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Land of Punt - Part 2

by Kester

Old Kingdom Contact with Punt

Sahure, in the 5th Dynasty (ca. 2487 to 2475 B.C.E.), was the first pharaoh to send an expedition to Punt. The Palermo Stone records that his expedition returned with 80,000 measures of myrrh, 6,000 weight of electrum (a gold-silver alloy), and 2,600 staves of exotic wood. In the years following this expedition, contact with Punt was frequent as the Elephantine lords sought to establish trade with the South. Shortly after the time of Sahure, Khnemhotep, a steersman, recorded having been on eleven trips to Punt.

Middle Kingdom Contact with Punt

In the 12 Dynasty, Amenemhet II and his son Sesostris II furthered traffic with Punt. As a result, Punt became more familiar to the Egyptians during this time period. The story of the shipwrecked sailor was from this time.

Legend of the Shipwrecked Sailor

On his way to either Nubia or the mines in the Sinai Peninsula, a sailor was shipwrecked in the Great Green (either the Red Sea or possibly even the Nile). The sailor washed up on an island inhabited by a giant serpent which could talk, knew the future, and declared itself to be the Lord of Punt. The serpent aided the sailor, and in gratitude, the sailor offered him oils, laudanum, wood and incense. At hearing the list of gifts the serpent laughed, as these were the very resources in which his own land was rich. He sent the sailor on his way off the island, laden down with gifts of his own: myrrh, laudanum, exotic woods, cosmetics, incense, elephants’ tusks, giraffes’ tails, and other animals.

Interruption in Contact during the 13th Dynasty

In the 18th century B.C.E. Egypt was undergoing internal strife. In the following century the Delta area and much of central Egypt was conquered by the Hyksos, people from the east who came with horse and chariot. It was another century before Egypt regained power. The canal to the Red Sea, meanwhile, had fallen into disrepair, and the trips to Punt stopped. In the absence of the expeditions sanctioned by the pharaohs, any goods reaching Egypt again came overland by middlemen.

Illustration of an Egyptian ship and crew from www.clipart.com.

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