Where is punt Egypt?

Answer 1

Dimitri Meeks wrote a chapter titles "Locating Punt" for the book "Mysterious Lands", by David B. O'Connor and Stephen Quirke. In this chapter Meeks stated that "Texts locating Punt beyond doubt to the south are in the minority, but they are the only ones cited in the current consensus about the location of the country. Punt, we are told by the Egyptians, is situated - in relation to the Nile Valley - both to the north, in contact with the countries of the Near East of the Mediterranean area, and also to the east or south-east, while its furthest borders are far away to the south. Only the Arabian Peninsula satisfies all these indications." He points out that ancient inscriptions in the Sinai show that Punt incorporates the land of Wetjenet, which is associated with the production of turquoise. Wetjenet is also associated with the land of Fek-Heret, (fek = turquoise) which is described as being "at the height of the land of Punt". Punt thus incorporated the turquoise producing areas of the Sinai. He points out that in ancient inscriptions at Kom Ombo (in Southern Egypt) Punt is described as being "between Byblos (Lebanon) and Cyprus", and also as being in the middle of Upper Retjenou (Palestine) and Pa-Bekhen (northern Mesopotamia) and Persia, and two other points believed to refer to Babylon and Susiana, both in Mesopotamia. Dimitri Meeks concluded: "The hypothesis of an African location for the land of Punt is based on extremely fragile grounds. It is contradicted by numerous texts and has only become an established fact in Egyptology because no-one has taken into account the full range of evidence on the subject, regardless of place of of such an African hypothesis becomes self evident. The only way to reconcile all the data is to locate Punt in the Arabian peninsula. The territory of Punt began quite close to that of Egypt, once Sinai had been crossed, in Arabia Petraea or the Negev. It incorporated in a rather imprecise manner the whole coastal zone of the Red Sea down as far as present day Yemen and the actual heart of Punt probably corresponded more or less to Yemeni Tihama".