The Astronomers of Nabta Playa - Gaffney Edition

7/28/2019 The Astronomers of Nabta Playa - Gaffney Edition

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ANCIENTMYSTERIES

BY M ARK H. GAFFNEY

ccording to most experts the dawn of Western civilization oc-curred in the fourth millennium B.C. with the sudden flow-ering of Sumer in southern Iraq and Pharaonic Egypt soonafter. This is the mainstream view that was taught when I was

a college student. Increasingly, however, it is under assault. Recent dis-coveries are challenging almost everything we thought we knew abouthuman history. In 1973 a team of archaeologists made such a discoverywhile traveling through a remote region in southern Egypt. They werenavigating by compass through a trackless waste known as the NabtaPlaya and had halted for a water break, when they noticed potsherds at

their feet. Fragments of old pottery frequently are an indicator of ar-chaeological potential, and the team returned later to investigate. Afterseveral seasons of digging they eventually realized that Nabta Playa wasnot just another neolithic site. The breakthrough came when they dis-covered that what had looked like rock outcroppings were in factstanding megalithic stones.

They also found a circle of smaller stones, which in photos look likederelict rocks. Nearby, the arrangement of larger megaliths sprawlsover a broad area. The wind-swept site is desolate beyond belief. Butthousands of years ago this forbidding waste was a well-watered grass-land and seasonally, at least, well peopled.

Today we know that the great megaliths of Nabta Playa are anythingbut random stones. Long ago, someone relocated them from a still un-known quarrybut for what purpose? Subsequent excavations led byFred Wendorf, one of the discoverers and a much traveled archaeolo-

gist, turned up an abundance of cultural artifacts, which were radio-carbon dated. The ages ranged from 10,000 B.C. to 3,000 B.C., with mostof the dates clustered around 6,000 B.C., when the climate was muchwetter than now. The Nabta Playa is a basin and during this epoch it

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filled with seasonal lakes. Excavationsthrough the 812 feet of sediments laiddown during this period showed that some ofthe megaliths had been buried intentionally.The team also found strange carvings in thebedrock under the sedimentsevidence ofgreat antiquity.

The archaeologists mapped the area andused global positioning technology (GPS) toplot the locations of 25 individual megaliths.

Many others remain to be plotted. Fortu-nately, the sites remoteness protected itfrom most human disturbance. Though themapping data hinted at astronomical signifi-cance, Wendorfs team searched in vain forthe key to unlock the site. In 2001 they pre-sented their research in a book edited byWendorf, Holocene Settl ement of the Egyp-tian Sahara. The two-volume study makesfor interesting reading. But its authors hadfew answers.

However, even as Wendorfs book was inpress, a former NASA physicist namedThomas Brophy was quietly pursuing his ownastronomical study of Nabta Playa. Brophy

had already reviewed the sparse data pub-lished in Nature in 1998, and after Wendorfsmore extensive data became available his nas-cent theories fell into place. In 2002 Brophypresented his findings in The Origin Map. Be-cause the available astronomy software wasinadequate Brophy had to custom-engineerhis own. Thus armed, he was able to trackstar movements at Nabta Playa over thou-sands of years, and succeeded in decoding thestone circle and nearby megaliths. The Cal-

Number 56 ATLANTIS RISING 4

endar Circle has a built-in meridian-line anda sight-lineboth conspicuouswhich in-dicated to Brophy that the circle was a user-friendly star-viewing platform. Its design wasso simple that even a novice could have used

it. A night viewer between 64004900B.C.

stood at the north end of the meridian axisand allowed himself to be guided by threestones at his feet to the constellation Orionoverhead. The correspondence betweenground and sky would have been self-evident:The three stones within the outer circle arelaid out in the precise pattern of the stars ofOrions famous belt, before summer solsticeas indicated by the Calendar Circle itself.Once the pattern becomes familiar it is un-mistakable.

In another section of his book Brophyconcluded that Robert Bauval and Adrian Gil-bert were at least part ly correct i n their 1992study, The Ori on Mystery, in which theyclaimed that Giza had a similar plannedstructure. Bauval and Gilbert argued that thepyramids of Giza were constructed to mirrorheaven, laid out on the ground to representthese same three stars of Orions belt.

