I agree, great find, however I think it's premature to rule out other areas of the horn of Africa including Yemen, simply based on the origins of a particular Baboon. It's almost laughable, when you think about it logically.
One of the purposes for the AE expeditions to the land of Punt was to import frankincense and myrrh, which are found in both Somalia and Yemen, not to mention the fact that frankincense is almost exclusive to Somalia and Yemen, and rarely found in other areas of the Horn.
I would think given this evidence, that Punt encompassed a wider geographical area of the modern day Horn countries, as has always been speculated. I personally don't see the necessity to narrow the location down to one or two areas.
"The exact location of Punt remains a mystery. Most scholars today believe Punt was located to the south-east of Egypt, most likely on the coast of the Horn of Africa in what is today Eritrea and eastern Sudan."
True, but it does cast some significant doubt in regard to Yemen. Also, thats not the only reason why Yemen, and other locations such as Somalia, are out of the question.
Punt was reached via land and water, the Eastern Sudan and Eritrea are the only locations to fit that description.
"Turning my face to sunrise I created a wonder for you, I made the lands of Punt come here to you, with all the fragrant flowers of their lands, to beg your peace and breathe the air you give."
We know that some of Punt's treasures were carried over land by way of Nmay and Irem (through the modern Sudan). We also hear of the children of the chiefs of Punt that were raised at the Egyptian court alongside the children of Kush (Nubia) and Irem.
Therefore, it has been assumed that Punt was not so far away, and most modern scholars place it perhaps on Africa's East Coast perhaps only just south of Egypt. Furthermore, modern attempts to classify flora and fauna suggests that Punt may have been located in the southern Sudan or the Eritrean region of Ethiopia. Yet this would place Punt to the east of Nubia and there is no evidence of military conflict between Punt and Egypt, as there was between Egypt and Nubia.
Also the Eastern Sudan and Eritrea are the only possiable location with a civilization that old with ties with both the Lower and Middle Nile Valley, i.e. "Egypt" and "Nubia".
"Eritrean history is one of the oldest of Africa and even the world. Together with the western Red Sea coast of Sudan, it is considered the most likely location of the land known to the ancient Egyptians as Punt (or "Ta Netjeru," meaning god's land), whose first mention dates to the 25th century BC. "
"The earliest evidence of agriculture, urban settlement and trade in Eritrea was found in the western region of the country consisting of archeological remains dating back to 3500 BC in sites called the Gash group. Based on the archaeological evidence, there seems to have been a connection between the peoples of the Gash group and the civilizations of the Nile Valley namely Ancient Egypt and Nubia. Ancient Egyptian sources also give references to cities and trading posts along the southwestern Red Sea coast, roughly corresponding to modern day Eritrea"
"The team also think that they may have discovered the location of the harbour that the Egyptians would have used to export the baboons and other goods back to Egypt. Dominy points to an area just outside the modern city of Massawa: “We have a specimen from that same harbour and that specimen is a very good match to the mummy.”
Arguement for Eritrean-Sudanese origin
Egyptologists have long since given up on locating Punt in Arabia Felix (Yemen), or equating it with the biblical land of Ophir and its "mines of King Solomon." In fact, there was also a land route that brought the products of Punt to Egypt; the "mountain of Punt" and its auriferous pools clearly lay on the borders of Kush, in the Nile Valley of Nubia. Scholars no longer feel a need to go as far as Zanzibar or Socortra or even to Somalia in search of Punt.
The land of Punt was home to various incense-bearing trees (Boswellia and commiphera, which thrive on low rainfall), Dom-palms, and species of hard, black trees called heben in Egyptian, the origin of the word "ebony." Visitors to punt had encountered panthers, cheetahs, monkeys and baboons (the latter on dry hills), as well as giraffes and rhinoceroses, animals that dwelled in the plains. Gold also came from Punt, in the middle of summer; rain fall on the mountain of Punt only in the miraculous form of veritable deluges. These details gleaned from texts enable us to locate the famous shores of punt and their vast inter land. The land called punt included a desert region and a Sahelian region between the 22nd and the 18th longitude lines parallel to the North. The south of Punt might have included the present-day province of Kassala and the north of Eritrea. To the west and the northwest, an indefinable border separated it from Kush and the land of the Medjoi (roughly Etbaya).
Egyptians explorers could get to the land of Punt by land, though they had to cross vast stretches of mountains and desert. Punt could also be reached by sea, but at the cost of huge logistical efforts and a lengthy, costly journey. Even so, the land was both divine and familiar. This casts new light on a longstanding Egyptological problem, the location of the land of Punt, from which came gold, ebony, incence, and marvels.
Rejecting its earlier identification with Somalia, Kitchen (1993) firmly locates Punt in northern Eritrea and adjacent areas of Sudan. The ebony (dalbergia melanoxylon) found in Pharaonic contexts occurs only in Eritrea, along with one kind of incense widely used in Bronze Age Egypt and the Levant, Eritrean Pistacia resin (serpico and White 2000).
