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Sunday, June 05, 2005 The mysterious land of Punt From Al-Ahram Weekly (hat tip to the Daily Grail):
The mysterious Land of Punt, at one time identified with the Somali coast and now thought to be located in the southern Sudan was Ancient Egypt's source of luxury products, the place from where they imported valuable items not available in their own country.
Regular missions set sail southwards through the Red Sea from the Fifth Dynasty or earlier, returning to Egypt with gold, ivory, ebony, gum and incense to be burned in temple rituals. The hides of giraffe, panther and cheetah, which were worn by temple priests, were imported along with live animals -- either for the priests' own menageries or as religious sacrifices -- as well as the sacred cynocephalus or dog-faced baboon. Little wonder, then, that Punt became known as the "Land of Gods", and as the personal pleasure garden of the great god Amun.
The oldest surviving record of a journey to Punt is inscribed on one of the fragments of what became known as the Palermo stone, which dates from the Fifth Dynasty. Egyptians appear to have brought pygmies from this remote region, judging from inscriptions by the expedition leader Harkhuf on his funerary monument. By the Middle Kingdom (2055-1650 BC) there was regular trade with Nubia, and an 11th-Dynasty record reveals that Mentuhotep III ordered no fewer than 3,000 men to sail to this source of plenty -- a place also mentioned in contemporary poems.
Trade between Egypt and Punt appears to have been suspended after the 12th Dynasty and not resumed until early in the 18th, when the most famous expedition to Punt, that of Queen Hatshepsut, came as an outcome of a consultation with the oracle of the god Amun in which she was instructed to send a fleet of ships there. The expedition is featured in relief in Hatshepsut's mortuary temple at Deir Al-Bahri, which shows, in different registers, the finest representations of ships we have from the New Kingdom
posted
Okaaayy! So, it wasn't in Somalia but in southern Sudan.. The point is that it's still in Africa!!!
Posts: 26239 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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Regardless of whether Punt was located in Somalia, Ethiopia, or Sudan, the main premise is that it is African, as is it's sister Egypt!!!
Posts: 26239 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: Regardless of whether Punt was located in Somalia, Ethiopia, or Sudan, the main premise is that it is African, as is it's sister Egypt!!!
How is it (full)african? wasn't Yemen and South West Saudi Arabia part of it?
[This message has been edited by Jizan (edited 17 June 2005).]
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Punt refers to a region south and East of Egypt and in Africa. It cannot be located 'only' in modern Somalia, or Ethiopia, or Eritrea or Sudan, country-boundaries that did not even exist at the time, but rather more generally in that area. In a sense that includes modern "Egypt", which did not exist with its current national boundaries, in antiquity.
Ancient Km.t's boundaries extended well into what is now the Sudan during the time of Hatshepsut's voyage.
One of the reasons for the different routes to Punt at different times was likely the varying degree of political control of the Upper Nile throught Kemetian history.
This played a role in determining whether the journey was by land or by sea.
Ausar has posted a lot of accurate information about Punt.
quote: In the past there has been some debate about the origin and location of the land of Punt. Most theories that locate Punt in Jordan,Sinai,Lebanon,of southern Arabia have been discarded.
The most likely place according to Kenneath Kitchen is northern Eritrea/Ethiopia and east-north-east Sudan. One vital evidence that locates Punt within this vicinity is teff being found in 5th dyansty pyramid bricks. Teff only grows within Ethiopia/Eritrea and NOT within Southern Arabia,Lebanon,or Jordan.
Abyssinian milliet,Teff [Eragotrs Tef Trotter], is cultivated for it's grain only on the Ethiopian High Plataeu.
Many plants resembling it are known locally as Teff;some of them are in addition cereals which are collected[eg. E pilosa P.B.].
Apart from the recent times,this cereal has not penetrated elsewhere. The present writer has shown that the term teff was not of Semetic origin but rather of ancient Egyptian origin. Whilethe ancient Egyptians donot appear to have been familiar with the cultivation of Abyssinian Teff,they made use of Eragrostis pilosa in exactly the same as is done today in the valley of the Nile and North-East Africa[Barth 1858 and Kotschy 1862] Unger [1866-67] found grains of it in the pyramids of Dashur Pyramid[3359 B.C.] Fourth Dyansty and in the blocks of clay from the ancient town of Rameses [1400-1300 B.C.] built at the beggining of the New Empire. As a name ,Teff[tief] appears to come from 'provisions' food
page 53
Papers in African Prehistory ed. J. D. Fage and R. A. Oliver. Cambridge, 1970.
northern Eritrea/Ethiopia and east-north-east Sudan
Kenneth Kitchen
The Elusive Land of Punt
The land of ?Punt? (strictly, Pwanet) was first found in Egyptian texts in the 19century; itsssociation with incense and myrrh led to identification with Arabia. Additional references (especially the superb ?Punt-scenes? of Queen Hatshepsut) pointed to East Africa; but suggested locations varied widely from Sudan to Somalia.
Egyptian data range from c.2500 to 600 BC giving Punt a long history, a range of products,and a sociology of chiefdoms. During the 3rd millennium BC (Old Kingdom), the products of Puntwere brought to Egypt by their own expeditions either along the Nile or up the Red Sea and acrossto the Nile valley via Wadi Hammamat.
