SYMHC Classics: Hatshepsut

and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. And it has been too long since we've had any African history on the show. We know this. It's one of those things where you look at the recent archive and go, wow, that has been a while. I really wanted to do an episode on the land of Poot, which is a spelled pu in t so sometimes you'll also hear people pronounce it punt, and sometimes it's described as a kingdom, sometimes more of a massive

trading center. But there are some really really big holes in our knowledge of Punch that make it hard to do a whole episode on it. For example, we don't know exactly where it was. There are references to Punt in Egyptian writing that span about two thousand years, and there's also mentions from elsewhere in the world, but it's not totally clear whether all of these references are referring to the same place. But one of our biggest sources of information on Punt comes from hat Shepsuit, who sent

a huge expedition there in the fifteenth century BCE. This expedition to Punt is also an important and illustrative part of hat Shep's It's Rain. So today we're going to go to Punt by way of hat Shepsuit and the civilization that we call Ancient Egypt to expanded and contracted in cycles for thousands of years, with periods of prospering

and flourishing divided by periods of decline instability. This is part of why I have not jumped on any African history recently, because I start delving in and then I go whoa, oa, oh, this water's too deep, and I back up. Each Gyptologists have roughly divided these prosperous eras into the Old, Middle and New kingdoms, separated by intermediary periods.

These people knew their civilization by a number of names, including the Two Lands, the Beloved Land, and Kemmitt, which is usually translated as black land, often interpreted as a reference to the fertile soil that sits along the Nile River. Hat Shepsit was pharaoh near the start of the New Kingdom, which started with the founding of the eighteenth ruling dynasty.

The Eighteenth dynasty also included some of Egypt's most well known pharaohs, including i'm Ahotep, the Third, Akint, and Tutan common these kings did not call themselves pharaohs, though that's a Greek term that was coined a little later and then kind of retroactively applied to all of the kings

of this ancient kingdom. The Eighteenth dynasty was founded by Amosa in about fifteen thirty nine BCE, and after his death in about fifteen fourteen BCE, Amosa was succeeded by his son a Menhotep the First, But when a Menhotep the First died in about fourteen ninety three BCE, he did not have a male heir, so in that case, one of his generals, Tutmosa, was next on the throne. Tutmosa married a woman named Amosa, and it's not entirely

clear who her parents were. One of her titles was king's sister, but it's not totally known whether that came from being the sister of one of the previous kings or Tutmosa's own sister. In the society, kings had a primary wife known as the great royal wife, along with other lesser wives and concubines, and for much of ancient Egyptian history, it was typical for the king to take his sister or half sister as his great royal wife,

and to marry his other sisters as well. The king was the embodiment of the god Horus, and a marriage to a sister or half sister hearkened back to the Egyptian creation story. In this story, the first god a tomb, had no partner, so he created the first pair of deities by himself. This brother sister pair then produced another brother sister pair, and so on. In the eighteenth dynasty, in particular, it was required for royal sisters to marry their brother kings, and then for daughters of that pair

to marry the next king. And in addition to the religious aspect that connected back to this creation story. This also really concentrated the power and the wealth within the royal family, So whether Tutmosa was marrying his own sister or the sister of one of the previous kings, his doing this strengthened his claim to the throne, and it

preserved the idea of balance. When TUTMOSI died, he and Amosa had one daughter, hot Shepsit had Shepsid had been trained as a high priestess in the Temple of Ammon, who was head of the Egyptian pantheon as well as patron deity of the kings in the city of Thebes. During the New Kingdom. Tutmosa and Amosa did not have a son, but Tutmosa did have a son with one of his lesser wives, and that son was Tutmosa the Second.

