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Posted by Sundjata (Member # 13096) on :
 
I base this on several factors after reading a recent paper by Rodolfo Fattovich (2010) on pre-Askumite state formation. I was not aware of this information, but apparently a culture existed in lowland Eritea, bordering South Sudan, that is temporally and geographically analogous to Punt, and strikingly so. More importantly, 17-18th dynasty artifacts at Gash delta sites were discovered as well as evidence of a small-scale state and hierarchal society, the only one known at that time (during the 17-18th dynasty) in this area. Interestingly, evidence for Egyptian contacts correspond remarkably with when Egyptians say contacts were made with Punt, from the earliest contacts to the era of Hatshepsut. All of this agrees with the recent analysis of Baboon mummies in Egypt by way of Punt as having come from Eritrea.


Highlights from Fattovich, who himself doesn't make the connection:


quote:
Chiefdoms in the Lowlands (3rd–1st Millennia BC)

The evidence we presently have suggests that a chiefdom (Gash Group) arose in the Gash Delta from an earlier incipient complex society (Butana Group) in the mid-3rd millennium BC. This chiefdom progressively declined in the late 2nd millennium BC (Jebel Mokram Group), and apparently disappeared in the 1st millennium BC (Hagiz Group).

This process was characterized by changes in the subsistence economy and location of the human groups that occupied the lowlands between the Atbara and Gash rivers in the middle and late Holocene, and apparently depended on their inclusion in a network of exchanges with the populations of the surrounding regions (Sadr 1991; Manzo 1999; Fattovich 2006b).

The subsistence economy progressively changed from a mixed foraging/farming/herding economy (Butana Group), to a mixed farming/herding economy (Gash Group), then to an agro-pastoral economy with a segment of the population focusing mainly on cultivation and another on herding (Jebel Mokram Group), and finally to a pastoral economy (Hagiz Group) (Marks and Sadr 1988; Sadr 1991, pp. 52–56; Gautier and Van Neer 2006). Pastoralism may have been an important component in the Gash Group, as ceramics similar to those of this group were collected as far away as Quiha, near Mekelle (Tigray), in the highlands (Barnett 1999, p. 137).

Changes in the location of the individual communities were characterized by a progressive shift from scattered settlements along the Gash paleochannels at the confluence with the Atbara River in the 4th–early 3rd millennia BC (Butana Group) to nucleated settlements in the Shurab el Gash area and a major isolated site, about 11 ha in size, at Mahal Teglinos in the mid-3rd–mid-2nd millennia BC (Gash Group), nucleated settlements in Shurab el Gash and scattered small sites in the alluvial plains between the Gash and Atbara rivers in the mid-2nd–early 1st millennia BC (Jebel Mokram Group), and finally scattered settlements all over the plains between the Atbara and Gash rivers in the mid-1st millennium BC–early 1st millennium BC (Hagiz Group). These changes were also characterized by an increasing site size hierarchy from the Butana Group to the Gash Group, with three and five hierarchical levels respectively, and a decreasing hierarchy from the Gash Group to the Jebel Mokram group, with four hierarchical levels (Fattovich, Sadr and Vitagliano 1988–1989; Fattovich 1989c, 1993b, 1999; Sadr 1988, Sadr 1991).

The excavations at Mahal Teglinos, in particular, suggested that the development of the Gash Group chiefdom in the 3rd–2nd millennia BC was a consequence of the inclusion of the local population in a network of interactions with those of the surrounding regions (Fattovich et al. 1988–1989; Fattovich 1995, 2006b; Sadr 1991; Manzo 1999). The occurrence of fragments of foreign ceramics suggests that Mahal Teglinos was a crucial node in a complex network of contacts and exchanges stretching from Egypt and Nubia to the Upper Nile, Horn of Africa and southern Arabia. In particular, they point to contacts with Egypt, Nubia and Southern Arabia in the Early Gash Group phase (c. 2700–2300 BC), with Kerma in the Middle (c. 2300–1900 BC) and Classic (c. 1900–1700 BC) Gash Group phases, and again with Egypt, Nubia and Southern Arabia in the Late Gash Group phase (c. 1700–1500/1400 BC) (Fattovich et al. 1988–1989; Fattovich 1991c, 1993a, b; Manzo 1997).

The occurrence of cowries (Cyprea moneta) from the Red Sea and Indian Ocean in Late Gash Group burials at Mahal Teglinos may suggest that the coastal plains were within the range of diffusion of this population. This is also supported by a stelae field with monoliths very similar to the Gash Group stelae at Aqiq on the Red Sea coast in the Sudan (Fattovich 2007).

The Gash Group chiefdom reached a peak between c. 1700 and 1500/1400 BC during the Late Gash Group phase. Actually, the construction of a building with storerooms containing many fragments of local closed jars and imported Egyptian jars, and the occurrence of grave goods in the burials at Mahal Teglinos, as well as the standardization of the jars and a more articulated administrative system with five different types of seals, suggest that a more complex society, maybe at a petty state scale, was emerging in the Gash Delta at this time (Fattovich 1995).

