Everybody knows about the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt: they are, after all one of the original "seven wonders" of the world, and have been for the nearly 5,000 years they've been standing. But 4,000 years before the pyramids were built, Egypt was even then a terrifically interesting place.
Reconstruction of the Nabta Playa Stone Circle at Aswan Nubia Museum. Photo by Raymbetz
The site of Nabta Playa is one of several Neolithic sites located in the Nabta Playa-Kiseiba region which has been investigated since the 1970s by a joint Polish-American team led by Romuald Schild at the Polish Academy of Sciences and Fred Wendorf at Southern Methodist University in Texas. Their investigations there have identified evidence for the domestication of cattle and pearl millet, the first pottery in Africa, and even an early astronomical observatory, shown in the reconstruction above.
Welcome to my fascination!
Comments