Tutmosa the Second followed his father on the throne and about fourteen eighty two BCE, and he married his half sister, hat Shepsit, who was about thirteen at the time. Because the new king was very young, inexperienced, and chronically ill, the king's great royal wife acted as his regent. But Tutmosa the Second did not live long after becoming king. He died in about fourteen seventy nine BCE, after he

had been on the throne for about three years. By that point, he and huts Shepsit had one daughter, Nepherura, and they did not have any sons. However, like his father, Tutmosa the Second did have sons by other wives, including one by a woman named Isis. This was Tutmosa the Third, who was about two years old at the time of

his father's death. A marriage was planned between Tutmosa the Third and his half sister Neperura, and this would similarly strengthen his tie to the throne, although at the time both of them were way too young to immediately get married, so in the meantime, hot Shepsit, Tutmosi's the third stepmother and aunt, was going to act as his regent because

his mother Isis wasn't of royal blood. Up until this point, the line of succession in the eighteenth dynasty had progressed in a way that was really pretty typical apart from Tutmosa the First being a general who was not of royal birth, and it was also pretty common for a woman to act as regent if her husband died before his heir was old enough to rule on his own.

It was more common for a woman to wind up in such a position of power at the end of the dynasty, though, when the late king had no male heir. For the first few years after her husband's death, hot Shepsit's conduct's regent was pretty typical for the time as well. She built a memorial chapel to her late husband. She was publicly dedicated to preserving his memory and looking after the welfare of his sons. She took action on young Tutmosa's behalf and guided him as he grew into the

divine king on his own. She ordered the renewal and restorations of temples to honor the young king, and she sent an expedition to Aswan to quarry a pair of obelisks that would be dedicated to him. Writings about her from this time referred to her as queen or with her formal religious title as the kingdom's highest priestess, which was God's Wife of Ahmen, and her depictions and carvings were pretty typical for a woman in these positions, but by the seventh year of her regency that had started

to change. She reported that the oracle of Ahman had delivered a message from the God that she should be king, becoming co ruler with her step son. In her account, this happened at the temple of Karnak during a festival when a statue of Ahman was supposed to perform an oracle or miracle. At first, no message came, but when it finally did, the statue moved around dramatically and delivered a message to her that she was to be both

her majesty and the God's wife. She started to be depicted in artwork with both masculine and feminine traits, and after a while she was shown as a man with the skirt and the decorative beard and the crown that signified her being king. She wasn't disguising her gender, though the language that was used to describe her was still feminine most of the time, even as the artwork was

depicting her as progressively more masculine. This was really something that happened over time, with some more masculine elements appearing long before the seventh year of her regency, and then with her depictions continuing to become more and more masculine as time passed, and at some point she was formally crowned in a series of rituals that took days to complete, As was typical for Pharaoh, She took a new throne name Mahatkare, which translates roughly to truth is the soul

of Ray. The idea of Maat or truth in this context also connected to justice and order, and was a trait that was established by the gods. The role of the Pharaoh was to mediate between the gods of humanity, preserving the god's mad There was also a goddess named Mahat who was the personification of these traits. She also banned construction of her mortuary temple, known as Jasara Jaseru or Holy of Holies. This was built at the dear

Elbahari temple complex near what's now Luxor. This temple was meant to guide her into the afterlife, where as Pharaoh, she would transcend into a divine being, and it was to make sure that she was well provided for there. The tomb to actually hold her mummy was built in another location. Hatshepsu's mortuary temple was a massive three tier temple made from sandstone, full of statuary, including statues of hat Shepsit as the god of Cyrus. The structure itself

still stands today. Relief carvings on the temple walls documented hat Shepsuit's biography and her rule as king. This included a new story documenting her birth that the god Ahman had disguised himself as Tutman the First and impregnated hot Shepster's mother. Both her throne name and her new origin story reinforced the idea that she had a legitimate claim to be king and that she was connected directly to the god Amen, who had authorized her to do it.