This chiefdom declined in the mid-2nd millennium BC, when people with Middle Nubian ceramics penetrated into the lowlands between the Gash and Atbara rivers, and the Gash Group was replaced by the Jebel Mokram Group (Fattovich et al. 1988–1989; Fattovich 1991c).

No definitively foreign materials have been found in Jebel Mokram Group assemblages in the Gash Delta. On the contrary, the occurrence of an earring of Egyptian 18th Dynasty style and several stone axes evoking Egyptian copper axes of the 17th–18th Dynasties found at the sites with ceramics similar to those of the late Gash Group and Jebel Mokram Group near Agordat in the Barka Valley, suggest that the people in this region were part of an exchange circuit with Egypt and/or Nubia in the mid-2nd millennium BC (Arkell 1954).

A final social and economic transformation occurred in the mid-1st millennium BC, when the descendants of the Jebel Mokram Group population, the Hagiz Group, adopted a nomadic style of life. The settlements of this group included small temporary camps and a few large seasonal camps pointing to a nomadic or seminomadic pastoral economy (Fattovich et al. 1988–1989; Sadr 1991).

The causes of this transformation are uncertain. Maybe it was due to a drier climate in the first half of the 1st millennium BC, or to raids and military expansion of the Nubian kingdom of Kush and/or the pre-Aksumite polity to control the resources of the lowlands (Marks and Sadr 1988; Sadr 1993; Fattovich 1994). In both cases, a more mobile adaptive strategy may have been adopted to exploit larger grazing areas or to avoid raids. In any case, a remarkable drop in the number of late Jebel Mokram Group sites points to a crisis in the early 1st millennium BC (Sadr 1991).

^So basically the proposed 'Puntites' became nomadic after subsequent Sudanese penetration. I find it difficult to imagine that Egyptians, having direct contact did not mention the Gash group by name, and I find it harder to imagine that that name would have been anything other than the elusive Land of Punt. Everything here fits, unless of course, I'm missing something.

If true, this would seem to suggest that Punt was NOT a generic term for 'Africa' in the south, but a regional polity straddling the Eritrean lowlands, whose peoples were intermediary traders with access to all of that which is depicted in Puntite iconography associated with tropical Africa and the Horn in general. This is new to me and I have done a search before posting. If this is an old view here to some, apologies but it is interesting nonetheless.

Full Study (for context): http://www.sendspace.com/file/ecrrdj

Edit: In retrospect, credit to Dr. Winters for making this connection (as I observe now from a previous thread), though the issue was brought up in passing with little exploration.
 
Posted by Clyde Winters (Member # 10129) on :
 
I agree that Gash may have been Punt. Given the archaeological connections between the Kushites in Nubia/Sudan and Ethiopia/Eritrea/ Arabia I believe that Punt was a name given to East African Kushites. The Sumerians probably called Punt= Meluhha. See my blog discussion of Meluhha


http://bafsudralam.blogspot.com/2009/06/meluhha-was-in-africa.html


http://bafsudralam.blogspot.com/search?q=punt
 
Posted by astenb (Member # 14524) on :
 
TY for full upload.
 
Posted by Calabooz (Member # 18238) on :
 
Didn't whoever do the Punt Baboon test say Punt was in Eritrea and parts of Ethiopia?
 
Posted by Sundjata (Member # 13096) on :
 
^Yea, I posted the link to that article above.

@Clyde. Thanks for the links.
 
Posted by Calabooz (Member # 18238) on :
 
Oops, sorry.

quote:
Originally posted by Sundjata:
^Yea, I posted the link to that article above.

@Clyde. Thanks for the links.


 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Sundjata:

I base this on several factors after reading a recent paper by Rodolfo Fattovich (2010) on pre-Askumite state formation. I was not aware of this information, but apparently a culture existed in lowland Eritea, bordering South Sudan, that is temporally and geographically analogous to Punt, and strikingly so. More importantly, 17-18th dynasty artifacts at Gash delta sites were discovered as well as evidence of a small-scale state and hierarchal society, the only one known at that time (during the 17-18th dynasty) in this area. Interestingly, evidence for Egyptian contacts correspond remarkably with when Egyptians say contacts were made with Punt, from the earliest contacts to the era of Hatshepsut. All of this agrees with the recent analysis of Baboon mummies in Egypt by way of Punt as having come from Eritrea.


Highlights from Fattovich, who himself doesn't make the connection:


[QUOTE]Chiefdoms in the Lowlands (3rd–1st Millennia BC)

The evidence we presently have suggests that a chiefdom (Gash Group) arose in the Gash Delta from an earlier incipient complex society (Butana Group) in the mid-3rd millennium BC. This chiefdom progressively declined in the late 2nd millennium BC (Jebel Mokram Group), and apparently disappeared in the 1st millennium BC (Hagiz Group).

