Land of Punt

Puntland' is a province of Somalia

Land of Punt is a name for a place found in Ancient Egyptian texts. At times it is also called Pwenet or Pwene.^[1] People from Ancient Egypt traded with this place from 6.000 BC. It was known for producing and selling gold, aromatic resins, blackwood, ebony, ivory, and wild animals. The region is known from ancient Egyptian texts because people went there to trade.^[2] Some teachers of the bible think that it is the same as the biblical land of Put.^[3]

At times Punt is called Ta netjer, the "Land of the God".^[4]

It is not known where exactly this place was. Most scholars today believe Punt was to the southeast of Egypt, most likely in the coastal region of what is today Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea, northeast Ethiopia and the Red Sea coast of Sudan.^[5] However, some scholars point instead to other ancient writings which say Punt was in the Arabian Peninsula.^[6] It is also possible that the territory covered both the Horn of Africa and Southern Arabia. Puntland, the Somali administrative region at the edge of the Horn of Africa, is named in reference to the Land of Punt.^[7]

Inhabitants formed three groups which wore different clothing, and hairstyles. They held cattle and lived in stilt houses. Starting from the Nile a caravan could reach Punt in five days.

1. ↑ Ian Shaw & Paul Nicholson, The Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, British Museum Press, London. 1995, p.231.
2. ↑ Shaw & Nicholson, p.231.
3. ↑ Sadler, Jr., Rodney (2009). "Put". In Katharine Sakenfeld (ed.). New Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible. Vol. 4. Nashville: Abingdon Press. pp. 691–92.
4. ↑ Breasted, John Henry (1906–1907), Ancient Records of Egypt: Historical Documents from the Earliest Times to the Persian Conquest, collected, edited, and translated, with Commentary, p.433, vol.1
5. ↑ Simson Najovits, Egypt, trunk of the tree, Volume 2, (Algora Publishing: 2004), p.258.
6. ↑ Cite error: The named reference Meeks was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).
7. ↑ Puntland profile, BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14114727