Although she was technically co ruler with Tetmosa the Third, for the rest of his life she acted as the soul monarch. She also changed his throne name from one that meant the manifestation of Ray is enduring to one that meant the manifestation of the soul of Ray is enduring, kind of adding a degree of separation between him and being a direct manifestation of the God. And it's not

entirely clear what motivated her to do this. When archaeologists first unearthed her tomb in the nineteenth century, they concluded that she was power hungry and conniving and had stolen the throne from her step son for her own selfish reasons, and we're going to talk about why they came to

that conclusion in just a bit. Her recent scholars have pretty much dismissed that idea, though while simple ambition might have been involved, it's also possible that there was some kind of threat to Tutmos of the third and that hat Shepster was protecting him by becoming the king herself. It might have been just that he had been king under a regency for about seven years and he still wasn't old enough to father an heir. It would probably be another seven or so years before he could actually

rule the kingdom on his own. That was a lot of time to get through in a world where early deaths were really common. And it's also possible that her doing this wasn't actually her idea, that it was something that advisers or the priesthood thought was necessary for some reason. Regardless, she could not have done this without significant support among the ruling class. She had carefully cultivated relationships and alliances for years as regent before taking on the role of king.

What she did was unprecedented, but the elite in thebes allowed her to do it, and the fact that they did suggest that she was admired and respected as elite or before she took the throne. It's clear that regardless of what the motivations were, she was incredibly savvy to do this, and she also proved herself to be a capable ruler, which we will talk about after a sponsor break.

We nalked before the break about how before hatcheps It became king, the line of succession had unfolded in the eighteenth dynasty in a pretty typical way, but hatcheps It's ascension to the throne wasn't typical at all. There were other women who had held positions of power in Egyptian history, but for one to take the throne in this way

was really unprecedented. So, in addition to her throne name and the revised story of her birth, she got to work immediately taking steps to try to reinforce the idea that she was a legitimate ruler. She commissioned hundreds of statues and other artwork depicting her as king, along with

statues and structures honoring the God Amen. She expanded the priesthood and constructed temples all over Thebes and beyond including a bark chapel that French archaeologist named the Chapel Rouge after unearthing the blocks used to build it in the nineteen twenties. The chapel's original location is unknown. It was dismantled after Hutchepsi's death, and its blocks were used for

a pylon in Karnak. She employed craftspeople associated with some of the kingdom's most prominent families to do all of this, building up her base of support. Hat Shepsit launched two military expeditions into Nubia, one of which she reportedly led herself. She also sent expeditions to mine gold in Nubia and in the eastern Desert. She strengthened trading relationships with other parts of Africa and with the Levant, possibly as far

west as what's now Afghanistan. Shortly after taking the throne, she also dispatched a massive trading expedition to punt which we'll be talking about in more detail in a bit. And throughout all of this she favors to prominent men whose support she needed to stay in power, but she also made appointments to political newcomers which gave her support

that did not come with as many strings attached. In the fifteenth year of her rule, had Shepsit sent another expedition to Aswan to quarry a second set of obelisks, with this pair being inscribed to her. A year later, she held a jubilee festival known as Said, something that was typically done in the thirtieth year of a king's

rule to rejuvenate his power. It's possible that she chose this earlier date because it was about thirty years since her father had died, at which point she had become her husband's queen, so in a way that marked the beginning of her time on the throne. At some point she had her father's mummy moved to a tomb near her mortuary temple, again reinforcing her connection to the dynastic line.

She also increasingly focused on her right to rule as coming from being her father's daughter, rather than her having been married to Tutmosa the Second. During her time on the throne, had shep's It's most powerful advisor was a man named Sennenmut. We don't know all that much about him as a person. He started out as the overseer of the large hall at the palace in Thebes, starting at the very beginning of tutmost of the second's reign.

