Megalithic astronomical alignment
Alineación astronómica megalítica (círculo calendárico)
- Date
- c. 4800 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Nabta Playa, Nubian Desert, Egypt
- Credited to
- Neolithic pastoralists of the eastern Sahara
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A stone circle with windows aligned to north and to the summer solstice sunrise, which announced the monsoon rains, plus megalith alignments towards bright stars. The oldest astronomical construction in Africa.
The precision of the stellar alignments (Malville et al.) is disputed; the calendar circle and solstice orientation are more widely accepted.
What it led to
- Prediction of the rainy season for cattle-herding pastoralists in the Sahara
- A solar and cattle cult that Egyptological tradition links to pharaonic Egypt
- Cooperative labour on cattle burials and megaliths
Built on
- Cattle domestication (aurochs)c. 8500 BCE
- Early cattle herding in the eastern Saharac. 8000 BCE
- Circular enclosure solar observatoryc. 4900 BCE
- Goseck solar enclosure
- Lunar reckoning
Made possible
- Egyptian solar calendar
- Aligned Egyptian architecture