Message #178795

[Qoais]

.....continued

Nito Verdera, the Ibizan journalist and
indefatigable investigator of Christopher
Columbus, has summarized the theory of
his historian friend, the now deceased
Paul Gallez, which he has given us permission
to include here.
Nito Verdera: The Egyptian Theory
“In La Cola del Dragón, Paul Gallez
tells us that the theory referring to the
earliest travels to distant lands as yet not
identified with total certainty, is that of
the expeditions to the Land of Punt (Richard
Hennig, Terrae Incognitae, 4 vols,
Leiden, Brill 1950, in vol. I, pages 5-13).
The first known voyage to this region is
that organised by the pharaoh Sahure of
the fifth dynasty (circa 2550 B.C.). His
ships brought back incense, myrrh, gold,
silver, precious woods and slaves from
Punt and the many other lands and islands
they called at during the voyage.
Not all these items came from the Land
of Punt, so we do not have to look for just
one country producing all these riches.
“The pharaoh Asa (Isesi) followed Sahure’s
example, and around 2400 B.C.
he also sent out his fleets to the Land of
Punt. One of the princesses of the sixth
dynasty was placed in her tomb, ready
for her journey to the Land of the Dead,
wearing a lip colouring with an antimony
base, though this metal was totally unknown
in Egypt and any of its neighbouring
countries. The stone on the tomb of
Knemhopet, a pilot from the island of Elephantine
who had been on eleven voyages
to the Land of Punt, dates back to
the same period. . . .”
“The best-known and possibly the
most fruitful voyages, are those organised
by Queen Hatshepsut (also called
Hacheput, Hatcheposut, Huschpeswa,
Hatashopsitu, Hachepsowe, Hatasuput
and Hatscheposut, 1501-1482 B.C.)
whose deeds are engraved in the temple
of Deir-el-Bahari, which she herself ordered
to be built in Thebes to honour
Amen-Ra. Hatshepsut’s main expedition
was made up of at least five large ships
with thirty oarsmen in each of them. They
sailed from somewhere on the Red Sea
and were away for three years.
“One of the inscriptions in the temple
of Deir-el-Bahari reads: ‘The inhabitants
of Punt asked: How have you reached
this country unknown to man? Have you
flown here through the sky, or have you
sailed across the Great Ocean from the
Land of the Gods?’ (Richard Hennig: Terrae
Incognitae, 4 vols, Leiden, Brill 1950,
I, 5, Ophir). . . .
“How can one not feel tempted by interpretations
that immediately
spring to mind and
would seem to give each
other mutual support? The
expression ‘Great Ocean’ is
what we know today as the
Pacific Ocean. The Land of
the Gods is the name given
to the West in all mythologies,
which would place the
Pacific to the west of Punt
and would therefore place
Punt in America.
“According to the tales of
the life of Ramses IV in the
Harris Papyrus kept in the
British Library, the pharaoh
Ramses III sent an expedition
of 10,000 men to Punt
in 1180 B.C. The last expedition
that we know of,
which set off at around the
middle of the second century
B.C., was arranged with
the help of traders and bankers
from Massilia, our modern-
day Marseilles (Hans
Philip: article on “Massilia”
in Pauly’s Real-Encylopädie
der classichen Altertumswissenschaft/
XIV/2, Stuttgart,
Druckenmüller,1930).
“The Egyptian ships built for ocean going
were about thirty meters long and up
to eighty-five tons in capacity. Under favorable
weather conditions, their flat
bottoms enabled them to sail at great
speed. When the wind dropped, the oarsmen
would take over the job of propelling
the vessel, so that the voyage could
continue without having to wait for a
change of wind.
“Egyptian scholars do not agree on the
location of the Land of Punt. Some of
them suggest Eritrea, others Somalia,
Zimbabwe, Hadhramaut, or India. However,
all these places are far too close to
the Red Sea to justify the length of the
voyage; three years according to all the
relevant Egyptian records.
Paul Gallez: Punt Is in Peru
“In his article ‘Trois thèses de predecouverte
de l’Amerique du Sud par le
Pacifique’ (Gesnerus 33 , 1976, Aarau,
Zurich), Paul Gallez offers a new interpretation.
He locates the Land of Punt in
South America, probably, in the Puno
region of Peru, on the shores of Lake Titicaca.
70% of Peru’s annual gold pro-
duction comes from there, together
with antimony, mercury, zinc, tin, and
cobalt. Old gold and antimony mines
can be found in the area, though
archaeologists disagree as to their exact
age. The boats used to sail on Lake
Titicaca, made of cat-tail (a longstemmed,
reed-like, grassy plant of the
Typhaceous family with a cylindrical
ear) are so similar to those used in ancient
Egypt that Thor Heyerdahl went to
Puno to recruit workers to build him his
papyrus boat Ra II on the banks of the
Nile.”