P: Pacata-Mu to Pur-Un-Runa 231
Queen Hatshepsut in 1470 B.C., it was neither the first nor last. Her expedition
was outstanding, however, because she faithfully recreated Punt architecture
for her temple at Deir el-Bahri, whose un-Egyptian structures were intended to
memorialize her great commercial achievement. Nothing remotely resembling
this complex ever appeared in East Africa, where academic opinion erroneously
locates Punt.
Many of the goods listed by Egyptian bureaucrats as Punt exports, such as
amber, never came from the area of Somalia. Amber is still exported from the
Atlantic islands, particularly the Canaries. Moreover, the records of Ramses II
report that his largest ships, known as menechou, “reached the mountain of Punt.”
While Somalia has no mountain, Plato described the island of Atlantis as “very
mountainous.” The Queen of Punt, during the Hatshepsut expedition, was named
Ati, a possible derivation of “Atlantis.” She and her King, Parihu, were not negroid,
but white-skinned, with aquiline features similar to those of the Atlantean “Sea
Peoples” portrayed on the walls of Ramses III’s “Victory Temple.”
Ati’s people, the Puntiu, “wore long beards which, when they were plaited,
looked just like the beards of the Egyptian gods” (Montet, 86). Egyptian deities
were associated with the rising and setting of the sun, never in the south, the
direction of East Africa. The Puntiu were themselves said to have worshiped the
Egyptians’ supreme solar god, Ra, and built a great temple to Amun, the sky-god,
none of which has ever had anything to do with Somalia. Hatshepsut’s well-
preserved ruins are undoubtedly the last surviving specimens of public buildings
as they appeared in 15th century B.C. Atlantis, which was one of Egypt’s wealthiest
but farthest trading partners.
Revealingly, the last Punt expedition took place at the very beginning of
Ramses III’s reign, circa 1200 B.C. A short time following—two to five years, possibly
even a few months—Atlantis was destroyed, and some of its survivors invaded the
Nile Delta. Nekau II, mentioned previously, undertook the circumnavigation of
Africa six centuries later, specifically to determine if anything was left of the
Atlantean Punt, but his hired Phoenician sailors returned empty-handed. Nekau
reigned at a time when his XXVI Dynasty was actively engaged in promoting a
renaissance of Egyptian culture and history, when old documents describing rich
expeditions to Punt were reevaluated. His capital was Sais, the same city where
the story of Atlantis was preserved in the Temple of Neith. All these elements
were certainly related, and strongly imply an Atlantean identity for Punt.Pauwvota
A flying vehicle, as described in Hopi accounts of their pre-flood ancestors.
(See Vimana)