That Mysterious Sculpted Stone at Nabta Playa — Sahara

Has anyone actually seen the totality of the sculpted stone found buried in a large pit beneath one of the mounds at the research area or former occupied zone there? It was a site that Romuald Schild was working some years back. I bought this book called EGYPT UNCOVERED by Vivian Davies and Renee Friedman found on page 21 of that book. Much has transpired since that book came out and I believe that there is much evidence to say that something massive happened to the Sahara some 12,900 years ago. I have said elsewhere that I think the area was the site of a highly advanced civilization that was totally annihilated by some object/s that hit in the Chad Area. We know the former inhabitants were highly sophisticated due to the evidence they tried to leave behind for us to examine. There is much we can learn from this site.

Anyway, I must see some photos of that sculpted stone. Does anyone have a photo or photos of the thing after it was taken out of the pit?

Please help.

Orion

The site of the stone-CIRCLE was vandalized by unknown persons. Before it was vandalized/destroyed the stones were apparently laid out in a pattern representing the milky way (indicating advanced astronomical knowledge).

Thats what I know.

Not sure about the stone you are referring to.

[edit on 1-5-2009 by Skyfloating]

reply to post by Skyfloating


You know people with a less conspiratorial mindset than me wouldn't even think that hiding the truth about our true history,was a concerted effort.
Egypt has marvles yet to be discovered.The E.A.counsel will never let the truth out. It might mean that Egypt wasn't the first civilization.

I think The Terra Papers (linked in my sig) would agree with the idea that something major happened 10,000 - 12,000ish years ago.

And if the Papers are correct... Well, we need a plan to take our planet for our selves. Thus I wrote my FREE book (also linked in my sig), which I think (whether the Papers are "real" or not) shows a path to solving the issues we see in today's world.

Originally posted by daddyroo45
reply to post by Skyfloating

 

You know people with a less conspiratorial mindset than me wouldn't even think that hiding the truth about our true history,was a concerted effort.
Egypt has marvles yet to be discovered.The E.A.counsel will never let the truth out. It might mean that Egypt wasn't the first civilization.

Absurd.

Everyone (but you, apparently) already knows that Egypt wasn't the "first civilization."

Harte

I read an article several months ago from Atlantis Rising about Nabta Playa that intrigued me and have watched some Google/Youtube videos about that place.

I just did a video search for Nabta Playa and found this 10 minute video, prt1 of 15, of Dr. Thomas Brophy speaking at CPAK 2008. Dr. Brophy talks about the Djedefre Sun temple that contains a cartouche and other sites that contain various glyphs.
Warning this is a teaser- parts 2-15 are missing.


It seems that new information is starting to pop up online about this amazing area.

Originally posted by Orion Omegon
I believe that there is much evidence to say that something massive happened to the Sahara some 12,900 years ago.
Orion

Rain

Lost Tribes of the Green Sahara
How a dinosaur hunter uncovered the Sahara's strangest
Stone Age graveyard
ngm.nationalgeographic.com...

For much of the past 70,000 years, the Sahara has closely resembled the desert it is today. Some 12,000 years ago, however, a wobble in the Earth's axis and other factors caused Africa's seasonal monsoons to shift slightly north, bringing new rains to an area nearly the size of the contiguous United States. Lush watersheds stretched across the Sahara, from Egypt to Mauritania, drawing animal life and eventually people.

Originally posted by Harte

Originally posted by daddyroo45
reply to post by Skyfloating

 

You know people with a less conspiratorial mindset than me wouldn't even think that hiding the truth about our true history,was a concerted effort.
Egypt has marvles yet to be discovered.The E.A.counsel will never let the truth out. It might mean that Egypt wasn't the first civilization.

Absurd.

Everyone (but you, apparently) already knows that Egypt wasn't the "first civilization."

Harte

I don't believe that Egypt was the first civilization. Egyptologists and historians CLAIM that Egypt was the first.

Originally posted by daddyroo45

I don't believe that Egypt was the first civilization. Egyptologists and historians CLAIM that Egypt was the first.

Actually, they don't (at least they don't if they've been alive and reading all the research that's come out over the past 50 years. They all are well aware of the older material around the Levant an in India and elsewhere. It and Sumeria and Harappa were the first large scale civilizations (kingdoms, basically), but hardly the first civilizations.

If you read boards where historians and archaeologists and Egyptologists hang out, you'll see that the above statement is true.

Originally posted by Pauligirl

Originally posted by Orion Omegon
I believe that there is much evidence to say that something massive happened to the Sahara some 12,900 years ago.
Orion

Rain

Lost Tribes of the Green Sahara
How a dinosaur hunter uncovered the Sahara's strangest
Stone Age graveyard
ngm.nationalgeographic.com...

For much of the past 70,000 years, the Sahara has closely resembled the desert it is today. Some 12,000 years ago, however, a wobble in the Earth's axis and other factors caused Africa's seasonal monsoons to shift slightly north, bringing new rains to an area nearly the size of the contiguous United States. Lush watersheds stretched across the Sahara, from Egypt to Mauritania, drawing animal life and eventually people.

Very cool article -- you should have put that one in its own thread!! That was the end of the Younger Dryas; the end of the last deep Ice Age, and global climates were changing rapidly. But because the Sahara is awash in sand, there's not much known about the people of the "Green Sahara."

Interesting skeleton... whoever it was died at about age 20.