This process was characterized by changes in the subsistence economy and location of the human groups that occupied the lowlands between the Atbara and Gash rivers in the middle and late Holocene, and apparently depended on their inclusion in a network of exchanges with the populations of the surrounding regions (Sadr 1991; Manzo 1999; Fattovich 2006b).

The subsistence economy progressively changed from a mixed foraging/farming/herding economy (Butana Group), to a mixed farming/herding economy (Gash Group), then to an agro-pastoral economy with a segment of the population focusing mainly on cultivation and another on herding (Jebel Mokram Group), and finally to a pastoral economy (Hagiz Group) (Marks and Sadr 1988; Sadr 1991, pp. 52–56; Gautier and Van Neer 2006). Pastoralism may have been an important component in the Gash Group, as ceramics similar to those of this group were collected as far away as Quiha, near Mekelle (Tigray), in the highlands (Barnett 1999, p. 137).

Changes in the location of the individual communities were characterized by a progressive shift from scattered settlements along the Gash paleochannels at the confluence with the Atbara River in the 4th–early 3rd millennia BC (Butana Group) to nucleated settlements in the Shurab el Gash area and a major isolated site, about 11 ha in size, at Mahal Teglinos in the mid-3rd–mid-2nd millennia BC (Gash Group), nucleated settlements in Shurab el Gash and scattered small sites in the alluvial plains between the Gash and Atbara rivers in the mid-2nd–early 1st millennia BC (Jebel Mokram Group), and finally scattered settlements all over the plains between the Atbara and Gash rivers in the mid-1st millennium BC–early 1st millennium BC (Hagiz Group). These changes were also characterized by an increasing site size hierarchy from the Butana Group to the Gash Group, with three and five hierarchical levels respectively, and a decreasing hierarchy from the Gash Group to the Jebel Mokram group, with four hierarchical levels (Fattovich, Sadr and Vitagliano 1988–1989; Fattovich 1989c, 1993b, 1999; Sadr 1988, Sadr 1991).

The excavations at Mahal Teglinos, in particular, suggested that the development of the Gash Group chiefdom in the 3rd–2nd millennia BC was a consequence of the inclusion of the local population in a network of interactions with those of the surrounding regions (Fattovich et al. 1988–1989; Fattovich 1995, 2006b; Sadr 1991; Manzo 1999). The occurrence of fragments of foreign ceramics suggests that Mahal Teglinos was a crucial node in a complex network of contacts and exchanges stretching from Egypt and Nubia to the Upper Nile, Horn of Africa and southern Arabia. In particular, they point to contacts with Egypt, Nubia and Southern Arabia in the Early Gash Group phase (c. 2700–2300 BC), with Kerma in the Middle (c. 2300–1900 BC) and Classic (c. 1900–1700 BC) Gash Group phases, and again with Egypt, Nubia and Southern Arabia in the Late Gash Group phase (c. 1700–1500/1400 BC) (Fattovich et al. 1988–1989; Fattovich 1991c, 1993a, b; Manzo 1997).

The occurrence of cowries (Cyprea moneta) from the Red Sea and Indian Ocean in Late Gash Group burials at Mahal Teglinos may suggest that the coastal plains were within the range of diffusion of this population. This is also supported by a stelae field with monoliths very similar to the Gash Group stelae at Aqiq on the Red Sea coast in the Sudan (Fattovich 2007).

The Gash Group chiefdom reached a peak between c. 1700 and 1500/1400 BC during the Late Gash Group phase. Actually, the construction of a building with storerooms containing many fragments of local closed jars and imported Egyptian jars, and the occurrence of grave goods in the burials at Mahal Teglinos, as well as the standardization of the jars and a more articulated administrative system with five different types of seals, suggest that a more complex society, maybe at a petty state scale, was emerging in the Gash Delta at this time (Fattovich 1995).

This chiefdom declined in the mid-2nd millennium BC, when people with Middle Nubian ceramics penetrated into the lowlands between the Gash and Atbara rivers, and the Gash Group was replaced by the Jebel Mokram Group (Fattovich et al. 1988–1989; Fattovich 1991c).

No definitively foreign materials have been found in Jebel Mokram Group assemblages in the Gash Delta. On the contrary, the occurrence of an earring of Egyptian 18th Dynasty style and several stone axes evoking Egyptian copper axes of the 17th–18th Dynasties found at the sites with ceramics similar to those of the late Gash Group and Jebel Mokram Group near Agordat in the Barka Valley, suggest that the people in this region were part of an exchange circuit with Egypt and/or Nubia in the mid-2nd millennium BC (Arkell 1954).

A final social and economic transformation occurred in the mid-1st millennium BC, when the descendants of the Jebel Mokram Group population, the Hagiz Group, adopted a nomadic style of life. The settlements of this group included small temporary camps and a few large seasonal camps pointing to a nomadic or seminomadic pastoral economy (Fattovich et al. 1988–1989; Sadr 1991).