He soon took on an increasing number of political appointments and became tutor to hat sheps It's daughter. By the time hat sheps It took the throne, he had become incredibly powerful and a very important figure. He ultimately amassed ninety three different official titles and became chief architect of hat sheps It's mortuary temple. He oversaw treasuries and craftspeople all over the kingdom. There's been some speculation that the

two of them were linked romantically. Some of it stems from the fact that he was very close to hat Sheps's daughter, leading people to wonder whether he was actually her father. He also built his burial temple near hat sheps It's mortuary temple. Also, Sennenmutt was a powerful man in the court of a woman, which is frequently caused for suspicion. Although it's likely that Hatchepsid had other relationships after her husband's death, she would have had to have

been really careful about one involving Senenmut. Senninmut disappears from the historical record in the nineteenth year of hat Shepsid's rule, although he might have survived after her death. She died in her early forties after having ruled as king for about fifteen years and as tutmost of the Third's regent for about seven years before that. This makes her the longest reigning female monarch in ancient Egyptian history, and possibly the first to rule as a king rather than a

regent or other interim ruler. As we noted earlier, there were other women who served as regents or who grew into having a lot of power as queens, and there's some debate about whether any of these earlier women became kings in their own right. After Hatshepsud's death, tutmost of the Third became the sole ruler. It's clear from his time as king that hat Shepsid had prepared him to be a skilled leader from both a military and a

political perspective. He had begun marrying and fathering children by his late teens, and by the time he was twenty he was commander of the military. After hat Shepsud's death, he conquered much of what is now Syria, as well as parts of Sudan and Iraq. The first of these expeditions took place almost immediately after he became the sole monarch. It seems as though hat Shepsit had started making preparations

for it before her death. Like hat Shepsit had done, Tutmos of the Third also undertook huge building projects, constructing temples and having obelisks quarried in Oswan. He also completed monuments to her that were already under way when she died.

But then about twenty years into his reign, Tutmost of the Third started construction of a new temple, which was next to hat Shepsit's mortuary temple, and at about this time people started removing all references to hat Shepsit as king from temples and other buildings all over the kingdom. Statues depicting her as king were smashed, relief carvings were defaced. Her name was chiseled out of the reliefs at Jasair Jeseru and replaced with the names of Tutmosa the First,

the Second, and the third. Her mortuary temple was reconsecrated, and her obelisks at Karnak were walled in. Her name was also removed from the official lists of kings. It is generally concluded that Tutmosa the third ordered this purge, but it's not clear how much he was encouraged to do so by the priesthood or his advisers. She wasn't entirely obliterated from the record, though. This destruction went on for the rest of Tutmosa the Third's life, which was

for about another decade. But there were so many statues and other depictions of hat Shepsuit that some of them were still intact by the time he died. With so much of her record destroyed, hat Shepsuit soon fell into complete obscurity. The people who remembered and supported her eventually died, and without her name in the lists of kings, she

seems to have been forgotten within a few generations. When her mortuary temple was unearthed in the nineteenth century, no one knew how to read hieroglyphics yet, so all of the smash statues and other defacements were interpreted as simple vandalism or the work of grave robbers. Then, in the eighteen twenties, John Francois Champollion built on earlier work by Thomas Young to decipher the hieroglyphic text on the Rosetta stone, and then that paved the way for modern people to

be able to read hieroglyphics. Champollion personally visited hutcheps It's temple and was deeply confused by what he found there. In addition to all these replaced names, there were pictures of two kings standing side by side that was incredibly unusual. There was also writing that just didn't make sense, that had feminine word forms when they expected masculine ones. Eventually,

archaeologists pieced together what had happened. That hud Shepsit had been Tutmosa the Third's region, but had taken the throne herself, but they erroneously concluded that Tutmosa had immediately removed hutch Shepsit's name from the record as soon as she died, that Tutmosa was angry at having had his kingship stolen from him for more than a decade, and that his removal of his stepmother's name was evidence of both his

outrage and her character. Based on this assumption, they concluded that hat Shepsuit was a stereotypical evil stepmother right out of a Disney movie, wicked and conniving and only interested in her own power, But Today, we know that about twenty years passed between hat Shepsit's death and the defacement of her tomb and all the other destruction, and the interpretation of what led to that defacement as much different.

