Nabta Playa was once a large internally drained basin in the Nubian Desert, located approximately 800 kilometers south of modern-day Cairo or about 100 kilometers west of Abu Simbel in southern Egypt,[ 22.51° north, 30.73° east.Today the region is characterized by numerous archaeological sites.The Nabta Playa archaeological site, one of the earliest of the Egyptian Neolithic Period, is dated to circa 7500 BC
Although today the western Egyptian desert is totally dry, this was not always the case. There is good evidence that there were several humid periods in the past (when up to 500 mm of rain would fall per year), the most recent one during the last interglacial and early last glaciation periods which stretched between 130,000 and 70,000 years ago. During this time, the area was a savanna and supported numerous animals such as extinct buffalo and large giraffes, varieties of antelope and gazelle. Beginning around the 10th millennium BCE, this region of the Nubian Desert began to receive more rainfall, filling a lake. Early people may have been attracted to the region due to the source of water.
Archaeological findings may indicate human occupation in the region dating to at least somewhere around the 10th and 8th millennium BC. 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 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.
Settlement of the Egyptian Sahara", based on osteological data suggests a sub-Saharan African origin for the site’s inhabitants, A dental and skeletal analyses by Joel D. Irish also suggests a mainly sub-Saharan African affinity and origin for Nabta Playa’s inhabitants. Some researchers, including Christopher Ehret, have suggested a Nilo-Saharan linguistic affinity for the Nabta people.
By the 7th millennium BC, exceedingly large and organized settlements were found in the region, relying on deep wells for sources of water.Huts were constructed in straight rows. Sustenance included fruit, legumes, millets, sorghum and tubers.
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, appear. Many large hearths also appear
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.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:
… there are many aspects of political and ceremonial life in prehistoric Egypt and the Old Kingdom that reflects a strong impact from Saharan cattle pastoralists …
Other subterranean complexes are also found in Nabta Playa, one of which included evidence of what Wendorf described as perhaps “the oldest known sculpture in Egypt
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 4800 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 BCE and 4900 BC, matching the radio-carbon dating of campfires around the circle
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