Namoratunga Like the Nabta Playa

Namoratunga is not a site that you can easily overlook, but appreciating its historical significance is another matter altogether.

Large swathes of northern Kenya are arid, famine-prone lands and remain largely underdeveloped when contrasted against the largely fertile southern region. In this arid land, unless one knows beforehand the Namoratunga sites, one is likely to dismiss them as just another pile of stones; after all, stony deserts, cairns, tumuli and other stony features are a relatively common site in the region.

But Namoratunga, unlike these other sites within northern Kenya, has been claimed to be the first archaeoastronomy site in sub-Saharan Africa, and by that claim alone should rank comparably with other, more prominent archaeoastronomical sites in  Africa, such as Nabta Playaor the pyramids of Egypt.

Namoratunga, whose name in the Turkana language translates to “stone people”, is a stone circle that according to estimates was erected sometime in 300B.C. There are actually two Namoratunga sites located more than 100km apart. The main site Namoratunga II, aka Namoratunga-Kalokol, is named after a nearby town and is located just off a local road.

The stone circle is composed of 19 magnetic basalt pillars, with each pillar having 4 facets and a slanted top. The pillars are not that high, and their bases are littered with stones, maybe 20,000, some more recent than others, as visitors to the site have established the tradition of leaving a stone at the site.

The pillars are not all upright; indeed, only one pillar seems close to being truly upright, and the rest are titled in all directions. This arrangement has spawned a mythical tale that the pillars were once men, petrified by the devil after failing his test. His test was simple; he would sing a song, and if anyone showed any emotions or moved he would be turned to stone. The devil sang and those that fell to the ground laughing were turned into stone. Most of those who witnessed this became sad, and when they wept, they too were petrified. The chief, who happened to be by the fire, had resisted any manifestation of emotion, but just when he thought he had escaped the devil’s trap, he let escape a smile, and the devil claimed him too. The chief is supposedly the upright pillar, and the tilted pillar are the first people to be frozen.

Myths aside, it is believed by some archeology experts that the pillars were used to mark the Borana (a largely nomadic group, considered a subgroup of the larger Oromo group in neighboring Ethiopia) calendar, and relied on stellar alignments and lunar observations to mark it. In several findings, it’s been shown that the pillars made 25 alignments with stars or star groups used in the Borana/Oromo calendar system, i.e. Triangulum, Aldebarran, Orion, Sirius, Belletrix, Saiph, and Pleiades. Thus the pillar builders would know it was the month of Camsa when alignment with Pleiades was observed, and Oboka Dikka when Sirius was in alignment.

But like all things in science that are not scientific laws, the suggestion that the site could be an archaeoastronomy site has been greatly contested, and some contend that it could be a site for carrying out certain rituals, especially because bones have been found in the Namoratunga I site, even though they are yet to be found in Namoratunga-Kalokol. To further add to this confusion, some of the pillars have petroglyphs.  These petroglyphs were once linked to the Kingdom of Kush (1070BC-350AD), but some studies suggest that the symbols are Turkana and are actually used in branding cattle and can be understood by related Nilotic groups further south from the Turkana.

But like Stonehenge, Nabta Playa or the Senegambia Stone Circles, the true purpose of Namoratunga will likely remain unknown.

By Matengo Chwanya

Sources: Turkanabasin/ Space/ As.Utexas/ Terpconnect/ Gambia/

Africa Global News Publication