That's largely thanks to the work of egyptologist Charles Nims in nineteen sixty six, who was the first person to pinpoint the date of the defacement as being the forty second year of tutmost of the second's reign, according to some research as it was even later than that, so it's more likely that the ruling class became interested in preserving the idea that the dynastic line had continued without any kind of interruption through Tutmosis the first, second, and

the third. It's also possible that there was some concern about Tutmosa the third successor a Menhotep the Second. Tutmosa did eventually marry hat Shepsit's daughter, Nepherrera, and he had a son either with her or with another royal wife, but both of them died, so his successor was a Menhotep the Second, whose mother had no royal lineage and

no connection back to hut Shepsit. It seems that Tutmosa the third was concerned enough about the line of succession that he had a Menhotep crowned while he was still living, with the two of them acting as co monarchs. So this removal of hat Shepsit from the record might have been connected to all this uncertainty, and it's also possible that the purge wouldn't have been considered necessary if hot Shepsit's daughter had survived and she had become the mother

to the next king rather than the king's wife. Coming from this totally disconnected lineage, the idea of a female king is also an affront to the concept of maat that we talked about earlier. The king was supposed to be an intermediary with the gods and a living embodiment of Horus, keeping everything in balance, So having a woman in this role was basically the opposite of this idea

of ordered justice. The fact that a woman had a relatively peaceful and prosperous rain in spite of this affront, tumah Aunt may have raised unwelcome questions about that divine order and the rule of other kings. Hatsheps That's mummy wasn't placed in the tomb where she intended it to be or if it was, it was later moved, but a mummy from a tomb that was found in the Valley of the Kings in nineteen oh two might be hers.

That tomb was fully excavated starting in nineteen twenty. During the excavation, archaeologists found the mummies of two women, one of which was on the floor. One of these was later identified as Hatshepsit's wet nurse. The other one, the one that had been on the floor, was positioned in a way that was often used for Royal women. A CT scan found that it was missing a tooth. Meanwhile, a box marked with hot Shepsit's cartouche had been unearthed

as well in a cache of Royal mummies. A scan of that box revealed that it contained a tooth, and this tooth appears to be a match for the mummies missing one. So it's likely that this was had Sheepsit's mummy, although that is still not one hundred percent proven. Yeah, there is discussion of using DNA to try to confirm everything. Back when these initial analyzes happened, I don't know what the results of that were. I could not find reference

to it anywhere. But it's also incredibly difficult to get good DNA out of mummified samples that are this old anyway. This finally brings us to the voyage to Punch that I wanted to focus on from the beginning, and we will get to that after a sponsor break. The first reference to Punt and ancient Egyptian writing is from the Palermo Stone, which dates back to about twenty five hundred BCE. That was more than a thousand years before hatsheps It

became king. According to the Palermo Stone, King Sahara sent an expedition to Punt, which returned with eighty thousand measures of a substance that's generally written as NTYW, sometimes preceded by an apostrophe. Some sources translate this word as frankincense and others translate it as myrr. Both that these are made from aromatic tree resins and are used to make

perfumes an incense, as well as spices and medicine. This expedition also brought back wood in the form of rods or staves, which were probably used to make spears and other weapons. Because the Egyptian kingdom's territory at that time didn't include trees that yielded wood that was good for that purpose. There are periodic references to Punt, also known as God's Land in Egyptian writing. After that, all of the documented expeditions were associated with kings who were known

for exceptional leadership and good fortune. There are also fictional references, including the Tail of the Shipwrecked Sailor. This story dates back to the Middle Kingdom, and in it, a sailor washes up on an island in the Red Sea and meets the Lord of Punt. The Lord of Punt is a serpent who gives him all kinds of gifts, including mrr eye paint, baboons, and elephant tusks. Egyptian documents described two different routes to Punt. One of them is along

