs approximately aligned with the summer solstice, near the beginning of the rainy season.

More complex structures followed during a megalith period the researchers dated to between about 4500 BC to 3600 BC.


9500 BC
7500 BC
6500 BC
6270 BC
6100 BC
6088 BC
5600 BC
5500 BC
4800 BC
4500 BC
3600 BC

Buto, 31°11′47″N 30°44′41″E:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buto


The city was an important site in the Predynastic era of Ancient Egypt that includes the cultural developments of ten thousand years from the Paleolithic to 3100 BC.


13 100 BC
3100 BC

Hieraconpolis / Nekhen, 25°5′50″N 32°46′46″E:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nekhen


The first settlement at Nekhen dates from either the predynastic Amratian culture (circa 4400 BC) or perhaps during the late Badari culture (circa 5000 BC). At its height from about 3400 BC, Nekhen had at least 5000 and possibly as many as 10,000 inhabitants.

... the religious and political capital of Upper Egypt at the end of prehistoric Egypt (c. 3200–3100 BC) and probably also during the Early Dynastic Period (c. 3100–2686 BC).


5000 BC
4400 BC
3400 BC
3200 BC
3100 BC
2686 BC

And here is another perspective on the chronology. Whole timeline, with Biblical dates acc. to my tables:

Interim III/Syncellus
 
timeline previous  on  subsequent
 
13 100 BC  2906 BC   -  2865 BC
9500 BC   -  2824 BC   -
7500 BC   -  2657 BC   -
6500 BC  2576 BC   -  2535 BC
6270 BC  2535 BC   -  2494 BC
6100 BC  2535 BC   -  2494 BC
6088 BC  2535 BC   -  2494 BC
5600 BC   -  2453 BC   -
5500 BC  2453 BC   -  2412 BC
5000 BC  2412 BC   -  2371 BC
4800 BC   -  2371 BC   -
4500 BC   -  2331 BC   -
4400 BC  2331 BC   -  2290 BC
3600 BC  2249 BC   -  2208 BC
3400 BC   -  2208 BC   -
3200 BC  2131 BC   -  2093 BC
3100 BC   -  2055 BC   -
2686 BC  1901 BC   ?   ?


Interim II/St Jerome A
 
timeline previous  on  subsequent
 
13 100 BC  2888 BC   -  2820 BC
9500 BC   -  2751 BC   -
7500 BC  2683 BC   -  2614 BC
6500 BC  2614 BC   -  2545 BC
6270 BC  2614 BC   -  2545 BC
6100 BC  2614 BC   -  2545 BC
6088 BC  2614 BC   -  2545 BC
5600 BC  2545 BC   -  2476 BC
5500 BC  2545 BC   -  2476 BC
5000 BC  2476 BC   -  2408 BC
4800 BC  2408 BC   -  2340 BC
4500 BC  2340 BC   -  2271 BC
4400 BC  2340 BC   -  2271 BC
3600 BC  2065 BC   -  1997 BC
3400 BC   - BC  1928 BC   -
3200 BC  1883 BC   -  1794 BC
3100 BC  1883 BC   -  1794 BC
2686 BC  1704 BC   -  1614 BC


St Jerome/Fibonacci
 
timeline previous  on  subsequent
 
13 100 BC  2868 BC   -  2778 BC
9500 BC  2778 BC   -  2688 BC
7500 BC   -  2599 BC   -
6500 BC  2599 BC   -  2510 BC
6270 BC  2599 BC   -  2510 BC
6100 BC   -  2510 BC   -
6088 BC   -  2510 BC   -
5600 BC   -  2420 BC   -
5500 BC   -  2420 BC   -
5000 BC  2420 BC   -  2330 BC
4800 BC  2420 BC   -  2330 BC
4500 BC  2330 BC   -  2241 BC
4400 BC   -  2241 BC   -
3600 BC  2062 BC   -  1972 BC
3400 BC   -  1928 BC   -
3200 BC  1883 BC   -  1794 BC
3100 BC  1883 BC   -  1794 BC
2686 BC  1704 BC   -  1614 BC


St. Jerome B
 
timeline previous  on  subsequent
 
13 100 BC  2850 BC   -  2815 BC
9500 BC   -  2637 BC   -
7500 BC  2424 BC   -  2391 BC
6500 BC  2391 BC   -  2358 BC
6270 BC  2358 BC   -  2325 BC
6100 BC  2358 BC   -  2325 BC
6088 BC  2358 BC   -  2325 BC
5600 BC   -  2325 BC   -
5500 BC  2325 BC   -  2292 BC
5000 BC  2292 BC   -  2259 BC
4800 BC   -  2259 BC   -
4500 BC   -  2226 BC   -
4400 BC  2226 BC   -  2193 BC
3600 BC  2027 BC   -  1994 BC
3400 BC  1961 BC   -  1928 BC
3200 BC  1928 BC   ?   ?
(3100 BC)
(2686 BC)


So, to resume (if you skipped the tables), and ignoring Ussher, the carbon dated time from 13 100 BC to 3400 BC, 9700 years, boil down to dates like between 2865 or even 2903 BC and 2208 BC - at most 700 years according to Syncellus - or like between 2850 BC and 1928 BC - at most 900 years, according to one try on St Jerome's chronology.

Funny, I recall starting to do details of one of the tables and then not finishing, I counted on finishing today and saw the work already done, was I doing it in a trance, or was a hacker benevolent and intelligent enough to finish my work for me?

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Feast of the Immaculate Heart
of the Blessed Virgin Mary
22.VIII.2017

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