The causes of this transformation are uncertain. Maybe it was due to a drier climate in the first half of the 1st millennium BC, or to raids and military expansion of the Nubian kingdom of Kush and/or the pre-Aksumite polity to control the resources of the lowlands (Marks and Sadr 1988; Sadr 1993; Fattovich 1994). In both cases, a more mobile adaptive strategy may have been adopted to exploit larger grazing areas or to avoid raids. In any case, a remarkable drop in the number of late Jebel Mokram Group sites points to a crisis in the early 1st millennium BC (Sadr 1991).

Very interesting indeed.

quote:
^So basically the proposed 'Puntites' became nomadic after subsequent Sudanese penetration. I find it difficult to imagine that Egyptians, having direct contact did not mention the Gash group by name, and I find it harder to imagine that that name would have been anything other than the elusive Land of Punt. Everything here fits, unless of course, I'm missing something.
Maybe the Egyptians did mention them, but we just don't know what that name is or we haven't yet found texts on them.

quote:
If true, this would seem to suggest that Punt was NOT a generic term for 'Africa' in the south, but a regional polity straddling the Eritrean lowlands, whose peoples were intermediary traders with access to all of that which is depicted in Puntite iconography associated with tropical Africa and the Horn in general. This is new to me and I have done a search before posting. If this is an old view here to some, apologies but it is interesting nonetheless.
I believe Explorer thinks Pwnt might have been a name for a generic region of Africa, which I too believe. Punt has to be Eritrea since it also includes islands off the Red Sea coast of that area such as the island featured in the story of 'The Shipwrecked Sailor'. I also find Nubian influence to be unsurprising considering that Kush was found to be an empire with alliances to many peoples including Punt which they almost destroyed Egypt at one point.
 
Posted by Sundjata (Member # 13096) on :
 
^Yea, that last citation is so important. The reason I no longer think Punt was a general region is because Fattovich mentioned the Gash group as a developing state, also I don't think Kush would be appropriating military alliances with a 'general region' but an apparent polity/people of some sort, apparently located near the eastern Sudan. I also have looked back on the archives and did not realize that this connection has indeed been made before, but very much in passing. Ironically, Fattovich and Bard, well, the 2007-2008 field report of their excavations at Mersa/Wadi Gawasi (Egypt), stregnthens the argument for Punt in Eritrea while slightly downplaying or confusing its role a bit, hence:

"The imports from the southern Red Sea confirm that the Yemeni coast and possibly Eritrea
were involved in the Egyptian-Punt trade network. Noteworthy, all the sherds of vessels imported
from the southern Red Sea which were collected in this field season can be ascribed to closed
bottles/jars, suggesting that they were used as container for storage-conservation
" --Source

1) Don't they mean "or" possibly Eritrea, or are they suggesting a region spanning both sides of the red sea?

2) "Possibly" doesn't cut it as Eritrea should be preferred. This of course doesn't account for the Puntite Baboon isotopic analysis that was announced last year showing Eritea to be the origin for the Baboon, but now we have actual imports/artifacts in Egypt proper accompanied by a Stelae which reads "the wonders of Punt" that are directly linked again to Eritrea. This and the fact that no equivalent society is known to have existed in Yemen at this time nor do we find Egyptian imports associated with any particular culture to suggest two way contact, especially concerning the jars (as we see in Eritrea).

^Given the above, I think a case can be made that Punt was centered on Eritrea and the Eastern Sudan and belonged to a particular cultural group (Gash).
 
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
^ Yes, and neither does it take into account the Egyptians' own records showing that Punt can be reached by land by traveling south.
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Does Fattovich mention the Ona Group A in this paper?
Earlier, he associated them with Hatshepsut era Punt.
See here paragraph j.


quote:
Originally posted by Sundjata:
I base this on several factors after reading a recent paper by Rodolfo Fattovich (2010) on pre-Askumite state formation. I was not aware of this information, but apparently a culture existed in lowland Eritea, bordering South Sudan, that is temporally and geographically analogous to Punt, and strikingly so. More importantly, 17-18th dynasty artifacts at Gash delta sites were discovered as well as evidence of a small-scale state and hierarchal society, the only one known at that time (during the 17-18th dynasty) in this area. Interestingly, evidence for Egyptian contacts correspond remarkably with when Egyptians say contacts were made with Punt, from the earliest contacts to the era of Hatshepsut. All of this agrees with the recent analysis of Baboon mummies in Egypt by way of Punt as having come from Eritrea.



 
Posted by Sundjata (Member # 13096) on :
 
^No, but this paper builds on recent work done by Peter Schmidt at the Ona sites and I do recall that reference now. The interesting thing would be that the Ona period he discusses (1500-1000 BC) corresponds directly with the demise of the late Gash group culture (1700-1500 BC). Striking that we also see Egyptian contacts here and sustained contacts with the Jebel Mokram people, who apparently supplanted the Gash group. Could the Ona possibly represent a kind of relocation of the Gash group polity as a consequence of nomadic lowland penetration in the area from the Eastern Sudan?
 
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Good jump point. Maybe some of the more serious
"academics" members will take up your question.

