Sahara Desert Was Once Lush and Populated

Windmill knight

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This made me think about the remarks by Fulcanelli about a more ancient 'Egypt'.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060720/sc_space/saharadesertwasoncelushandpopulated

Sahara Desert Was Once Lush and Populated

Bjorn Carey
LiveScience Staff Writer
LiveScience.comThu Jul 20, 2:30 PM ET

At the end of the last Ice Age, the Sahara Desert was just as dry and uninviting as it is today. But sandwiched between two periods of extreme dryness were a few millennia of plentiful rainfall and lush vegetation.

During these few thousand years, prehistoric humans left the congested Nile Valley and established settlements around rain pools, green valleys, and rivers.

The ancient climate shift and its effects are detailed in the July 21 issue of the journal Science.

When the rains came

Some 12,000 years ago, the only place to live along the eastern Sahara Desert was the Nile Valley. Being so crowded, prime real estate in the Nile Valley was difficult to come by. Disputes over land were often settled with the fist, as evidenced by the cemetery of Jebel Sahaba where many of the buried individuals had died a violent death.

But around 10,500 years ago, a sudden burst of monsoon rains over the vast desert transformed the region into habitable land.

This opened the door for humans to move into the area, as evidenced by the researcher's 500 new radiocarbon dates of human and animal remains from more than 150 excavation sites.

"The climate change at [10,500 years ago] which turned most of the [3.8 million square mile] large Sahara into a savannah-type environment happened within a few hundred years only, certainly within less than 500 years," said study team member Stefan Kroepelin of the University of Cologne in Germany.

Frolicking in pools

In the Egyptian Sahara, semi-arid conditions allowed for grasses and shrubs to grow, with some trees sprouting in valleys and near groundwater sources. The vegetation and small, episodic rain pools enticed animals well adapted to dry conditions, such as giraffes, to enter the area as well.

Humans also frolicked in the rain pools, as depicted in rock art from Southwest Egypt.

In the more southern Sudanese Sahara, lush vegetation, hearty trees, and permanent freshwater lakes persisted over millennia. There were even large rivers, such as the Wadi Howar, once the largest tributary to the Nile from the Sahara.

"Wildlife included very demanding species such as elephants, rhinos, hippos, crocodiles, and more than 30 species of fish up to 2 meters (6 feet) big," Kroepelin told LiveScience.

A timeline of Sahara occupation [See Map]:
22,000 to 10,500 years ago: The Sahara was devoid of any human occupation outside the Nile Valley and extended 250 miles further south than it does today. 10,500 to 9,000 years ago: Monsoon rains begin sweeping into the Sahara, transforming the region into a habitable area swiftly settled by Nile Valley dwellers. 9,000 to 7,300 years ago: Continued rains, vegetation growth, and animal migrations lead to well established human settlements, including the introduction of domesticated livestock such as sheep and goats. 7,300 to 5,500 years ago: Retreating monsoonal rains initiate desiccation in the Egyptian Sahara, prompting humans to move to remaining habitable niches in Sudanese Sahara. The end of the rains and return of desert conditions throughout the Sahara after 5,500 coincides with population return to the Nile Valley and the beginning of pharaonic society.
 
Yes, based on several hints, I'm pretty sure that Fulcanelli was talking about a part of France... around where Carnac is. And the ancient stories of the Nile are about the Seine...

Thing is, even in Pharaonic times, Egypt wasn't called Egypt. It was only called Egypt after the Greeks came. The stories of Egypt were GREEK stories... the names they gave things were names carried in their myths and legends.
 
I just finished reading "Jupiter, Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce, and the Return of the Mongols". Very interesting. I was going trough the last part where it is indicated that the labyrinth might be the megaliths structure in Carnac (or that is what I understood, maybe wrongly). I thought that if the labyrinth was indeed in Carnac, France, some pyramids might be found buried there also (I've read recently that pyramids were found in easter Europe, that's what made me think about it). Herodotus states "The pyramids also were greater than words can say, and each one of them is equal to many works of the Hellenes, great as they may be; but the labyrinth surpasses even the pyramids. [...]" so maybe there are some pyramids il the vicinity of the labyrinth.

I then headed to google maps ad did a search for Carnac, switched to the "terrain" mode in the "Extras" menu and looked around a little bit. And I was surprised to find what looks like an array of several square shaped structures (or what seems to be so to me).

It can be found here if the link is working properly. If not, the coordinates are 47.60718, -3.0578 northeast of Carnac, in the center of the triangle formed by Le Moustoir, Rosnual et Kelescan.

I hope this is the right place to post this, It is the one of two posts in the forum mentioning Carnac.

I don't know what to think about this structure, I don't even know if it is real or if it is a "bug" in google maps, or something else, but it is intriguing me a lot. It looks almost like a L piece of a tetris game fallen on this map. What stands out the most for me is that the edges of the squares are perfectly aligned with the north-south and the east-west axis. The satellite view shows nothing special except that if there really is a structure buried in there, it's huge.
 
Some interesting maps of ancient Sahara:

Huh! That's really interesting. Why would maps that are roughly 500 years old depict river systems in the Sahara when from the articles he listed, some suspect that it was lush with vegetation and people almost 5000 years ago. Could the maps have been copies of previously older maps from previous era's? It's been a while since I read the book, but Graham Hancock's Fingerprint of the Gods talked about similar maps of Antarctica showing the landmass before it was covered in ice, and most of those maps were... you guessed it, roughly 500 years old.

That can't be a coincidence and begs the question why there are 500 year old maps depicting vastly differing views of continents that according to mainstream science, have been established for hundred of millions of years.
 
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