Heritage Key reported recently that mummified baboons in the British Museum could reveal the location of the land of Punt - a place to which pharaohs organized trading expeditions. To the Egyptians, Punt was a place of fragrances, giraffes, electrum and other exotic goods. It was sometimes referred to as Ta-netjer – 'God’s land' – a huge compliment given that the Ancient Egyptians tended to view outside cultures with disdain.
Although Egyptians record voyaging to it until the end of the New Kingdom, 3,000 years ago, scholars do not know where Punt was. Ancient texts offer only vague allusions to its location and no 'Puntite' civilization has yet been discovered. Somalia, Ethiopia, Yemen and even Mozambique have all been offered as possible locations.
Thanks to some cutting edge science, the search for Punt appears to be coming to an end. New research, to be presented at an Egyptology conference today, provides proof that it was located in Eritrea/East Ethiopia.
See the above page for the full story.
2 comments:
Wow, this is an amazing piece of detective work. I love this kind of archaeological research project. If the harbour turns out to be the actual trading port would'nt it be wonderful if actual traded, or discarded ancient egyptian artifacts could be found in the area in order to neatly complete the research. Daveh
What a superb bit of archaeological detective work this story reveals. It would be superb if they could now find some ancient egyptian artefacts, whether traded or discarded in the area where this harbour has been identified in Ethiopia/Eritrea to complete the story.DaveH
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