According to ancient Egyptian texts, Punt was a mysterious and prosperous kingdom where butter was said to drip from every straw.
The wealth had a great influence on the vast Egyptians, which can be seen, among other things, in reliefs in tombs and temples. The Egyptians sent large trading expeditions to Punt to buy luxury goods that were monopolized by Puntic merchants.
Various spices, ivory, gold, incense and exotic animals were considered highly desirable.
This relief is in Hatshepsut’s tomb and depicts the legendary expedition to the ancient kingdom of Punt.
Egyptians sailed for weeks to buy baboons and other exotic animals.
Exotic animals were one of Punt’s most sought after exports. Baboons in particular were highly valued by the Egyptians who considered the monkeys to be associated with the gods. Baboons were often sacrificed, for example to the moon god Þot.
The first trips were made around 2,500 BC. and over the next millennia, every honorable pharaoh sent merchant ships to this mysterious land to collect exotic treasures. The most famous of these was Hatsheput’s expedition (1507 – 1458 BC). One writer described Punt as “the land of the gods” blessed with incredible wealth.
Although Punt was thus prosperous and powerful, historians do not know much about this African kingdom. Egyptian sources say that Punt was south of Egypt, but its exact location is still a mystery because scholars have never found any archaeological remains that could show its location.
In 2020, researchers at Dartmouth University in New Hampshire, USA, found evidence that this mysterious kingdom was in the Horn of Africa, but there is a large landmass in A-Africa, where you can now find countries such as Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and parts of Somalia and Yemen.
