No. 204

Nabta Playa

On land Egypt & Africa

Travel there with Lyra

Where: Egypt
Built by: Neolithic cattle herders
Era: 7500-3500 BCE
Known for: One of the oldest known stone circles lined up with the sky.
How it ended: The seasonal lake dried up and people moved toward the Nile.

Megaliths from Nabta Playa displaid in the garden of the Aswan Nubia museum — Raymbetz, CC BY-SA 3.0

First pottery with basket-like impressed decorations. Nabta Playa, Early Neolithic 8600-7050 BCE. British Museum — ALFGRN, CC BY-SA 4.0

Nabta Playa artifacts (pottery, ostrich eggshells, flint implements, arrowheads). Early Neolithic (7050-6100 BCE). British Museum — ALFGRN, CC BY-SA 4.0

Lyra Kael can take you here on the globe, tell you the story out loud and answer your questions. Start the time jump.

Background

Nabta Playa was once a large endorheic basin (a temporary lake, or "playa") 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 Nubian Neolithic Period, is dated to circa 7500 BC.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.