Discovering the Ancient Stonehenge of Africa_ The Nabta Playa

Stonehenge of Africa located around 700 miles south of the Great Pyramid of Giza and about 60 miles west of the Nile lies a stone complex that rivals even the famous Stonehenge of England It is known as the Nabta Playa The Nabta Playa was first discovered in the 1970s by a team of archaeologists They found a series of stone structures that appeared to be aligned with the stars leading some to refer to the site as the Stonehenge of Africa But unlike its more famous counterpart in England the Nabta Playa is much older dating back over 7,000 years The site includes a series of stone circles megaliths and other structures which are thought to have been used for astronomical observations and as a calendar to track the changing seasons The ancient people who built these structures were likely nomadic herders who traveled through the region with their animals The most significant structure of the Nabta Playa is the calendar stone circle which is made up of four pairs of large stones and an assortment of smaller ones Archaeoastronomers and archaeologists confirmed in a study published in 2007 that the stones were possibly aligned with the stars Sirius and Arcturus the star system Alpha Centauri and the belt of Orion You should also know that the site's historic importance was threatened after tourists and visitors began defacing the stones and moving them around eventually changing the alignment