.This Red Sea trade continued in the Middle Kingdom (early 2 nd millennium BC) via the port of Mersa Gweisis, and in the New Kingdom (later 2 nd millennium BC). The Puntites themselves also sailed to Egypt and their products, fauna and flora ecologically coincide with northern Eritrea/Ethiopia and east-north-east Sudan. This identification is supported by later references to the rain on the Mountains of Punt draining into the Nile flood which thus excludes an identification of Punt in Somalia as has sometimes been suggested. The Egypt-Punt trade-link ended after the mid-12 th century BC. Why is unknown: a break-up of the Punt federation? climatic change? pharaohs too poor to send expeditions? or the new South Arabian trade up to Gaza proved more convenient for aromatics? Who knows! Suggested further reading
Fattovich, R. (1991), The Problem of Punt in the light of Recent Fieldwork in the Sudan , Akten des vierten Internationalen Agyptologen Kongresses, München 1985 (Schoske, S., ed.), vol. 4, 257-72. Hamburg: Buske Verlag.
Fattovich, R. (1993), ?Punt: the archaeological perspective?, Sesto Congresso internazionale di Egittologia II, 399-405. Turin.
Kitchen, K. A. (1971), ?Punt and How to Get There?, Orientalia 40, 184-207
Kitchen, K. A. (1993), ?The Land of Punt?, The Archaeology of Africa, Food, Metals and Towns (Shaw, T. et al., eds), 587-608. London/New York: Routledge.
Kitchen, K. A. (1999), ?Further Thoughts on Punt and its Neighbours?, Studies on Ancient Egypt in
Honour of H. S. Smith (Leahy, A. and Tait, J., eds), 173-78. London: Egypt Exploration
He is describing the coffee tree of the South Arabian and Abyssinian mountains, which were the old land of Punt. The Arabic word for tree and fruit is bunn, which is assumed to derive from ...http://www.iras.ucalgary.ca/~volk/sylvia/Coffee.htm
To the west the recovery and identification of the so-called Sihi/Subar complex clearly suggests the involvement of local Bronze Age populations with the Red Sea incense trade. The most famous illustration of this trade of course is the Hashepsut reliefs depicting expeditionary trade with the land of Punt.
To see a video of Hatshepsut's funerary monument, click the following link. Video 1.3m MPEG
Hatshepsut's funerary monument ,1430 BC, at Deir el Bahri in Upper Egypt represents one of the most outstanding artistic records for the Egyptian trade in incense. Since its completion, it has undergone considerable damage and is currently being restored. The specific scenes which depict the Egyptian fleet sailing to the land of Punt in the southern Red Sea are located in the Western Portico. Due to their exposure to various elements, the scenes are somewhat washed out and muted. In their original state they would have been highly colored. http://arabian-archaeology.com/arch4bronze.htm
THE LAND OF PUNT. From the 5th Dynasty (c. 2494–2345) the Egyptians sent ships to Punt to obtain the myrrh grown there and the frankincense from south Arabia. The expedition of Queen Hatshepsut is the best known. No reference to Punt survives after the reign of Ramses III. The introduction of camel caravans in Arabia around 1000 probably ended the Puntine trade http://www.bartleby.com/67/98.html
[This message has been edited by Jizan (edited 17 June 2005).]
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I think I know what source you are talking about. But the point is there has yet been any evidence, other than what the Egyptians wrote, of Punt's existence. And what they wrote mentioned nothing of Yemen. All of their products are African in nature.
Myrrh is also found in Ethiopia and Somalia
Sorry jiz.
[This message has been edited by Djehuti (edited 17 June 2005).]
Posts: 26239 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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Pgymies did not come from Yemen or southern Arabia. Bes was associated with Punt in the form of a Twa[pgymy]. Punt was probably somewhere around the Red Sea port around Sudan.
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Originally posted by ausar: Pgymies did not come from Yemen or southern Arabia. Bes was associated with Punt in the form of a Twa[pgymy]. Punt was probably somewhere around the Red Sea port around Sudan.
with Ausar that makes it 'triple hit'! Sorry jizz!
Posts: 26239 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Jizan: Those are just some products they trade some stuff with south arabia(that was part of punt) too. BTW Pygmies in North-East africa WTF?!
Where is the archaelogical evidence of this so-called trade? The only time Yemen was tied to Africa was during the Sabean colonization of Africa.
The Twa were the original inhabitants of Uganda and southern Sudan, so I don't think that is a long way from central and northern Sudan!!
Sorry Jizz..
[This message has been edited by Djehuti (edited 17 June 2005).]
Posts: 26239 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
What do you expect from a guy who claims the indigenous peoples of Northeast Africa as "caucasoid" mixed and E3b is "caucasoid" origin?!!LOL
Of course Horemheb's belief in a racial-IQ connection are bogus and utterly ridiculous...
quote:Djehuti, he is getting this IQ data from people like Richard Lynn and J. Phillipe Rushton. Both these people come to positions that are highly questionable. According to Richard Lynn even half the Arab world from Iraq down to Saudi Arabia is below the reatardation line.
But I guess it is people like ratjizz that they base such studies on! LOL
[This message has been edited by Djehuti (edited 17 June 2005).]
Posts: 26239 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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The Somali word for coffee bean is called bun, and it isn't derived from Arabic. I believe the correct Arabic word for coffee seed is qahwa, which Somalis use sometimes.
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