the Red Sea and one is along the Nile. Both of them involved some time on the Nile as well as travel over land. For the Red Sea route, ships were probably built on the Nile and then they sailed to Koptos. From there they were disassembled and then carried along a dry river bed called the Wadi Hammamat, and that went all the way to the Red Sea, which was one hundred and twenty miles or one hundred and

ninety three kilometers away. Then on the return trip, the goods probably would have been loaded onto pack animals to be carried back across the Wadi Hummamat, and then they would have been loaded into different ships on the Nile, rather than deconstructing the ships and carrying them again. It was an involved process. You would only want to go to this place if it took that much effort. If you were going to get some really good trade goods out of it, you really had to want to do it.

To travel along the Nile, ships would have used rowers and sails to travel south against the current, and then followed the current back, but it's not clear exactly where the overland portion was headed after getting off of the ships.

Whether an expedition traveled along the Red Sea or stuck mostly to the Nile might have been a matter of practicality, with the Egyptians traveling farther down the Nile when they had friendly relationships with the kingdoms and empires in that area, but then crossing over the land and traveling down the Red Sea when they didn't. Or it could have been that Punt was very large and stretched all the way from the Red Sea to the Nile, and the Egyptians

visited different parts of it at different times. Like we mentioned at the top of the show, had Shepsy's expedition to Punt was one of the most notable acts in her time as king, and a lot of what we know about Punt comes from her documentation of those expeditions. According to the account in the relief carvings in Hodshepsu's mortuary temple, this voyage restored trade with Punt after an interruption of more than two hundred years. She had several

probable reasons for wanting to embark on this expedition. One was simply access to luxury goods and aromatic resins. The resins, in particular were really important for religious purposes. This might have been a reward for her supporters when she ascended to the throne, like they helped her get on the throne, and in return she was going to give them access to all of this good trade. It was probably also

a way to keep the army busy. Although it does appear that Hotchpsit led a couple of small military campaigns into Nubia, it wasn't generally considered appropriate for a woman to personally lead an army into battle. On top of that, there it was just a lot more risk for her than there would be for a man in her position. It would have been just catastrophic for an unprecedented female

king to lead a military campaign that then failed. So Hot Shepsit needed some other way to reinforce the idea that she was competent and accomplished and capable as king, and she needed something to do to keep the soldiers occupied, like having them go all the way to Punt. And as was the case with her ascension to the throne, Hat Shepsit's relief carving show that this was divinely ordered, saying that the oracle had delivered a command that quote

the highways to the mer terraces should be opened. This is a slightly different framing from how other pharaohs documented their expeditions to Punt, which more focused on Amun or Amonray causing Punt to send their goods or causing the way to Punt to be opened. The buy reliefs in Hot sheps It's temple depict large sailed ships crewed with thirty rowers each carrying goods from Egypt, including fruit, meat, bread, beer,

and wine. They sail across the water, and based on the aquatic life that shown in the carvings, that water is probably meant to be the Red Sea. Once they arrive in punt there are carvings of the region's trees, which might be the trees used to produce ebony, frankincense, or myrrh. There are also some fig trees. There are also depictions of huts with domed roofs on stilts, which

might have been houses or grainaries. From there, the reliefs show all kinds of goods being loaded back onto the ships, including herbs, wood, resins, gold, incense, and animal skins. There are also lots of live animals, including baboons, monkeys, cattle, and hounds. Enslaved people and their children are loaded into the ships as well, and cross sections of the loaded ships show them just packed to the gills with goods.

