they are unspecified except for a dancing dwarf (sometimes translated as
pygmy), which especially pleased the pharaoh.
Harkhuf’s trips are usually seen as trading ventures even if he claimed to
be returning with gifts or tribute and never mentions any reciprocal gifts.
Egyptian pharaohs preferred to interpret their exchanges with other states in
this light rather than as straight commercially based trade. Yam was
obviously beyond the reach of Old Kingdom Egypt’s limited striking force,
and if Harkhuf’s expeditions were designed for nothing more than extorting
gifts or tribute, the King of Yam probably would have become pretty tired
of it. Instead Harkhuf seems to have received more and better gifts on each
successive trip doubtless because he was bringing his own gifts. This little
detail just did not make it on to an already crowded tomb wall.
The most commonly proposed site for ancient Yam is the area around
Kerma above the third cataract. A great brick structure was built there,
although dating from the second millennium BCEseveral centuries after
Harkhuf’s visit. This was once believed to have been the site of a Middle
Kingdom Egyptian trading colony but is now recognized as the center of an
independent state that reached its peak during Egypt’s Second Intermediate
Period (1783– 1540 BCE) and was bound to Egypt by strong commercial ties.
The role of Nubian states in Egypt’s trade with the interior of Africa is still
not completely clear; scholars are uncertain whether they were actively
involved as middlemen or were content merely to extract tariffs and duties
from caravans passing through.
Egypt’s interest in the south was not confined to overland and riverain
traffic. To the immediate east of Egypt lies the great ditch that separates
Africa from Arabia, the Red Sea. Like the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea was a
corridor into and out of the Indian Ocean. However, it was larger and less
inviting than the Gulf owing to its dangerous shoals and wind pattern that
brought rough weather from June to December. Its main advantage was that
it was closer to the Mediterranean Sea than the Persian Gulf, an important
consideration since the Gulf and the Red Sea often competed for commercial
preeminence. Occasionally a powerful empire would control both waterways,
giving it a monopoly of trade between the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean,
but this was unusual.
During the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms, ships sailed down the Red
Sea to a land the Egyptians called Punt, determining the location of which
has been a favorite pastime of ancient armchair geographers. From itsflora
and fauna as described by the Egyptians, it was clearly in Africa not Arabia,
but the Egyptians always went to Punt by the Red Sea, never overland even
though under the New Kingdom Egyptian control penetrated far up the
Nile Valley. Recent studies appear to show Punt as being located in modern
Eritrea or on the coast of southeastern Sudan although proposals putting it
even farther northward, closer to the Egyptian border, or much farther
southward, in Somalia, have their advocates. Punt may have been a
44 Land of gold