Fattovich and partner Bard aren't letting out
more than Punt as a location in eastern Sudan
until their promised publication for this year.

What do you make of Punt and Bia-Punt? Separate
entities or two names for the same object or ???

I tend to view Punt of the expeditions and Punt
of the Keshli alliance against Egypt as a polity
versus Punt as an amorphous landmass or region.

I'm thinking along lines like Punt was maybe a
multi-ethnic nation state or perhaps a small
empire that perhaps expanded or extracted
at different times under different ethnic
components (think Irem and Nem`i).
 
Posted by Sundjata (Member # 13096) on :
 
^How would you define "empire"? Just curious. I ask only because if a confederation of unified states, that Gash was only a developing state would be significant in evaluating that idea, though the limited archaeology done along the Nile indeed may obscure the presence of various chiefdoms known to be present south of Kush (and referenced by name by the ancient Egyptians).

What do you make of Perahu, the supposed "chief" of Punt mentioned in Egyptian texts? Assuming that he was not an emperor, what polity might he have governed? By "Chief of punt", was he the governor of all of Punt? Was the Mdu Ntr word used even equivalent to "Chief"?

quote:
Originally posted by alTakruri:


What do you make of Punt and Bia-Punt? Separate
entities or two names for the same object or ???


I think Bia-Punt is just a part of the larger Puntite region and/or state, hence Fattovich and Bard's recovery of Stelae at Wadi/Mersa Gawasis with Bia N Punt reading as the "mines of Punt". In fairness, I've read about contexts placing Bia-Punt closer to the Egyptian border, as this being simply a reference to the mineral mines closest to Egypt. This could indeed support the idea that Punt was a general region. I even feel indirectly chastised by Matthew Curtis on this matter after reading a recent article from him on the Ona sites:

quote:
If we are to replace vague terms such as “Pre-Aksumite” with more contextually bound and informed culture–historical terminology, we must acknowledge in our research design and interpretations that ancient cultures were multivariate rather than univariate phenomena. We must guard against conflating the terms “culture group” and “culture period” (see D. W. Phillipson 2009), and we must consider the dynamic and situational nature of ethnicity, recognizing that the relationship between variation in material culture and the expression of cultural or ethnic differences is complex
--Curtis (2009)

^Though I still think my identification of Punt with Eritrea and the Gash is apparent, though my later idea that Gash may have shifted to the Ona isn't necessary if I were to heed Curtis' criticism at face value, though like you say it is still worthy of exploration because of the temporal correspondence (which I think is striking).
 
Posted by Sundjata (Member # 13096) on :
 
^So as it turns out, reading the most recent 2010/2011 archaeological report from Wadi/Mersa Gawasis, Bard/Fattovich definitely aren't excluding areas outside of Eritrea or Yemen and now invoke the eastern Sudan (as expected). There are (according to them) clear links with Yemen, supporting Fattovich's idea of a unified Ethio-Tihama cultural complex spanning both sides of the red sea.

quote:
Dr. Kathryn Bard has been studying the site ofMersa/Wadi Gawasis since 2001. This site has yieldednumerous interesting finds regarding to the Egyptian boatson the Red Sea. This Middle Kingdom harbor of Saww onthe Red Sea was used for seafaring expeditions to the land of Punt. The remains of ancient ships and riggings,expedition equipment, food and other supplies, andhieroglyphic and hieratic texts relating to theseexpeditions have been recovered. Numerous othermaterials have bee recovered as well, including obsidian,ebony, and potsherds from cultures in Yemen, eastern Sudan and Eritrea. These finds are associated with eightmanmade caves used for the harbor facilities locatedabove a large sheltered embayment that existed there4,000 years ago.
^The only thing is that since they don't describe the material, it is hard to say whether or not certain objects actually came from Yemen proper. To truly clarify my point I have to track down the article, but I believe Phillipson on a recent article discussed previous confusion concerning the origin of pottery found on both sides of the red sea that were nearly identical. It was assumed one style reached the other side of the red sea through diffusion and trade until it was discovered that the materials used for the pottery were locally manufactured in both regions. So since they don't specify whether or not the material recovered was actually made from material that was exclusive to Yemen, it doesn't necessarily follow that "Yemeni-style" pottery came directly from Yemen proper.

Why I'm more skeptical of the Yemeni association is because of both the linguistic and archaeological data.

The Chief of Punt was called "Perahu" and as Kitchen points out there was no /p/ in early South Arabian languages. Furthermore, no Egyptian material contemporaneous with this period has been found in Yemen but such has been found in Eastern Sudan and lowland Eritrea, associated with the Jebel Mokram and Gash group cultures, respectively. I guess we'll have to see but Punt's location is pretty conclusive by now. The only thing left is to verify whether or not Yemen was a part of the afro-mentioned region/confederacy.
 
Posted by -Just Call Me Jari- (Member # 14451) on :
 
^^^
I certainly would not exclude it, seeing as how both sides of the Red Sea were similar in culture. Its not such a far fetched idea. Its only Eurocentrism to think that African culture is excluded from Yemen, when the Gulf of Aden is a Hop and Skip away from Africa.

