United States or El Salvador ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Nehsi, the royal envoy, landed with an officer and eight soldiers, and, to show that he came in peace, he spread out on a table some presents for the chief of the Punites five bracelets, two gold necklaces, a dagger, with belt and sheath, a battle-axe, and eleven strings of glass beads much such a present as a European explorer might give to-day to an African chief.
"A command was heard in the sanctuary, a behest of the god himself, that the ways which lead to Punt should be explored, and that the roads to the Ladders of Incense should be trodden." The ships were laden with all kinds of goods to barter with the Punites, and a guard of Egyptian soldiers was placed on board. We do not know how long it took the little squadron to reach its destination.
Great quantities of the gum from which the incense was made were placed on board, and also thirty-one of the incense sycamores, their roots carefully surrounded with a large ball of earth, and protected by baskets. Several young chiefs of the Punites accompanied the expedition back to Thebes, to see what life was like in the strange new world which had been revealed to them.
Of the sons of Issachar after their families: of Tola, the family of the Tolaites: of Pua, the family of the Punites: Of Jashub, the family of the Jashubites: of Shimron, the family of the Shimronites. These are the families of Issachar according to those that were numbered of them, threescore and four thousand and three hundred.
Further, the word Punt is always written without the hieroglyph determinative of a foreign country, thus showing that the Egyptians did not regard the Punites as foreigners. This certainly looks as if the Punites were a portion of the great migration from Arabia, left behind on the African shore when the rest of the wandering people pressed on northwards to the Wadi Hammamat and the Nile.
It may be that the modern Gallas and Abyssinians are descendants of these Punites. Now the Sky-god of Edfu is in legend a conquering hero who advances down the Nile valley, with his Mesniu, or "Smiths," to overthrow the people of the North, whom he defeats in a great battle near Dendera. This may be a reminiscence of the first fights of the invaders with the Neolithic inhabitants.
Sea voyages in those days were slow and dangerous. But at last the ships safely reached the mouth of the Elephant River in Somaliland, and went up the river with the tide till they came to the village of the natives. They found that the Punites lived in curious beehive-shaped houses, some of them made of wicker-work, and placed on piles, so that they had to climb into them by ladders.
Word Of The Day