This lecture, which was the first to be televised by the Explorers Club, identifies two sets of Neolithic symbols, which are so similar, despite being separated by the entire length of the Sahara Desert, that the resemblances might indicate a link. It determines that the sets’ ages seem to overlap at the beginning of the 4th millennium BC and weighs the probability of a westward versus an eastward transfer around that time. Finally, it shows that one explanation for the similarities might be the arrival in the Nile Valley of refugees who fled the rapid desertification of the period by retracing the steps of pastoral ancestors. If this scenario is correct, some of the elements of Egyptian theology that became the prerogatives of royalty and rationale for kingship, including the Horus-Osiris cycle, arrived from the west as the result of a primordial exodus caused by climate change.
The presentation is based on a peer-reviewed article entitled “Western Saharan Sculptural Families and the Possible Origins of the Osiris-Horus Cycle,” which appeared in Rock Art Research (2013, Vol. 30, No. 2: 174-196).
I apologize for misspeaking at one point & saying that the New Kingdom was 1200 years ago. I meant to say that it was around 1200 BCE.
