UNESCO Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Editor G. Mokhtar)

Egypt's relations with the rest of Africa
We can trace successive stages in the relations between Egypt and
Punt. The first preceded the reign of Queen Hatshepsut. At that time, the
Egyptians had very little information about Punt. They obtained incense
from middlemen who spread legends about this country in order to raise
the price of incense. The few Egyptians known to have completed the
voyage to Punt were bold men. A man of Aswan, under the Old Kingdom,
says: 'I went forth with my lord, the count and treasurer and my lord, the
count and treasurer of the god Khui, of the god Theti to Kush, to
Byblos and Punt eleven times.' 30 The second period began with Queen
Hatshepsut. A fleet of fiveships, according to the artist who decorated the
temple at Dayr al Bahri, was sent to bring back incense-bearing trees.
Perehu and his wife — who was deformed 31 - his daughter and a group of
natives are shown receiving the expedition and exchanging compliments,
presents and products known to come from Punt and clearly depicted: three
great trees planted in the garden of the god Amon, so tall that cattle
could walk under them. 32 Under these great trees, the other gifts are shown
heaped together, such as ivory, tortoise shells, cattle with short and long
horns, 'myrrh trees with their roots wrapped in their original soil, as a good
gardener does today, dry incense, ebony, panther skins, baboons, chimpanzees,
greyhounds, a giraffe, and the like ...'.
In a room of the same temple at Dayr al Bahri, there is a picture of
Hatshepsut's divine birth in which her mother, Ahmose, is awakened by the
scent of incense from the land of Punt. Here, the association of the name
of Punt with her divine origin is evidence of the friendship between the
Queen of Egypt and Punt, whose inhabitants worshipped Amon.
The pictures of this expedition have taught us about life in the land of
Punt, its plants, animals and inhabitants, and its cone-shaped huts, built
on piles amidst palm, ebony and balsam trees.
To judge by the pictures of Punt on the temples, there is nothing new
to report after Queen Hatshepsut's reign. Then the texts mention the
Puntites' arrival in Egypt. Punt is henceforth listed among the vanquished
peoples which, considering how far away it was, sounds rather unlikely.
The Puntite chieftains were required to bring gifts to the Pharaoh, who
ordered one of his subordinates to receive them and their gifts. There is
30. J. H. Breasted, 1906, I, para. 361.
31. Mainly by her steatopygia.
32. D. M . M . Dixon, 1969, p. 55, finds that the success of the planting of the myrrh
trees brought back by Hatshepsut's expedition to her temple was only temporary. 'Notwithstanding
a partial and temporary success, the transplantation experiments were a failure.
The precise reasons for this failure will be clear only when the botanical identity of tree(s)
producing the incense has been established. This cannot be done on the basis of the conventionalized
Egyptian representations. In the meantime, it is suggested that for reasons of
commercial self-interest, the Puntites may have deliberately frustrated the Egyptian
experiment.' If the success was short-lived, the kings who succeeded Hatshepsut would not
have continued to import these trees, as, for example, Amenhotep II did (see Tomb No. 143
at Thebes), or Ramses II and Ramses III, who both ordered them to be imported.
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