The Indolent Apes of Punt

[toucana]

Scientists may have solved one long standing mystery that has puzzled Egyptologists and archaeologists alike for well over a century according to a recent paper:

https://elifesciences.org/articles/87513

Egyptian writings and inscriptions dating back to the reign of the pharaoh Sahure in the period of the Old Kingdom c. 2500 BCE testify to a prosperous trade relationship with another kingdom called Punt that  supplied the Egyptians with luxury items such as Frankincense, ebony, leopard skins and baboons. The relationship was documented in a Middle Kingdom fictional tale called  ‘The Shipwrecked Sailor’ dated to 2000 BCE, and also by an inscription found in a mortuary temple from the reign of Queen Hatshepsut c.1400 BCE that describes the re-establishment of relations with Punt at that time.

The problem is that none of the sources explain where Punt was located, beyond some vague suggestions it lay to the southeast of Egypt. Plausible guesses included Sudan, Nubia, Somalia, Ethiopia, Arabia, and even Uganda and Mozambique -  until a harbour inscription from 1900 BCE was found in 2005 which confirmed that the Egyptians probably reached Punt by a sea route, rather than by travelling up the Nile.

In 2010 scientists turned their attention to mummified remains of baboons found in ancient Egypt. Baboons were venerated in Egypt as being sacred to Thoth the god of learning, and large numbers of them were mummified and preserved (along with cats crocodiles and ibises as well).

Baboons are not native to Egypt, and the ones to be found there were either imported, or bred in captivity in ancient times. Scientists realised that they could geolocate the mummified specimens by first studying the ratios of two istopes of Strontium  -  Sr-86 and Sr-87 - found in the bones and teeth of mummified baboons, and then comparing these ratios to those found in soil samples in coastal areas. The isotope ratios in the teeth are particularly important because baboon teeth stop growing after about 3 years.

The most recent study in 2023 has refined this geolocation by examining mitochondrial DNA found in several caches of baboon mummies found in Saqqara in Egypt, and in Eritrea. The overlay of data with the distributions of known mitochondrial DNA  families of baboons in Africa now suggests that Punt was most likely the Eritrean port city known as Adulis to the Romans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv0myuOFIeY

 

Edited July 26 by toucana
capitalise Frankincense

[TheVat]

26 minutes ago, toucana said:

Scientists may have solved one long standing mystery that has puzzled Egyptologists and archaeologists alike for well over a century

 

The indolent apes of Punt

Were much too lazy to hunt

Their penchant for sloth

Was protected by Thoth

So their life skills tended to stunt.

[toucana]

'Indolent' was a joke from the Latin root 'in-dolens' meaning "Not suffering" - because these mummified baboons were long dead silent witnesses. But there is something ludicrously regal, and imperiously lazy in how baboons often appear on camera  

[TheVat]

Indeed.   Something about your title line just said opening line of a limerick.  (though I guess the proper meter of a limerick, anapest,  would call for an extra syllable, e.g. the indolent apes of old Punt...)

I had not heard about using mitochondrial DNA this way, or the precision it might bring.  Fascinating stuff.  

[Ken Fabian]

@TheVat extra points for making a clean limerick out of that.

[joigus]

On 7/26/2024 at 4:17 PM, TheVat said:

Indeed.   Something about your title line just said opening line of a limerick.  (though I guess the proper meter of a limerick, anapest,  would call for an extra syllable, e.g. the indolent apes of old Punt...)

I had not heard about using mitochondrial DNA this way, or the precision it might bring.  Fascinating stuff.  

Nice!

Yes I remember baboons depicted on a wall in Hatshepsut's tomb. But they're not the only ones, I think.