Africa Astronomy: The Stone Calendar of Nabta Playa, Nubia

By even the more conservative estimate, these are by far the most certain ancient megalithic astronomical alignments known in the world. — Thomas G. Brophy, archaeoastronomer and former NASA scientist, 2002.

SITUATING NABTA PLAYA, NUBIA
The Nabta Playa basin is located 800 kilometres south of modern day Cairo and 100 kilometres from Abu Simbel in the Nubian desert. Even though the area is very dry today, it was not the case around the 5th millennium BC, when this area experienced much rainfall and humidity.

STONE CALENDAR
Archaelogical finds show evidence of advanced level of human habitation and organisation thousands of years before Christ.

Research has shown that these people established a prehistoric stone calendar, one of the earliest astronomical sites in the Kemetic/Nubian civilisations that sprang up in this region, which predates Stonehenge in England. This astronomical monument consists of hundreds of prehistoric tumuli, stelae, and megalithic structures.

After numerous studies, scientsist like Thomas G. Brophy and Fred Wendorf concluded that the Nabta Playa astronomical site:
• Marks two significant celestial events – the summer solstice, which is associated with the onset of summer rains, and the arrangement of stars in the night sky, which they used to guide themselves across the desert;
• Is built precisely on what was then the Tropic of Cancer, the sun’s furthest North point of travel;
• Has stones which match the belt of Orion at its minimum tilt and the shoulder and head stars of Orion at their maximum tilt.
• Has stones aligned to rising of stars (Belt of Orion, Sirius, Arcturus, Taurus and Alpha Centauri)
• Represents a map of the heavens over a 26,000 year long period, the length of the procession of the equinoxes to complete the cycle, incidentally the same length as the Mayan calendar, that is about to start over again in December 2012;
• Represents a calendar that marks and times the people’s activities such as cattle movements, rainfall, death, earth, sun and stars;
• Matched the distance of the stars from Earth on a scale of 1 meter = 0.799 light years within the margin of error for astronomical distances calculated today.

Sources:

1. blog.world-mysteries.com
2. www.ancient-origins.net
3. wikipedia.org