Hatshepsut's Expedition to Punt: Egypt's Great Trade Voyage

Hatshepsut’s expedition to Punt was a royal trading voyage that sailed down the Red Sea around 1470 BC, in the ninth year of the female pharaoh’s reign, to obtain incense, myrrh and other precious goods. It is known from a detailed cycle of reliefs in her temple at Deir el-Bahari, which show the ships, the people and houses of Punt and the cargo brought home. The voyage is the best-documented example of Egypt’s long-distance sea trade, and it has kept historians debating for well over a century where exactly Punt lay.

Background: Egypt and the land of Punt

Egyptian temples burned large quantities of incense, and myrrh and frankincense were also used in perfumes, medicines and embalming. These aromatic resins came from trees that do not grow in Egypt. The Egyptians obtained them, along with ebony, ivory, gold and exotic animals, from a southern land they called Punt and sometimes “God’s Land”.

Contacts were ancient. The Palermo Stone records that in the reign of Sahure, a king of the 5th Dynasty around 2450 BC, large quantities of myrrh and other goods arrived from Punt. In the Middle Kingdom, expeditions set out from a harbour on the Red Sea coast at Mersa Gawasis, where archaeologists led by Kathryn Bard and Rodolfo Fattovich found ship timbers, anchors, coils of rope and cargo boxes in man-made caves, one box inscribed with a reference to Punt.

During the Second Intermediate Period, when Egypt was divided, these voyages seem to have stopped. Hatshepsut’s expedition revived direct trade with Punt on a grand scale.

Why Hatshepsut sent the expedition

According to the temple inscriptions, the voyage was ordered by an oracle of Amun, the chief god of Thebes, who asked for myrrh terraces to be made for him. The expedition therefore served the god’s cult directly. It also served the queen’s political needs. Hatshepsut had taken the title of king in an unusual way, and a spectacular, peaceful success abroad helped show that the gods favoured her reign.

The expedition was led by the treasurer Nehesi, one of the senior officials of her court. His title reflects the fact that such voyages were state enterprises, organised to bring wealth into the royal and temple treasuries.

The voyage

The reliefs show five ships, each with a single large sail and rows of oarsmen, and soldiers on board. The voyage’s exact starting point is not recorded. Many scholars think the ships, or their parts, were built in the Nile Valley, carried across the Eastern Desert, probably through the Wadi Hammamat from Coptos, and assembled on the Red Sea coast, as earlier expeditions had done.

From there the fleet sailed south along the coast. Seasonal winds in the Red Sea blow from the north for much of the year, making the southward journey easier than the return, and the round trip probably took several months.

What the reliefs show

The Punt reliefs in the southern colonnade of the middle terrace of the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari are among the most detailed ancient images of a foreign land. Punt is shown as a place of round huts raised on stilts and reached by ladders, set among palm trees and incense trees, with cattle grazing beneath. Fish of the Red Sea, drawn accurately enough for species to be identified, swim below the ships.

The Egyptians are welcomed by the ruler of Punt, named Parahu, and his wife Ati. Ati is shown with a very large, heavy body and curved spine, which has led to medical speculation, though there is no way to diagnose a figure in a relief. The Egyptians offer weapons, beads and jewellery, and in return receive the produce of Punt.

The ships are shown heavily loaded for the return: living myrrh or incense trees with their roots in baskets, sacks of resin, ebony logs, elephant tusks, gold, aromatic woods, eye paint, baboons, monkeys, dogs and leopard skins. Some people of Punt also travelled to Egypt with the fleet.

The return to Thebes

The final scenes show the cargo presented to Amun at Thebes. The myrrh is measured in heaps and the gold is weighed on great scales, overseen by the goddess Seshat and the god Thoth, while Hatshepsut dedicates the goods to the god. The myrrh trees were planted in front of the temple; pits for trees have been found there by archaeologists, although it is not certain what grew in them.

Hatshepsut is shown anointing herself with the precious resin, so that its fragrance spread over her body. The scene underlines both the luxury of the goods and the idea that she had fulfilled the god’s wish.

Later contacts with Punt

Hatshepsut’s voyage was not the last. Under her successor Thutmose III, envoys and goods from Punt are recorded among the tribute and gifts arriving at the royal court, and the tomb of his vizier Rekhmire shows people of Punt bringing incense and other goods.

The last major voyage known from Egyptian records took place under Ramesses III in the 12th century BC. The Great Harris Papyrus describes ships sailing to Punt and returning with cargoes of its goods, which were then carried overland to Coptos and shipped down the Nile.

After the end of the New Kingdom, Punt gradually faded into a land of legend in Egyptian literature. Later trade in incense from the southern Red Sea continued, but it passed increasingly through Arabian, and later Greek and Roman, merchants.

Where was Punt?

The location of Punt is one of the great puzzles of Egyptology. Suggestions have included eastern Sudan, Eritrea, northern Ethiopia, Somalia, south-western Arabia and even a region spanning both sides of the southern Red Sea. Most current specialists favour the African coast and hinterland roughly between eastern Sudan and northern Somalia.

The reliefs offer clues: the animals and plants shown, such as baboons, ebony and incense trees, fit north-east Africa well. In 2020 a study led by Nathaniel Dominy analysed the isotopes in the teeth and hair of mummified baboons from Egypt and found that one New Kingdom baboon had grown up in a region matching present-day Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia, supporting an African location. The modern Somali region of Puntland takes its name from the ancient land, though this reflects a modern identification rather than proof.

Timeline

• c. 2450 BC: Under Sahure, myrrh and other goods arrive from Punt, as recorded on the Palermo Stone.
• c. 1950 BC: Middle Kingdom expeditions sail from the harbour at Mersa Gawasis.
• c. 1479 BC: Hatshepsut becomes regent for the young Thutmose III.
• c. 1470 BC: In her ninth year the fleet sails to Punt and returns to Thebes.
• 1890s: Édouard Naville clears the Punt Colonnade at Deir el-Bahari and publishes its reliefs.
• 2001–2011: Excavations at Mersa Gawasis reveal ship timbers and cargo linked to Punt.
• 2020: A study of mummified baboons points to the Horn of Africa as a source region.

Why it matters

The Punt expedition shows that Egypt in the 15th century BC organised long-distance sea trade on a large scale, linking the Nile Valley with the southern Red Sea and the Horn of Africa. Its reliefs are an early and unusually sympathetic picture of a foreign people. The voyage also illustrates how Hatshepsut used trade, religion and art together to strengthen her rule, and it remains central to the study of early contacts between Egypt and the rest of Africa.