I doubt Yemen is Punt for the same reasons you mentioned.
 
Posted by Sundjata (Member # 13096) on :
 
^Indeed. Another interesting tidbit however, is Fattovich (2002) association of certain cultures on the other side of the red sea with the C-group as well as Blench' recent data suggesting an early non-Semitic presence in Yemen that would correspond with this temporal range (assuming they were relics before the "semiticisation of the [southern] Arabian Peninsula").

quote:
There is no real doubt that the ancestors of both epigraphic (ESA) and modern South Arabian (MSA) were languages spoken in the Near East rather than Ethiopia. But the date and processes whereby the speakers of these languages migrated and diversified are unknown. Apart from inscriptions that can be read, some contain evidence for completely unknown languages co-existing with ESA. Beeston (1981: 181) cites an inscription from Marib which begins in Sabaean but then switches to an unknown language. He mentions several other texts which have similar morphology (a final –k suffix) and which may represent an unknown non-Semitic language (or possibly a Nilo-Saharan language such as Kunama, for which such a feature would be typical).
--Blench (2011)

This would get rid of the /p/ problem but there's still the problem of the archaeological evidence (or lack thereof).
 
Posted by The Explorer (Member # 14778) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Sundjata:

...idea that Punt was a general region.

...that included parts of the African Horn, sounds more like it, based on material goods brought in from expeditions.
 
Posted by Sundjata (Member # 13096) on :
 
Relatively recent and well written article on the location of Punt from NOVA:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/egypt-punt.html

Where Is Punt?

Despite heaps of evidence and decades of debate, scholars are not certain where or even what ancient Punt was. Why?

By Peter TysonPosted 12.01.09 NOVA
Sailing on the sea, and making a good start for God's Land. Making landfall safely at the terrain of Punt....
—from Hatshepsut's temple at Deir el-Bahri

You can almost imagine the Pharaoh Hatshepsut smirking from the other world. "We've got you, haven't we?" she might be saying, a twinkle in her bold eye. For Hatshepsut, along with all other ancient Egyptians, has left us a puzzle that we just can't seem to solve with any certainty. It's the mystery surrounding the location of Punt ("Poont"). Also known as God's Land, Punt was a faraway realm rich in incense, ebony, and gold with which the Egyptians traded for over a thousand years.

 -

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The female pharaoh Hatshepsut told us more about Punt than anyone else in ancient times. But even she is silent on its exact location.


The Egyptians left us mountains of evidence for Punt, none more so than Hatshepsut, whose 3,500-year-old temple at Deir el-Bahri near Thebes contains a veritable book in stone describing Punt. Hatshepsut and other pharaohs sent huge expeditions to Punt—flotillas of robust, seagoing ships with thousands of men. But neither Hatshepsut nor anyone else from ancient times left us any map, any directions or distances, or anything else that definitively pinpoints Punt's location.

So elusive is the answer that, since the mid-19th century, a procession of scholars have, like erudite dart-throwers, stippled the map of the Red Sea area with their often strongly argued proposals for where Punt lay. (Refer to map below throughout this article.) Syria. Sinai. Southern Arabia. Eastern Sudan. Northern Ethiopia. Somalia. Kenya. Each was Punt, insists this or that Egyptologist. New papers continue to appear regularly that try to put this question to bed once and for all. So far, all have failed.
As one scholar who has ventured into this labyrinth, Dmitri Meeks, has phrased it, "Punt 'exists' as if in a void ... the exact whereabouts of which remain more or less unknown."
Why? How can an entire realm or region go missing, as it were? With a steady stream of references across nearly 2,000 years of ancient Egyptian history and highly focused scholarship for 150 years, how can we not know? Where is Punt?

 -

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Proposed locations for Punt are literally all over the map. As one Egyptologist put it, "The variety of geographical placing of the Land of Punt is quite awesome...."


EVIDENCE FROM THE ANCIENTS
The first clear mention of Punt comes from the Old Kingdom. As the so-called Palermo Stone tells us, about 2500 B.C. during the reign of King Sahure, an expedition to Punt returned with 80,000 measures of 'ntyw, which scholars believe to be myrrh. Derived from a tree of the same name, myrrh is a resin used to make incense, which the Egyptians coveted for temple rituals; myrrh was the most prized commodity from Punt. Sahure's expedition also brought back 23,030 staves—wood being precious to a desert country like Egypt—and 6,000 measures of electrum, a natural alloy of gold and silver, among other items.
What the Palermo Stone doesn't tell us—launching a tradition of vagueness that lasted two millennia—is where Punt lies or how to get there.
By the Middle Kingdom, expeditions to Punt had become pyramidal in scope. One inscription from about 1985 B.C. mentions an expedition of 3,000 men; another a half century later boasted 3,700 men. Again, Punt's location is not given.
Where did the ships go on the Red Sea after they set sail from Saww? No one knows.
Hatshepsut's expedition in the New Kingdom, if not the largest, was far and away the most thoroughly chronicled. Dispatched in the 15th century B.C., during the ninth year of her reign, the crusade is meticulously recorded on her bas-relief (see The Expedition to Punt). One large scene portrays Punt itself, including beehive-shaped houses on stilts shaded by palm and possibly myrrh trees. Another scene depicts Hatshepsut's flotilla of ships departing for and arriving at the distant country, where they're "loaded very heavily with the marvels of the land of Punt" for the return voyage. A final scene shows dignitaries from Punt presenting their "marvels" to Queen Hatshepsut.
The last expedition to Punt that we know of occurred under Rameses III, in the 12th century B.C. An ancient papyrus records that Rameses III "constructed great transport vessels ... loaded with limitless goods from Egypt. ... They reached the land of Punt, unaffected by (any) misfortune, safe and respected." And they returned safe and respected. But from where exactly? The papyrus doesn't say.