Here, then, at Nabta Playa, was evidenceof a common astronomical tradition of aston-ishing longevity. Just to give you some idea,modern astronomy is about 500 years old,yet, the astronomy common to both Giza andNabta Playa survived for at least 6,0007,000 years, possibly longer. The shared as-tronomy also suggests a shared cultural t ra-dition. In fact, Wendorfs team amassed con-siderable evidence of overlap between the

neolithic Nabta culture and the much laterOld Kingdom of Pharaonic Egypt, when pyr-amid building reached its zenith. It is inter-esting that more than a century ago FlindersPetrie, one of the founders of Egyptology, ar-rived at a similar conclusion. Petrie found ev-idence that the enigmatic Sphinx was not anEgyptian sculptural form at all, but had origi-nated in Ethiopia.

Brophys findings also support the work ofgeologist Robert Schoch, who recently foundtelltale evidence of water erosion on the

Physicist Thomas Brophy beside megalith A-O


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OLDPUMPS NABTAPLAYA

Continued from Page 43Cadman went on to explain, I am situ-

ated on some land that has a creek in a re-mote location. I needed to transfer waterfrom it to a garden area about 300 feet away.There isnt electricity available at the pumpsite so I needed a water pump that was fullyautomatic and didnt utilize electricity. Thatis precisely what Kunkel had suggested forthe subterranean pump.

Cadmans pump, once started, requiresonly one valve at a time and can run indefi-nitely. He describes it as a pump and hy-draulic pulse generator. By the latter termhe means that it is capable of generatingseismic shock waves. When I first started, Ithought it was merely a pump, he explained,After extensive study of the overall layout, itbecame evident thatthe water pump as-pect was a by-product.The primary functionis to send seismicshock waves up to-wards the Kings and

Queens chambers. Al-though I say thatsthe primary function,it also pumps watervery well.

To make his point,Cadman offered ananalogy, If someonehad never been ex-posed to an automo-bile engine, an initialobservation might bethat it was a gas-firedheater. After all, en-gines put out lots ofheat. But the heat isthe by-product. Theprimary function isthe creation of di-rected force. Thatsalso the function ofThe Great Pyramidssubterranean section.It causes the Kingschamber to resonate.

Such a theory, of course, suggests thework of engineer Chris Dunn, who hasargued in his book, The Giza Power Plant,that the Great Pyramid is a machine createdby ancient engineers to produce power.Cadman agrees and adds that Basically, the

subterranean chamber assembly was themotor for the power plant.

Cadman also believes Theres the possi-bility that the resonance of the pyramid ener-gized the pyramid shape. According to JoeParrs research, the resonating of the shapecauses a mass particle to form where theQueens chamber is located. Joe Parr has ex-tensive research in this area. His work is sim-ilar to Dr. William A. Tillers work.

We wanted to know, how does the pumpoperate if it doesnt use an external powersource?

The pump, he offered, requires a differ-

ence in heights of the water source and thepump assembly. For my pump model, thereis a 3-1/2 foot drop from the water supply tothe pump assembly. Water is fed from thesource down through a pipe into the pump.The basic design utilizes the force of fallingwater to elevate part of the water. Waterflows down the drive pipe into the compres-sion chamber. Water escapes from the wastevalve until the waters velocity forces thevalve shut. When the valve shuts, the waterstops flowing instantaneously and causes thewater to compress, resulting in a compres-sion wave, or shock wave, which emanatesfrom the valve area. In the driveline, thewater reverses direction until the shock wavereaches air and returns down the pipe. In theoutput line, a high-pressure surge passesthrough the check valve. This surge is atleast fifty times (3,360 psi at Giza) the staticwater pressure of the compression chamber.

When the compression wave leaves the com-pression chamber, a low-pressure situationexists. The low pressure is equal and oppo-site to the compression wave. This immedi-ately re-opens the waste valve, and the cyclebegins again.

If a larger pump were built, would it becapable of lifting the heaviest stones used inthe construction of the Great Pyramid?

Yes, said Cadman.

