Namoratunga: ‘People Of Stone’ And Ancient Astronomical Observatory

A. Sutherland - AncientPages.com - There is a fascinating and entirely different megalithic site, unrelated to those of prehistoric Europe. This archaeoastronomical site is located on the west side of Lake Turkana, in northwest Kenya, and is known as Namoratunga II (or the Kalokol Pillar Site), which means "people of stone".

According to legend, the pillars were once men but became petrified by the devil after failing their tests.

Namoratunga in Turkana, Kenya. Image credit: Darouet - CC BY-SA 4.0

Radiocarbon analysis dates Namoratunga II and a related burial and rock art discovered approximately 130 miles south at Namoratunga I to 300 BC. (Namoratunga I contains a similar grave but no pillars.

The site contains 19 magnetic basalt pillars, each with four facets and an inclined top. The pillars lean in different directions and their bases are littered with about 20,000 stones. The pillars are aligned with 7 star systems: Triangulum, Pleiades, Bellatrix, Aldebaran, Central Orion, Saiph, and Sirius.

The isolated collection of upright megaliths at Namoratunga II. The stones were erected in a curious pattern in about 300 BC. Credits: B.M. Lynch, L.H.Robbins, Science 200

At Namoratunga II, one setting of upright stones encircles an ancient grave, like those at Namoratunga I, according to research conducted in the area by anthropologists at Michigan University, B. M. Lynch and L.H. Robbins.

However, the scholars discovered, the 19 megaliths at Namoratunga II are arranged in an unusual pattern unconnected with any other burials.

According to research, Namoratunga represented an accurate and complex calendar system[/caption]

The stones are placed relatively close to each other, separated at the most by 35 feet, usually less.

The late Mark Lynch (he died tragically as the victim of a hit-and-run accident in California in 1982) believed that the basalt pillars - surrounded by a circular formation of stones - tie the constellations or stars to the 12-month 354-day lunar calendar of Cushitic speakers of southern Ethiopia.

Namoratunga Stone Alignments

Alignments of the stones indicate the rising positions of bright stars – adapted to calendar keeping by ancient civilizations.

The research suggests that the Namoratunga sites were erected by the ancestors of the present-day Eastern Cushites, who still live in this region of Africa.

Written by – A. Sutherland AncientPages.com Staff Writer

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