crossroads for trade coming from the interior of Africa, the western and
southern coasts of Arabia, and points in the Indian Ocean as many of the
products Egyptians brought back could not have originated there. The
Egyptians sometimes referred to Punt as“God’s Land”because it was blessed
with products often used for religious purposes. Foremost of these were the
gum resins frankincense and myrrh, burned as incense in temples and used
in embalming and perfume. The trees that produced these grew only in
Somalia and on the southern reaches of the Arabian peninsula. Ivory and the
skins of giraffes, leopards, and cheetahs, all of which were worn by temple
priests, probably did not originate in Punt but from farther into the interior
as did live animals such as a particular type of baboon the Egyptians con-
sidered to be sacred. The Egyptians could also obtain gold and cinnamon in
Punt, both of which came from elsewhere.
The earliest known expedition to Punt was sent out by Sahura (2458–
2446 BCE), a pharaoh of the V Dynasty. It returned with 80,000 units of
myrrh plus some electrum (a mixture of gold and silver) and two commod-
ities that cannot be identified. Other expeditions followed, the normal pro-
cedure being to march from the Lower Nile across the desert to the Gulf of
Suez, where boats would be constructed on the beach. Under the VI Dynasty
(2345– 2184 BCE), the members of one such expedition were attacked by
desert raiders while in the process of building their boats and massacred.
Such expeditions could bring back very large quantities of goods, but they
did not represent a regular or continuous trade, and long periods often
intervened as, for example, between the VI and XI dynasties. One expe-
dition sent out by Pharaoh Mentuhotep III (2004– 1992 BCE), consisting of
3,000 men, marched from the Upper Nile down the Wadi Hammamat to
the sea with a caravan of donkeys carrying materials to build the ships.
Wells had been dug by an advance party and soldiers sent ahead to secure
the road.
The most celebrated of Egyptian expeditions to Punt was that of Queen
Hatshepsut (1473– 1458 BCE), who ruled as pharaoh in the XVIII Dynasty.
She was reportedly told by an oracle to send an expedition to Punt and in
compliance dispatchedfive ships, galleys that may have been up to 90 feet in
length. Hatshepsut commemorated the event in a series of reliefs depicted on
the walls of her mortuary temple, which include lengthy inscriptions. The
ships are shown arriving in Punt, where they are being greeted by a bearded
chief and his deformed wife, who seems to have been suffering from some
disease like lipodystrophy. The local people lived in beehive-shaped reed
houses raised on stilts above the water. They did, however, have many riches,
“marvels of the land of Punt” as the inscription reads, including bags of
myrrh and frankincense, ebony, ivory, gold, fragrant woods like cinnamon
and khesyt, eye cosmetics, panther skins, and live animals, including mon-
keys and dogs. In return, the Egyptians are shown trading beads, bracelets,
weapons, and tools.
Land of gold 45