Strange Women Lying in Ponds

The Nabta Playa, is arguable the oldest archeoastronomical site in the world, pre-dating Stonehenge by over 1,000 years.

Located in Egypt, the site is .8 miles wide by 1.8 miles long, and includes “10 slabs some 9 feet high, 30 rock-lined ovals, nine burial sites for cows, each under a pile of 40 to 50 rocks weighing up to 200 or 300 pounds apiece, and a “calendar circle” of stones.“  

Because the site is located near the Tropic of Cancer, the position of the midday sun is at its zenith 3 weeks before and after the summer solstice, which prevents objects from casting shadows, and the vertical stones in the circle correspond to the zenith sun during the summer solstice. For ancient cultures, this astronomical date would have been significant.

“Paul Powlesland of Lawyers for Nature said the protections given to birds’ nests in the Wildlife and Countryside Act were woefully inadequate. “Even where nests are in active use, it’s hard to get evidence of their destruction and the police do not take such crimes seriously.

A painted wood and metal bee keep

The daughters of desperation. 1904. Title page.

Fountain in Garden William Bright Morris (British, 1844–1912)