Mummified baboons may identify lost land of Punt, ancient Egypt's trading partner

By Stephanie Pappas - Live Science Contributor 2 days ago

Baboons illuminate an ancient network of trade.

Ancient Egyptian texts make clear that Punt was somewhere to the south and east of Egypt, a place that could be reached by either land or sea. Unfortunately, a large region meets that description, ranging from the Arabian Peninsula to northeast Somalia, southern Sudan and northern Ethiopia or Eritrea. To this day, no one knows the location of Punt.

Nathaniel Dominy, a primatologist and professor of anthropology at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, realized that there might be a way to narrow down Punt's location: baboons. These primates aren't native to Egypt, but ancient Egyptians imported and mummified them by the barrel load for centuries. In some temples and necropolises, there are hundreds of baboon mummies. Many seem to have lived long lives in captivity as pets or service animals (they're depicted in some tomb paintings as "police dogs," helping the authorities chase down thieves). Others may have been kept as part of the worship of the god Thoth, who was sometimes depicted as having a baboon head.

"The Egyptians described importing baboons from Punt," Dominy told Live Science in an email. That meant that if the native land of the baboons could be determined, it would lead Dominy and his colleagues right to Punt.

A molecular map
To trace the baboons' origins, Dominy and his colleagues looked at levels of particular variations of strontium and oxygen in the animals' tissues. The molecular variations, called isotopes, are present in soil and water, and they vary from place to place. They became incorporated into the baboons' bodies from the food they ate and the water they drank. Different tissues hold a record of where the animals ate and drank at different times in their lives. For example, tooth enamel forms in the first one to three years of a baboon's life, so oxygen and strontium isotopes in enamel can reveal where a baboon was born. Hair, on the other hand, holds a record of the last few months of an animal's life.

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https://www.livescience.com/baboon-mummies-lost-land-punt.html