Sailing to Distant Lands - The Legendary Land of Punt Revealed?

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Sailing to distant lands

New finds are bringing added understanding to the way ancient communities in Upper Egypt functioned, and to the importance of commerce and cultural development. Nevine El-Aref has been finding out about a pre-dynastic funerary complex and new evidence concerning trade with the legendary land of Punt


In the left photo a relief from Deir El Bahri temple. The relief shows men of the expedition of Punt carrying a basket with a transplanted Myrrh tree to their ship.


The mysterious Land of Punt, at one time identified with the Somali coast and now thought to be located in the southern Sudan or the Eritrean region of Ethiopia, 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....cont'd

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/745/hr1.htm

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The Mystical Land Of Punt


Picture of the Red Sea and the Eastern desert. The gulf of Aqaba, Wadi Rum (Irem) and Edom is on the far midle right of the photo. The port of Quseir is in the lower side of the left side of the Red sea.

During the Middle Kingdom and afterwards, the Red Sea journey to Punt usually originated from the port of Quseir "A red sea port"

It has been suggested that Punt, because of its exotic "overseas" character, might be as far away as Somalia, Yemen or even the Horn of Africa. However, many modern Egyptologists place Punt much nearer to Egypt. According to Dr Qumny the mysterious land of Punt is Petra which he explain in his massive four Volume Arabic books intiteled "Prophet Moses &The last days of Tell Al Amarneh".

We known that some of Punt's treasures were carried over land by way of Nmay and Irem on the far right of the above photo. (Irem in the Arab tradition is Wadi rum ,mentioned in the Quran as Irem of the pillars)

We also hear of the children of the chiefs of Punt that were raised at the Egyptian court alongside the children of Cush and Irem...cont'd

http://www.acacialand.com/Punt.html