Different Approaches to Ancient Geography: Phytochemical Analysis and the Land of Punt

Abstract

The land of Punt and the centuries' old debate surrounding its location had long fascinated many onlookers, enchanted by depictions of a people and a land almost defined by frankincense. Incidentally, most the debates and research surrounding it had been almost devoid of any objects that could be called "Puntite" across the literature. Also incidentally, the defining object (frankincense) had never been examined to the end of identifying a geoprovenance. As such, this paper aims to outline a possible area that might have been considered "Punt" through an extensive literature review and reinterpretation in relation to archaeological frankincense in Egypt contemporaneous to contacts with Punt. Historical, philological, and artistic arguments that have dominated the debate were then placed against the results extrapolated from previous studies on archaeological frankincense to find a corresponding potential location to identify with Punt. The resulting location from the examination of different arguments through the perspective provided by the archaeological frankincense's geoprovenance led to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait being the most likely likely candidate.