A GREAT COMET AND CEREMONIAL SITE DEVELOPMENT AT NABTA PLAYA

Abstract

Modern scientific tools and methods are playing an increasing role in illuminating key aspects of past activities of humans on Earth. Such approaches complement the more usual archaeological methods. Excavations at Nabta Playa, in the Western Desert of southern Egypt, have yielded evidence of regularly arrayed buildings in the Neolithic period, tumuli for cattle, hearths for animal sacrifices and megaliths aligned in a plurality of directions (Malville et al., 1998; Malville et al., 2008; Wendorf et al., 1993; Kobusiewicz and Schild, 2005). The area became habitable when monsoon rains collected in a large basin 11,000-4800 years ago (Wendorf et al., 1993). The structure and location of a stone circle there (Malville et al., 1998; Malville et al., 2008) associates the Sun (Malville et al., 1998), the celestial pole (Malville et al., 1998) and the Bull’s Thigh constellation (Ursa Major) (Haynie, 2014). Aligned megaliths radiate outward from a central complex, apparently having targeted the brightest heavenly bodies, based on comparisons of megalith coordinates and star positions (Malville et al., 2008; Haynie, 2014). If Nabta Playa had a unified design, the megaliths were positioned c. 4300 BC, but the southernmost alignment to the northeast did not point at a notable star (Haynie, 2014). The unified design hypothesis is consistent with a combination of celestial and terrestrial targeting. Here, a consensus megalithic alignment date is shown to coincide with a computed apparition of a great comet. Ritualistic activities at Nabta Playa may have sought to align key “inhabitants” of the heavenly and earthly realms.