Richard Noone is author of the 1980sbest sell er5/5/2000, in whi ch he argued insupport of Edward Kunkels theories re-garding t he Great Pyrami d as a pump. Formore informat ion on John Cadmans pumpsee: http://www.sentinelkennels.com/Re-search_Article_V41.html. On Chris Dunnsee: ht tp://gi zapower.com.

Cadmans pump working in Washington state.

Sphinx indicating that the most enigmsculpture on the planet dates to this sawetter epoch, or before. Schochs analflew squarely in the face of mainstream Egtology, which continues to insist on a mlater date. A confirmed link between Giza Nabta Playa would lay to rest any douabout the relevance of Nabta Playa becauseits remoteness. Far from being disconnecfrom the mainstream of the emerging Egtian cultural tradition, at one time NaPlaya may even have been the center of it a

While all of this is extraordinary, Bropconclusions about the other nearby melithic formation are mind-numbing. Brothinks this other construction may be a smap, the creation of which required a knoedge of astronomy that rivaled and may evhave surpassed our own. Brophys consions are highly controversial, but his wdeserves close attention, because if he is crect we have barely begun to understa

where we came from.So, what do the Nabta megaliths tel

after thousands of years of silence? Their signers placed them in straight lines that diate out from a central point. The arranment employed a simple star-coordinsystem that assigned two stones per star. Oaligned with the star itself and markedvernal equinox heliacal (i.e., rising togetwith the sun on the first day of spring) potion on the horizon. The other aligned witreference star, in this case Vega, thus fixthe first stars rising at a specific date in tory. In archaeoastronomy single megalialignments with stars are considered dubi

because at any given time several stars rise at or within a few degrees of the pointthe horizon denoted by a lone marker. Olong periods of time many different stars rise over this position. The creators of NaPlaya eliminated uncertainty with the Valignment and the specificity of verequinox heliacal rising, which occurs oonce every 26,000 years for a given star. Tfixed the stars rising date. Vega was a logchoice because it is the fifth brightest stathe heavens and dominated the northern in this early period. Brophy found that sixthe megaliths corresponded with the six portant stars in Orion (Alnitak, Alnilam, M

taka, Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, and Meissa), aconfirming his analysis of the nearby cirTheir placement marked the vernal heliarising of these stars, which occurred aro6,300 B.C., within about twenty years. Tsecond set of reference stones were keyedthe heliacal rising of Vega, which occurredthe autumnal equinox. In the seventh mi llnium B.C. the Nabta plain was a busy place

The heliacal rising of a star occurs wherises above the horizon with the mornsun. A vernal heliacal rising describes same event on the day of the spring equinwhich is much rarer. Using a conserva


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the famous pyramids was left tochance. Every angle, every rela-tionship, every aspect, had a definite purpose.Brophy merely guessed that the same mighthold at Nabta Playa. So, what did the variabledistances of the megaliths from the centralpoint represent? After considering a number

of alternatives, just for fun Brophy theorized:What if the distances on the ground wereproportional to the actual distances of thestars from earth? When he looked up the cur-rent best measurements as determined bythe Hipparcos Space Astronomy Satellite,Brophy was blown away. They matched ineach case to within about a standard devia-tion. The proportional scale turned out to beone meter on the ground at Nabta = .799light years. The match is more than aston-ishing, as Brophy writes, because even withmodern technology the science of measuringthe distances to stars is a tricky and imper-

Gigantic Megalith X-1 is the largest at Nabta Playa. When whole, its longest dimension was over 12 feet. Like many megaliths at Nabta, was broken or cut apart, possibly intentionally, in ancient times. Directly behind X-1 is a partner megalith more than 7 feet long. Thesemegaliths set atop a knoll which appears to be shaped as a mound inside a spiral pattern. (Thomas Brophy)

A very finelyworked CalendarCircle stone (about2 feet) toppled outof its place. Itappears to beextremely hardlike flint and little

weathered overthe ages.(T. Brophy)

The other end of the sameCalendar Circle stoneshown above.(T. Brophy)

statistical protocol, Brophy calculated theprobability that the megalithic alignments atNabta were random at less than two chancesin a million, which, as he writes is morethan a thousand times as certain as the usualthree standard deviations requirement for ac-cepting a scientific hypothesis as valid. Theonly reasonable conclusion is that the staralignments at Nabta Playa were carefullyplannedno accident.