Once the goods arrived safely at Karnak temple and thieves, the Egyptians and the Puntite dignitaries who are returned with them are shown presenting hapshets with the goods that they had brought. This includes live resin trees in baskets, meant for transplanting, and hatcheps It did transplant them around her mortuary temple and the carvings. Hatcheps It also consecrates the best of all these goods to the God Amen. The

people have Punt appear in these depictions as well. They have dark reddish skin with long hair and goateee like beards. The only ones whose names are mentioned are King Parahu and his queen Atti. The queen is depicted as being very strikingly large, something that has led to a lot of commentary about her body, and a lot of it has started with the assumption that there was a pathological explanation for her body shape and size, but it may have just been how she was built, or a mark

of status and wealth in her culture. By the way, if you look her up, be prepared to read some really gross and insulting things about her body. In almost every single article, including articles that are brand new, almost no one had nothing ugly to say about what the

Queen of Punt looked like. These reliefs are very detailed, so it's likely that Hatcheps had sent artists with the expedition and ordered them to make very careful observations for the sake of these reliefs when they returned, and the reliefs are definitely our biggest single source of information about Punt, but there is still so much that we don't know. For one thing, we really don't know how the people

of Punt referred to themselves. Punt is what is in Egyptian writing, but it's also echoed in things that came later, like Herodotus's history, which was written in the fifth century PCE. And we also don't know exactly where it was. That's something people have been trying to figure out for more

than one hundred and fifty years. At first, researchers focused on the Arabian Peninsula, but as archaeologists unearthed more and more descriptions of Punt being to the south rather than to the east of the Egyptian Kingdom, and more references of the goods being traded, they started focusing more on the stretch of the continent between Egyptian territory and the Horn of Africa. Many of the goods described as coming from Punt were native to this part of the African continent,

but there's still a lot of room for speculation. This is especially true since the ancient Egyptians were certainly not Punt's only trading partner, so the goods that were available in Punt probably came from other parts of the world

as well, both on the continent of Africa and elsewhere. Also, the domed huts and the stilt houses that are shown in the reliefs are more associated with central and western Africa than with the parts of the continent that were most likely to be accessed via the Red Sea, and which archaeologists and other researchers have mostly focused on in this search. Most, but not all, researchers have concluded that Punt was probably located somewhere along the Red Sea, but

exactly where is still a mystery. Researchers have certainly put forth a lot of ideas, a lot of them simultaneously contradictory and well supported, most place punched somewhere in what's now Eritrea, Ethiopia, or Somalia. In an article in the Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, Stanley Balanda explores descriptions of Punt as on the Twin shores of the sea, and he interprets the account's description of where the expedition pitched their tents as on both sides of

the Red Sea. Based on that, he concludes that Punt lay along the Bal Almandab Strait, with modern Jibouti on one side and Yemen on the other, in both Eastern Africa and the Western Arabian Peninsula. And twenty ten researchers even tried to use oxygen isotope analysis to try to confirm Punt's location by studying the mummy of a baboon

that had presumably been brought back from Punt. That research suggested that this baboon was from what's now Eritrea or eastern Ethiopia, and so they concluded that Punt might have

covered all of that general area. A major archaeological discovery could clear all this up, but right now, the biggest archaeological finds related to Punt are from the Egyptian harbor of Mrsagoasis, known at the time as Saw would show evidence of trade with Punch regardless, though Punt seems to have existed as an important and thriving trading partner from roughly twenty five hundred BCE to about six hundred BCE. The last Egyptian expedition that we know about took place

under Ramsey's third in the twelfth century BCE. Ah Elusive Punt. Yeah, I'm very you will. Also if you go poking around on the internet, you will also find some more far fetched and less well supported ideas about it being in many far flung places that are not in the immediate vicinity of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, which aren't really supported so much by what we know in terms of what's documented about Egyptian relationships with Punt and about what

we know about Egyptian's seafaring capabilities, which weren't amazing. They could get up and down the Nile pretty well, but they really tended to stick very closely along the shore of the Red Sea. They were not nearly as good as like getting out into the water. Away from that safety of land. They were focusing more on architecture and

that is fine. Yeah. We should also note that in the modern era, there is a place called Puntland which is a part of Somalia, and we know that that was named after the land of Punt, but it's not clear that that was the same physical location. Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. Since this episode is out of the archive. If you heard an email address or a Facebook RL or something similar over the

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