Nabta Playa
A stone circle in the Egyptian desert aligned on the solstice, a thousand years before Stonehenge.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 600 years
- Known to
- ± 200 years
- Era
- Neolithic, Holocene
Cattle-herding people at Nabta Playa in the Nubian desert leave a small circle of upright slabs with sight lines that appear to mark the summer solstice sunrise — significant there because the solstice coincided with the arrival of the monsoon rains that filled the seasonal lake. The site also contains megalithic alignments and cattle burials. It is among the oldest known constructions with a plausible astronomical purpose.