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One of Hatshepsut's Punt ships setting sail, with red-painted Egyptians at the oars and Red Sea creatures swimming in the waters beneath


WHICH WAY?
What the papyrus does make clear is that Rameses III's expedition journeyed to Punt at least in part via the Red Sea. Today, scholars have convincingly shown that Middle and New Kingdom pharaohs bent on Punt constructed their ships on the Nile, then disassembled them and carried them 100 miles across the desert from Koptos, the place where the Nile comes closest to the Red Sea. They then reassembled them at the ancient Red Sea harbor of Saww (today Mersa Gawasis) and sailed to Punt. On the return, they unloaded the ships at Saww and transported the goods by donkey caravan back to the Nile, where they loaded them onto other ships for the journey south to the capital at Thebes.

But where did the ships go on the Red Sea after they set sail from Saww? No one knows.
To confuse matters further, other references indicate that the Egyptians didn't always go by way of the Red Sea. Certain inscriptions imply that another option to reach Punt was to travel south along the Nile, through Nubia just to the south of Egypt, and beyond. Some scholars believe the Egyptians opted for this route when friendly peoples ruled Nubia (as during the Old Kingdom), and only chose the Red Sea option—and the much more involved desert crossing—when hostile kingdoms blocked the overland route to the south (as during the Middle and early New Kingdoms).
EARLY THEORIES
The debate over Punt's place on the map began in the 1850s, when the newly formed Antiquities Service of Egypt began clearing the great temples in and around Thebes. Based on newly revealed hieroglyphic texts that described Punt as a source of aromatic substances situated to the east of Egypt, Heinrich Karl Brugsch first suggested, in the late 1850s, that Punt lay on the Arabian Peninsula. It seemed straightforward enough. After all, the Greeks had glorified the "perfumes of Arabia," a land that lies due east of Egypt.
Any signs of Punt itself in the dirt? Not yet.
Auguste Mariette changed this thinking with two discoveries. One was a hieroglyphic list that the Pharaoh Tuthmosis III left at Karnak Temple in Thebes that included Punt in those lands south of Egypt. The other was Hatshepsut's bas-relief, which, among other evidence it bears that points to Africa, shows distinctly African animals as products or natives of Punt, including the giraffe and rhinoceros, neither of which is found in Arabia. For the location of Punt, Mariette settled on the Somali coast, which also is known for its aromatics, including the fabled frankincense and myrrh. (Interestingly, the very tip of the Horn of Africa, a semi-autonomous region within modern-day Somalia, goes by the name Puntland.)

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A modified steering oar from pharaonic times found at the ancient Red Sea harbor of Saww (today's Mersa Gawasis)

THE ARGUMENT FOR AFRICA
Mariette's hypothesis held well into the next century. Then, in the 1960s, Rolf Herzog upset the applecart yet again. Based on a detailed study of the flora and fauna and other elements of Punt represented in Hatshepsut's bas-relief, Herzog placed Punt along the Upper Nile south of Egypt, specifically between the Atbara River and the confluence of the White and Blue Niles. Punt, Herzog felt, was reached overland and by river, but not by sea.
Yet Hatshepsut's relief appears to contradict that stance, as Kenneth Kitchen pointed out in a 1971 review of Herzog's work. Most indisputably, Kitchen notes, the fish that Hatshepsut's carvers depicted beneath the Punt ships, along with other marine creatures such as spiny lobster and squid, are clearly recognizable as species that swim to this day in the Red Sea.
Kitchen, in nearly four decades of writing on the subject of Punt, has succeeded in establishing what today is the most widely accepted position on the location of Punt. It was situated, he proposes, in what is today eastern Sudan and northern Ethiopia, extending from the Red Sea to the Nile. Arabia was out of the question, Kitchen says. Perhaps the most contrary evidence is linguistic, he writes: "As for Parehu, the only named chief of Punt, the consonant p in his name and that of Punt itself also firmly excludes Arabia." Why? Because Old South Arabian languages possess an f but no p. Thus, Kitchen writes, "Arabia would have had a Farehu, chief of Funt!" Egyptian has both consonants, so the transcription is reliable, he adds.