In nearly four decades of writing on the subject of Punt, he has succeeded in establishing what has today become the most widely accepted position on the location of Punt (Eritrea and Eastern Sudan). Perhaps the most contrary evidence is language, and according kitchen, "As for Parehu, the only named chief of Punt, the consonant p in his name and that of Punt itself also firmly excludes Arabia." And the mere reason is that Old South Arabian languages possess an ‘f’ but no ‘p’. Thus, Kitchen writes, "Arabia would have had a Farehu, chief of Funt!" Egyptian has both consonants, which make the transcription is reliable.
Professor Pankhurst explains why the Eritrean coast would have been the best location for Punt, and pointed out that the proximity of the area to Egypt and the limitation of seasonal sailing wind as the main reasons. It may further be urged that the northernmost area, what is now the Eritrean coast, probably constituted the most frequently visited African section of Punt. The area's northerly location, and consequent relative proximity to Egypt, would have given its trade a significant edge over that of more distant areas, such as the Somali country and the Ethiopian borderlands.
Time, should be emphasized, and was the essence. The Trade Winds dictated that ships from Egypt, sailing at perhaps 30 miles a day, had to travel during the three or so summer months, June to August, when the wind blew southwards, and had to complete their trading enterprise, doubtless no rapid affair, by November, when the winter winds began to blow in the opposite direction. Southbound vessels probably needed about a month to reach the northern Eritrean area, about the same time again to arrive at the coast opposite Aden, and a further month to reach Cape Guardafui (in Somalia). The southerly winds would by then be abating. It would therefore appear doubtful whether Egyptian commercial navigators could have easily sailed much further in the time permitted to them by nature.
Ancient Egyptian inscriptions seem to suggest a geographic linkage between Punt and Kush, as the following inscription taking from Solem from the time of Amenhotep III demonstrates “When I turn my face to the south....I cause the kings of wretched Kush to turn thee...when I turn my face to thee the countries of Punt bring all the pleasant sweet woods of their countries...."
One of the most significant information that makes a very strong case that Punt was a kingdom neighboring upon Kush Kingdom (and one that disproves it being in Yemen or as distant as Somalia or Tanzania) is with the recent 2003 archeological discovery that shows Kush, along with Punt and other neighboring kingdoms joined in force to invade and successfully defeat the Ancient Egyptians and the tomb belonged to Sobeknakht, a Governor of El Kab, provincial capital during the latter part of the 17th Dynasty (about 1575-1550BC))
The inscription describes a ferocious invasion of Egypt by armies from Kush and its allies from the south, including the land of Punt, on the southern coast of the Red Sea says that vast territories were affected and describes Sobeknakht’s heroic role in organizing a counter-attack.
The text takes the form of an address to the living by Sobeknakht: “Listen you, who are alive upon earth . . . Kush came . . . aroused along his length, he having stirred up the tribes of Wawat . . . the land of Punt and the Medjaw. . .” It describes the decisive role played by “the might of the great one, Nekhbet”, the vulture-goddess of El Kab, as “strong of heart against the Nubians, who were burnt through fire”, while the “king of the nomads fell through the blast of her flame”. Tomb reveals Ancient Egypt’s humiliating secret
Professor Fattovich even argues that the ancient Ona Group-A sites of Eritrea (located near Asmara, the capital) may possibly be part of Punt or linked to it.
The potential importance of these findings went mostly unnoticed in the archaeological world until Rodolfo Fattovich drew attention to their significance for understanding early complex societies in the Horn. Calling these sites both the "Ona Culture" and "Ona Group-A," he argues for a possible connection between Egypt and the land of Punt, and identifies the Ona culture as either located within the land of punt or as possibly linked to Punt.
According to Pankhurst, Punt dates back to the cradle of Egyptian civilization.The first known contacts between Egypt and Punt date back to almost to the cradle of Egyptian civilization. Pharaonic records reveal that as early as the First or Second Dynasties (3407-2888 BC) the Egyptians were in possession of myrrh,the Ethiopian borderlands.
During the Fourth Egyptian dynasty (2789-2767 BC),a Punt servent is mentioned as the helping hand to the son of Cheops, the builder of the Great Pyramid. Pankhurst further adds that the pharaoh Sahure of the Fifth Dynasty dispatched the earliest naval expedition to Punt, where supplies from Punt probably first reached Egypt overland. King Sahure (2958-2946 BC) of the Fifth Dynasty, however, later dispatched a naval fleet, which returned with myrrh, gold and costly wood. King Pepy II (2738-2644 BC) of the Sixth Dynasty subsequently had noted that he had a Tenq, a servent, from Punt.
Pharaonic expeditions to Punt increased after the founding of the Egyptian Red Sea port of Wadi Gasus, north of Koseir, during the reign of King Mentuhotep IV (2242-2212 BC) of the Eleventh Dynasty. Egyptian familiarity with Punt also found expression, during the Twelfth Dynasty, in a popular tale of a mariner, a kind of early Sinbad the Sailor, ship-wrecked in Punt waters.
Before the Suez Canal was built, the ancient Egyptians had already built a waterway from the Nile to the Red Sea. Ancient Egyptian contact with Punt was subsequently facilitated by the orders from King Sesostris III (2099-2061 BC), almost four thousand years before the Suez Canal.