Here's more about Nabta Playa. I don't think the stones are "sculpted" as we think of them, though they do contain petroglyphs ("rock art.")

wysinger.homestead.com...

reply to post by Pauligirl
Nice one for posting the link There's an accompanying photoset that's incredible...Green Sahara. Your link adds a lot more depth. I posted a thread about it called Archaeology and Giraffes as an excuse to share those pictures. My favourite is the petroglyph of a giraffe with a ring and leash through it's nose, but the one with the mother and children skeletons holding hands is fairly moving too

reply to post by Orion Omegon


My repy was going to be about the circle monoliths found in 1973.
[Edit - seemd Byrd beat me to this link, darn that woman]

Reading your post again made me realize you could not be talking about them, since they were not buried.

quote Orion Omegon

sculpted stone found buried in a large pit beneath one of the mounds

So, starting over by looking up Romuald Schild led me an article with his email address.

The Megaliths of Nabta Playa (PDF)

Perhaps you can ask him for pics and info, and let us know whats up.

Anyway, in the article he writes about the stone circle's being found in 1973, and then going back (in the 1990's?), digging them up, and what they found in a pit below it.

Several years later, we decided to open three of them. Much to our chagrin, they yielded almost nothing.

All three, however, had enormous pits excavated in the lake clays underneath the surface blocks. The pits led to a mushroom-like sandstone rock, a natural phenomenon formed by the desert winds well before the deposition of the lake clays.

The rocks were slightly worked by knapping to form a mysterious, crude, nose-like projecting point at the northern side of the rock. Afterwards, the pit was refilled with the previously excavated clay. One of the pits had a piece of charcoal that radiocarbon dated between 5,600 and 5,500 years ago, thus situating the moment of construction in time.

Does he mean the archeologists refilled the clay into the pit, or that the original sculptors refilled the clay, or both?


There is a photo found of google images under the title; Nabta Playa. It seems to fit the description, (mushroom like, carved to a point on the "nose"), but I could not say its an image of it for sure.

Copyright prevents posting the pic here, but the page it is in provides contact info for the photographer.

Link to image.
www.trekearth.com...


[edit on 5/2/09 by makeitso]

Originally posted by makeitso
The Megaliths of Nabta Playa (PDF)
Does he mean the archeologists refilled the clay into the pit, or that the original sculptors refilled the clay, or both?

Reading the article from Byrd's link, although rather ambiguous, reveals the back filling was done by the original sculptors.

Another major feature at Nabta is a group of thirty "complex structures."... they have been built over large mushroom-shaped tablerocks. The tablerocks were shaped by years and years of erosion and then covered by two to three and a half meters of playa clays and silts...The largest excavated structure reveals that a large pit was dug before the erection of the walls...It was dug down to the tablerock. They shaped the rock to have three convex sides and one side that was worked to form a straight edge that face north. In the pit they placed another large shaped stone or sculpture that resembled a cow or some other large animal...Once the sculpture was in place and the pit was completely backfilled, the surface stones were then erected and placed into position. The actual function of the complex remains a mystery.

Homestead.com

What are the mushroom-shaped tablerocks, what caused them to be covered by several meters of mud and why are these structures called tumuli? It seems the evidence shows that they are astronomical markers and not graves.

Originally posted by Devino
what caused them to be covered by several meters of mud and why are these structures called tumuli? It seems the evidence shows that they are astronomical markers and not graves.

I think there is some confusion because there are 4 distinct types of artifacts in close proximity.

The link to Romuald Schild's PDF I posted The Megaliths of Nabta Playa provides a little bit of clarity on that in the paragraph titled; "The valley of Sacrifices".

the discovery of Nabta Playa, a huge paleolake basin with hundreds of Stone Age camps, tumuli, groups of megalithic structures and alignments of stelae.

The megaliths of Nabta Playa stretch for about 2,500 meters, in an approximately north-south direction, with a slight deviation toward the west. There are several separate groups of megaliths.

Beginning from the north, there is a group of about ten preserved tumuli built of broken sandstone blocks, placed along the rocky west bank of a shallow wadi valley entering the basin from the north.

This wadi ends in a small cromlech – a stone circle – that has been identified as a calendar, placed on top of a small sandy knoll.

Then he provides a bit of detail about the tumuli.

The tumuli included offerings of large articulating pieces of butchered cattle, goats, sheep and perhaps also humans. The largest and conceivably oldest tumulus contained an entire young cow – the most precious offering a herder could make – placed in an elaborate chamber covered by a tamarisk roof. This sacrificial cow was laid to rest here some 7,400 years ago. Because of the tumuli’s clearly sacrificial function, we named this shallow wadi the valley of sacrifices.

[edit on 5/3/09 by makeitso]

It's another independent site, and I think it is far more intriguing than what has been discovered at Nabta so far. It seems to be the least talked about.

www.comp-archaeology.org...

... Among the most interesting features at Nabta is the group of thirty "complex structures" located in an area about 500 meters long and 200 meters wide, on a high remnant of playa clays and silts about a kilometer south of the large settlement which yielded so many bones of cattle. Each of these structures consists of a group of large, elongated, roughly shaped or unshaped sandstone blocks set upright to frame an oval area about five meters in length and four meters in width, oriented slightly west of north. In the center of this oval there is one, sometimes two, very large flat slabs laid horizontally. Two of these structures have been excavated, a third has been tested, and drill-holes have been dug at two others. All are basically similar, although they differ in some details. All of the excavated and tested structures were built over mushroom-shaped tablerocks, the tops of which were deeply buried (from two to three and a half meters below the surface) in heavy playa clays and silts. These tablerocks are quartzitic lenses in the underlying bedrock which were shaped by erosion of the softer surrounding sediments before the overlying playa sediments were deposited...

I wonder if these are precursors to the Djed pillars?