But hold on, because from here Brophyventures into wild territory. He was puzzledby the fact that the Nabta megaliths were notplaced at uniform distances from the centralpoint. Brophy writes: If the varied distancesdidnt have a purpose, one would expect theskilled Nabta Playa designers to have used amore pleasing arrangement...[therefore] thedistance placements are suggestive of ameaningful pattern. Students of the Gizaplateau have often remarked that no detail of

fect business. Current best measures of distance must be regarded as approximationBrophys conclusion bears repeating: these star distances are the intendemeaning of the Nabta Playa map, and are no

coincidence, then much of what we think wknow about prehistoric human civilizationmust be revisited.

Brophy believes information about threlative velocit ies of stars, and their massemay also be encoded in the placements. Anhe thinks that smaller companion stonelying near the base of some of the large megaliths probably represent companion stars, oeven planetary systems. Unfortunately, thcannot be tested at present because atronomy is not yet able to observe earth-sizeplanets across the reaches of space. Rapstrides are being made, however. A numbe

Worked and finely shaped megaliths that were on top of C omplex Structure A. Thefootprints at left indicate scale. (Thomas Brophy)


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NABTAPLAYA

of Jupiter-sized giants have already been de-tected and resolving power continues to im-prove. Soon we may know if Brophys stag-gering idea is correct.

A Gala xy Map?

Nabta Playa held othersurprises. The location of thestar maps central point ini-

tially drew the attention ofWendorfs team because acomplex structure of mega-liths had been placed there.One large stone stoodsquarely at the central point,surrounded by others. Nu-merous other stone com-plexes had also been placedin the vicinity. These ap-peared to be burial moundsand when the archaeologistsexcavated two of them theteam expected to uncover mortuary remains.Instead, they dug through 12 feet of Holo-cene sediments to bedrock and found bizarrecarved sculptures, which they never did ex-plain. Later, Brophy examined these in lightof the deciphered star map and was blownaway again. He realized that whoever createdNabta Playa might have been in possession ofadvanced knowledge about our Milky Waygalaxy. The bedrock sculpture appears to be amade-to-scale map of the Milky Way asviewed from the outside, i.e., from the per-spective of the north galactic pole. The mapcorrectly indicates the position, scale, and or-ientation of our sun, and the placements ofthe spiral arms, the galactic center, even theassociated Sagittarius dwarf galaxy that wasonly discovered in 1994. Although Wendorfs

excavation had dismantled the stone complexon the surface in the process of exhumingthe underlying sculpture, Brophy was able todetermine from Wendorfs accurate dia-grams/maps that the central point was di-rectly aboveand surely representedthecorrect position of our sun on the galaxymap. Brophy then made another key dis-covery: One of the megalithic sight linesstood in relation to the galactic center. Itsalignment marked the galactic centersvernal heliacal rising circa 17,700 B.C..Amazingly, the orientation of the galacticplane in the sculpture also jibed with thisdate. Brophy concluded that the stone sculp-

ture was a map of the Milky Way as seenfrom the standpoint of the northern galacticpole. Next, he turned his attention to thesecond stone complex excavated by Wen-dorfs team which, likewise, had produced nomortuary remains. Its size and placementsuggested that it was a map of Andromeda,our sister galaxy. Calculations showed thatits sizeabout double the Milky Wayand its placement may be consistent with An-dromedas known size/location.

As for Nabta Playas other stone com-plexes, they have not yet been investigated...

Giza: A Pr ecessional Calenda r?Brophy also conducted his own indepen-

dent investigation of Giza, and there toofound evidence the designers knew about thegalactic center. Brophys powerful softwareenabled him to refine Robert Bauvals esti-mate of the great pyramids correlation date.

