Finally, I would like to express my profound appreciation to Tufiq Iheddaden Mostefaoui, from the University of Rennes, France, and the University of Georgia, with whom I have maintained an abundant and exciting electronic conversation over the last few months on the topic of Amazigh terminology and symbolism. Dr. Mostefaoui received one of the first copies of the first edition of this essay. He was most enthusiastic about it. He offered a number of comments on the original text, which led me to the decision to incorporate some of them in this revised edition. His professional expertise as an astrophysicist, and his symbolic knowledge of traditional Kabyle wisdom and ritual as an Amazigh scholar, gave his precious contribution a double value. I have incorporated some of his views in the text, under his name. The final note of this essay is essentially his, with some editorial work and elaboration on my part on the initial comments. He also provided the Star Map included in this revised edition.\

The twentieth century has witnessed a progressive discovery of information gradually projecting the history of the Egyptian civilization further back into time. Early populations of the Valley of the Nile are better documented at the present time than they were a few decades ago, and more information is also available on the Western Desert Oasis complex. It was thought at an earlier time that the several dynasties of Pharaohs, which reigned for two millennia or so, constituted the span of Egyptian Civilization. Present estimates are different, recognizing that the Kingdom Era was rooted in an earlier culture of Archaic Time, during which the foundations of the Egyptian Kingdom were laid. This pre-dynastic or Archaic period (5,000 to 3,000 BC) has not yielded all of its mysteries.

It is the focus of this inquiry, the purpose of whichis to give a new direction to already existing research: for the most part, historical and archaeological research has been conducted by mainstream scholars, imbued with a specific concept of civilization and history as having its roots in Ancient Greece, underestimating the marginalized Amazigh cultural and linguistic information which might have provided important clues to the origins of the western areas of Egypt, and a more accurate account of the past of the region.

Our intention is to address a specific set of data, gathered from already established sources, yet somewhat neglected, or minimized, to shed light on the possible origins of customs, beliefs, and tenets of the people who inhabited the Valley of the Nile and its adjacent regions. These origins have to this day been qualified as obscure, sometimes indecipherable, and always mysterious to scholars of Greco-Roman and European ages who for the most part have not assigned enough weight to the presence and contribution of the various Libyco-Berber (Amazigh) groups who were early settlers and long-time inhabitants of the region. A note of caution is proffered at the onset of this investigation: the intention of this preliminary study is to shed some light on existent data labeled "obscure" by preceding scholarship. It is not to propose categorical interpretations. We are obviously conducting a tentative foray into an uncharted territory. The writer of this article is a North African anthropologist, aided by the compass and valuable input of a Moroccan Amazigh linguist in the first steps of an investigation, which hopefully will lead to other scholarly contributions, by future Amazigh scholars. We see ourselves as pioneers in a field of great potential development.

Some of the terminology used in this presentation will vary from that of Egyptologists in several regards. First, the land, which has been known under the name of Egypt, was known to its inhabitants as the land of Khem or Khemet in the Black or Fertile Land of the Nile riverbed. Less fertile lands of Egypt were designated by the term of "Sekhet" (fields or lands.) In some areas of North Africa, today, marshlands are still called "Sebkhet." The specific area of the western Delta was the land of "Ta-Meht," the region of "flax," and separate terminology was used for all western oases. The term Egypt derives from the very Late Greek appellation Aigyptos that, to the Greeks, meant the House of Hiktu or "Hiktu-Ptah." Even in this very Late Greek adaptation of a Nilotic term for one particular region, one could detect the Amazigh root "Akh" (fem."t-akham-t") associated with blackness and pungent odor (possible qualities of fertile soil) which means "tent" "residence," "house," from the literal abode to the idea of "house or dynasty of." This Amazigh primordial root "akh" includes the masculine singular marker "a." It was this very word "akh" which was used for "spirit" and a possible derivative "ankh" (a-n-kh) for "life." "Akhu" were the departed ones or venerated ancestors who had soared to eternal life among the stars, "Akh-Akh" designated the collective abode for those spirits, the region of the stars, and "Akha" was the name of the first King of the First Dynasty. This essential root will be elaborated upon, as it provides a core element to the understanding of foundational concepts of topography, cosmology and spiritual beliefs for an entire civilization.

Most of the terminology accepted today in Egyptology is derived from Greek, and is very different from the phonology of hieroglyphs used atthe time of the Great Kings (2920 BC to 1070 BC) and in preceding centuries (5,000 BC-3,000 BC). In addition, Egyptologists who transcribed the phonology of ancient texts often were not familiar with North African linguistics. As we proceed, we shall see that the territory of the Oasis Complex west of the Nile and the marsh regions of the Delta had other names. Names attributed to certain regions in archaic time were sometimes superseded or underwent transformation during dynastic times. We will, as much as possible, examine and try to understand the values and meanings of the archaic names presently available through a variety of sources.

Secondly, this study will be referring to the tribal groups of the Western Desert and the Delta of the Nile, generally known as Libu, Libyans, Libyco-Berbers, or Berbers, terms inherited from the Greeks and the Romans who regarded these North African groups as "Barbaroi" or "Barbarians." The designation for these populations in this study is Amazigh (sing.) or Imazighen (pl.) which is a more appropriate appellation. We shall see that the name of Imazighen, in use today from the Atlantic Coast of Morocco (including the Canary Islands) to the Oasis of Siwa in Egypt, and south among Saharan people of Niger, Mali and Mauritania, was familiar to Archaic people of the Valley of the Nile, and remained a constant throughout the centuries of Nilotic history.

Our study primarily addresses the region of the Western Desert, or Libyan Oasis Complex which includes the Oasis of Siwa, that of Barhaya, with several other sites, and the region of the Western Delta and coastal road linking the territory of Libya to that of the marshes of the Delta. Thus, the geographical area under consideration practically encompasses all of the northwestern territory of Ancient Egypt. A map of the general area is presented as Illustration No. 1.

The land of Khem, and certainly the "Unified Kingdom" of the dynastic age of the Nilotic civilization, was neither a homogenous culture, nor was it peopled by an homogenous population. The tribal populations who lived in the desert oases and the banks of the Nile before the era of unification carried substantial identity and retained their linguistic, cultural, religious, and ethnic diversity throughout the time of the Kings, and beyond. They contributed to the complex tapestry of cultural remains being unearthed, bit by bit, by successive researchers. This study seemingly maintains a narrow focus, that of Libyco-Berber or Amazigh culture, but, as we shall demonstrate, actually bears quite an impact upon the whole of the culture heretofore known as "Egyptian." In doing so, we will leave aside a host of issues and problems which have plagued the field of Egyptology, and fascinated Egyptologists such as the hypothesis of a master race, invasions, borrowings from Sumeria and other middle eastern regions, or even the important topic of Nubian and Ethiopian influences in the south.