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Parehu, the only chief of Punt ever named in ancient records, appears here in Hatshepsut's relief next to his obese wife.


BACK TO ARABIA?
Other experts, while acknowledging the p problem, are not so quick to dismiss Arabia as the Land of Punt. In a 2003 paper—one that Kitchen himself called "a brilliant, most impressive tour de force" even as he challenged its premise—Dmitri Meeks advanced the notion that Punt lay along the entire western coast of the Arabian Peninsula, from the Gulf of Aqaba to Yemen. Meeks says that when one takes all ancient references to Punt into account, the picture becomes clear. "Punt, we are told by the Egyptians, is situated—in relation to the Nile Valley—both to the north, in contact with the countries of the Near East of the Mediterranean area, and also to the east or southeast, while its furthest borders are far away to the south," he writes. "Only the Arabian Peninsula satisfies all these indications."
In one of the most recently proposed hypotheses, Stanley Balanda, in a 2005-2006 paper, offers a sort of compromise between the Kitchen and Meeks theories. Balanda argues that a key expression within Hatshepsut's text has been misinterpreted as saying "by the sea" or "along the sea front" when it really means "on both sides of the sea." If Hatshepsut's expeditionaries had indeed, as Balanda translates one bit of hieroglyphs, "pitched tents for the king's representative and his expedition to the myrrh terraces on both sides of the sea [my italics] in order to receive the chiefs of this land," then one place on the Red Sea presents itself above all others. This is the straits of Bab el Mandeb at the sea's southern end, where today Djibouti and Yemen face each other across narrows no wider than the English Channel. Punt, Balada proposes, was a region of indeterminate size stretching out on both sides of the strait, which lay at the heart of Puntite commercial activities.

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Does Punt lie somewhere in this view, remaining to be discovered? Perhaps on the Upper Nile (left in image), or along the African or Arabian coast of the Red Sea (in distance)? Only time will tell—or perhaps not.


ARCHEOLOGY YET YOUNG
And what of corresponding archeological evidence? Any signs of Punt itself in the dirt? Not yet. As Jacke Phillips has written, "no archeological remains have ever been identified even tentatively as Puntite."
The closest archeologists have come to unearthing actual evidence of trade with Punt—if not Punt itself—occurred during excavations beginning in 2001 at the ancient harbor site of Saww on the Red Sea. Here, a team led by Kathryn Bard and Rodolfo Fattovich revealed ship timbers, stone anchors, ropes, and other artifacts dating to the Middle Kingdom. They also uncovered actual products presumably brought from Punt, including ebony (identified by charcoal) and obsidian (a volcanic glass), neither of which occurs in Egypt. They even found cargo boxes bearing painted hieroglyphic text describing the contents as the "wonders of Punt."
In the absence of the physical Punt, perhaps we should content ourselves with the metaphysical.
But no actual Punt site has turned up so far. This may be a case of absence of evidence rather than evidence of absence, for the archeology of both Red Sea coasts as well as the north coast of Somalia remains in its infancy. Who knows? One day soon, some archeological site, newly revealed tomb text, or other remains may well do what Hatshepsut's humblest sailor could have done in a few words—tell us where Punt is.
A LANDSCAPE OF THE MIND
In the meantime, in the absence of the physical Punt, perhaps we should content ourselves with the metaphysical. The Egyptians themselves did. Although Punt was quite real to the Egyptians, writes Stephen Harvey, "from early times Punt also maintained a separate but related existence as a literary landscape synonymous with wonder." An ancient Egyptian love song captures this notion in a declaration almost haiku-like in its conciseness—even as it remains blissfully silent on Punt's locale:

When I hold my love close, and her arms steal around me, I'm like a man translated to Punt ... when the world suddenly bursts into flower.
 
Posted by The Explorer (Member # 14778) on :
 
I've maintained for sometime now, that one of the reasons it is hard for contemporary folks to pin point the geographical specificity of Pwnt, is that it likely either did not refer to a specific polity, and/or, even if it had been one, it would not likely have met our current understanding of nations. Its borders could have extended outside of those of more than one modern nation, and so, hard to lock it down to one specific contemporary nationality. I also find it interesting, as I noted elsewhere, that from the hieroglyphic standpoint, the proper noun "Pwnt" didn't contain the determinative that generally accompanies references to polities, but rather, determinative that is translative as the English equivalent of "land". Some sources also suggest there were multiple concurrent chiefs in "Pwnt". It remains unclear whether these are simply "lesser" chiefs in a hierarchical system of royalty, where a "supreme" chief filled the top of the ruling ladder.

Ps: Putting aside the above, what does seem less uncertain about Pwnt, however, is that it must have at least extended to the lower/southern confines of Sudan and/or parts of the African Horn.
 
Posted by Tukuler (Member # 19944) on :
 
Please transfer this old arse thread to Egyptology forum.
 


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