Brophy agrees that the fa-mous star shafts serve as

markers that fix the date ofcorrelation to within anarrow window. When

Brophy precessed the skyabove Giza he found that the

best shaft alignment oc-curred around 2,360B.C.

about a half-century laterthan Bauvals date. Bauvalargued that the southern

shaft of the Kings Chamberaligned with Orion at thetime of construction. But

Brophy found that the last ofthe three stars of Orions

belt, Al Nitak (Zeta Orionis)aligned with the southern

shaft more than a century before. Thesouthern star shafts alignment with the ga-

lactic center at the time of pyramid construc-tion also corroborated his findings at NabtaPlaya.

Assuming that the layout at Giza is amirror of Orions belt, when exactly did thisoccur? Bauvals preferred date is 10,500 BC,long before the pyramids were actually built,when the three stars of Orions belt reachedtheir southern culmination of the 26,000year precessional cycle. When Brophy testedthis idea, however, he discovered anotherlayer of complexity. He found that theground mirrored heaven on two dates: in11,772 B.C. and again in 9,420 B.C. Brophyconcluded that the construction was never

intended to designate Orions southern cul-mination, as Bauval argued, but rather tobracket the epoch in which this occurred.The two dates also bracket another impor-tant event, the northern culmination of thegalactic center at around 11,000B.C. In otherwords, Giza was constructed as a zodiacalclock, set in stone to the grand precessionalcycle. This supports the view that the sitesastronomy long predated the actual pyramidconstruction.

Fully cognizant of the revolutionary na-ture of his analysis, Brophy wisely makes nofinal pronouncements in his book. He merelypresents his findings as a working hypothesis

and invites others to investigate further. For-tunately, many of his ideas are testable. Sofar, only 25 Nabta stones have been plottedwith GPS, and only two of at least thirtystone complexes have been excavated. Timewill surely tell ...

Mark Gaffney is author ofDimona theThird Temple? (1989), a study of Israels nu-clear weapons progr am. Hi s lat est i sGnosticSecrets of the Naassenes (2004), an investi -gation of a third-century Gnostic sourcetext. E-mail him at: [email protected]. His web site is www.gnos-ticsecrets.com.

STEPHENBUHNER

Continued from Page 45

a part icular integration with earth and plaand water. Buhner noticed that his gregrandfathers feet seemed to interact wthe tension of the soil; the soles of his feseemed to speak to it as they walked in lence to a favorite pond. Sometimes

would drop a word into the silence likestone into the water and the words meanwould send ripples through us until thebbed, slowed, and stopped, he recaStill, even then I knew those words were necessary. For in our time together we wdoing something without words that humahave done for millennia. As we lay with smells, the sounds and the feeling of thplace, deep inside something would leave body and enter mine. I would breathe it ime as slowly as I breathed in his smell; somthing in my soul found purchase in it. It wa food without which I could not becohuman. Buhner says this mysteriotransfer is always passed in silence betwethe man and the boy, between the womand the gir l. I t is handed down from one terior world to the next. Its essence pentrates the muscles of the body, the oxygenthe blood, the substance of the spiri t. Athis was the time in which I first tasted wwater.

It is this experience, the transfer of soessence, that Buhner feels is the crux of tknowingness. Its something he says cant captured with words, nor even in the systeof mathematics. While many people smathematics as a universal, unbiased lguage that can explain everything around Buhner finds it limiting. Its just a languag

another interpretation of experience, he plains. The real deal is that inexplicatransfer of energy/emotion that occurs whwe connect with someone we know incrowd, or encounter a puppy, or a plant. TGreeks had a word for thisaisthesis: It meato breathe in, and comes closest to epressing soul essence. It is the hearts abto perceive meaning from the worBuhner further explains the phenomenoneliciting a gasp and a touch, as when react in awe to a sight like the GraCanyon, when we recognize our friend amove to greet or embrace them, or when puppy runs toward us for that rollicking, u

bounded frolic. Aisthesisdenotes the mment in which a flow of life force, imbuwith communications, moves from oli ving organism to another, he states. I t taking in of the world, a taking in of soucommunications. When we experience tsharing of soul essence, we have a direct eperience that we are not alone in the worlIts a matter, he says, of using the heart as organ of perception, a skill weve ceded to head for far too long.

Throughout the world there is a traditof direct perception of nature through the telligence of the heart. Buhner also mentio

A quartzitesandstone

monolith atNabta Playa.

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