One of the most enduring mysteries in archeology revolves around the true identity of Punt, the otherworldly “land of fertility” worshiped by the ancient Egyptians. Punt had it all: fragrant myrrh and frankincense, precious electrum (a mixed alloy of gold and silver) and malachite, coveted leopard skin, and other exotic luxuries.
Despite being trading partners for more than a thousand years, the ancient Egyptians never revealed Punt’s exact whereabouts, except for vague accounts of its voyages along what is now the Red Sea. That could mean anywhere from southern Sudan to Somalia or even Yemen.
Now, according to some information, recent papers Published in the journal eLife, Punt may have been the same as another legendary port city in modern-day Eritrea, known to the Romans as Adulis. This conclusion comes from genetic analysis of baboons that were mummified in late ancient Egypt (c. 800-500 BC). Genetics indicate that the animal was born centuries later near the location where Aduris is known to exist.
Many mentions, but few details
The earliest known direct reference to panto is Palmero Stone, one of the other seven fragments consisted of an engraved tablet containing the royal chronicles of the ancient Egyptian dynasty from the early to mid-Fifth Dynasty. According to the description of this stone, during the reign of King Sahure around 2450 B.C., a very profitable expedition to Punt took place, and about 80,000 measurements of myrrh, Electrum 6,000 barsand a similar amount of timber and slaves.
The most detailed depiction of Panto comes from the funerary temple of Deir el-Bahari, dedicated to Queen Hatshepsut, the first female ruler to be proclaimed pharaoh. Queen Hatshepsut’s expedition to Punt, ordered sometime in 1493 B.C.E., is of political and religious importance because the ancient Egyptians had lost their connection to the “Kingdom of God” for centuries. It was thought that. stone relief It depicts Hatshepsut’s fleet arriving in a mysterious land, villages lined with honeycomb-shaped houses on stilts, and all sorts of exotic flora and fauna (including myrrh trees and baboons), and her safe return home. It depicts the expedition.
After Hatshepsut, the last expedition to Punt took place in the 12th century BC during the reign of Ramesses II, commonly known as Ramesses the Great. surviving papyrus It explains that a ship loaded with cargo could be heading down the Red Sea to Punt. However, like all historical references, it is not mentioned exactly how long this voyage took or where the ancient Egyptians went.
Despite the lack of precise orientation, archaeologists have long entertained theories about Punt’s location, he said. Joseph Wegneris a professor of Egyptology and Egyptian archeology at the University of Pennsylvania and was not involved in the new eLife paper.
“Many would say that probably from the early 1900s until most of the 20th century, Punt was in the Horn of Africa. Somalia is often identified as Punt, and at some points in the country’s history it was called Somali It got to the point where the northernmost state was actually named Puntland,” Wegner said. “There was also debate as to whether they were on either side of the Red Sea. The prevailing opinion in Egyptology is that it concerns the African side of the Red Sea, which extends roughly from the coastal areas of Sudan and present-day Port Sudan to the northernmost tip of Eritrea and Ethiopia. I think so.”
DNA evidence
in 2020A team of researchers led by Nathaniel DomineyAnthropologists at Dartmouth College examined radioactive isotopes of strontium and oxygen in the mummified remains of baboons dating back to the New Kingdom (1550-1069 B.C.) and Ptolemaic periods (305-330 B.C.). Ta. By mapping isotopic signatures to rough geography, Domini and his colleagues found that some of the animals were not native to Egypt, but probably came from somewhere in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, or Somalia. I discovered that.
“For example, the strontium levels in your molars reflect what they were like when you were 5, 6, or 7 years old.As adults, we move around and live in many different places, but certain areas are “I still have my fingerprints,” Dominey said. “This was a great project because we were able to show that some baboons have lived their entire lives in Egypt, while others have come from far away places.”
We know the Egyptians got their baboons from Punt, so this helped narrow down the location slightly.and it provided some clues gisela kop, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Konstanz in Germany. In her new paper, her team, including Dominey, analyzed the mitochondrial DNA of a mummified baboon first excavated in 1905. valley of the monkeys in egypt It is located on the west bank of the Nile River in Luxor.
