Eti, the Eritrean Queen of Punt?

Arriving at the goodly way into God's Land, journeying in peace to the land of Punt.

The Egyptians who sailed off to the land of Punt (Pwenet) are seen on the walls of Queen Hatshepsut's stupendous temple of Deir el-Bahri, a complex of terraces, ramps, colonnades and rock-cut chapels unique in the history of Egyptian architecture. Hatshepsut would have known the temple as Djeser-Djeseru, or "Sublime of the Sublimes". It really is sublime -- and not just for architectural reasons: texts chiselled on the walls tell us about this journey to this far-away God's Land, and row after row of painted reliefs picture the adventure all the way from its beginning to its triumphant conclusion.

The only thing that it doesn't tell us is where in the world is Punt.

Or, for that matter what is wrong with Eti, Queen of Punt (seen above; hobbling, we must imagine, behind her fashionably thin husband, King Perehu). Many different explanations have been offered for her strange appearance, ranging from suffering from an unknown disease (she's been given her own special 'Queen of Punt syndrome') to being simply overweight. None seems quite to fit the bill.

Scholars have argued for generations, too, about where Punt should be located.

Lots of texts mention Punt, but none gives detailed instructions for the voyage.

You could reach Punt by land or by sea or, more likely, a combination of both (see map). Occasional envoys from Punt are pictured in tomb paintings, but their images cannot be related to any known geographic region. Hatshepsut's reliefs give many clues: we see the Puntite village on the waterside, fish in the water (Red Sea varieties), trees on the shore (ebony, palms, and myrrh), animals (monkeys, donkeys, short-horned cattle, rhinoceros and giraffe). We see remarkably realistic looking people. In fact, no other representation from pharaonic times pictures a country outside Egypt so completely with its inhabitants and landscape. Punt is the only land whose geographic reality is expressed so clearly but -- paradoxically -- Punt exists as if in a void and its exact whereabouts remain unknown.

So, where is it: Yemen, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, the Sudan?

As of today, we now know (or think we do).

But, first, some background on an extraordinary voyage.

It all began when Hatshepsut (Year 9 of her reign) received an oracle from the god Amun-Re, her putative father, who had made her pharaoh of Upper and Lower Egypt.

Instructions were heard from the Great Throne. an oracle from the god himself.

"Explore the route to Punt, open the road to the Myrrh-terraces, and lead an expedition on water and on land to bring exotic goods from the God's land to this god who created [your] beauty."

The Egyptians were not good sea sailors. Navigating the dangerous waters of the Red Sea to the very edge of the known world must have seemed to them as daunting as a mission to the Moon to us. Myrrh made it worthwhile. It was not just a sweet-smelling perfume (though it was that too: Hatshepsut rubbed it on her legs to impart a divine fragrance*), but an incense that was essential to the proper worship of gods and for the after-life.

Myrrh (Commiphora myrrha) was burned in vast quantities during the daily temple rituals, and used in embalming the bodies of pharaohs and for the mummification of lesser folk, too. As early as the Fifth Dynasty, a single expedition had brought back to Egypt no less than 80,000 measures of myrrh. Demand, however, was apparently insatiable.

Therefore, besides having orders to import the desired incense from Punt, the expedition also -- and this was Hatshepsut's innovation -- was to collect complete trees and bring them back to Egypt as well. These would then be cultivated in the temples of Amun at Thebes. At Deir el-Bahri itself, on the right and left sides of the ramp leading to the middle terrace, stumps of trees were found around artificial water basins, possibly the remnants of the myrrh-trees that were brought from Punt.

A Voyage to the Southern End of the Earth

So off they went, commanded by a high official, the state treasurer named Nehesj. He sailed with five ships, each manned by some 150 sailors and soldiers, and they probably spent a month at sea before they sighted the shores of Punt.

That made it possible for Hatshepsut to boast: My southern boundary is as far as the lands of Punt.

Coming ashore, the natives greeted Nehesj warmly. The Chief of Punt -- Perehu -- with his wife, Eti, right behind him (top left) steps forward to greet the Egyptian envoy. They express their amazement at the visit:

Why have you come into this land, which the people of Egypt do not know? Did you come down the ways of heaven, or did you sail upon the sea and upon the waters of God's land? Or have you trodden the path of the sun?


Nehesj stands opposite, on the other side of a pile of gifts intended for the Chief of Punt. He must have been a real 'bean-counter' (as Treasurer of Egypt) for the pile is a rather motley collection of merchandise: strings of beads, an axe, a dagger, some bracelets, and a wooden chest. He hopes to exchange this miserable stuff for the fabulous goods of Punt -- not only their own produce of myrrh, ebony and short-horned cattle, but also products from other African lands, including gold, ivory and animal skins.

Unsurprisingly, Nehesj has a well-armed escort behind him: confronted with such poor gifts, the natives might have turned nasty. But they didn't. They reached an agreement and Nehesj, Eti and Perehu went off to share a splendid banquet.

Nehesj seems to have made the best deal ever, prior to the Dutch buying Manhattan island from the Indians for $24 worth of tat.

Then the work began, surely many weeks of work. Egyptians must even have ventured into the interior since palm trees (lowest left) do not grow on the sea shore. Then, the great prize:

"...loading of the ships very heavily with marvels of the country of Punt; all goodly fragrant woods of God's-Land, heaps of myrrh resin, with fresh myrrh trees, with ebony and pure ivory, with green gold ..., with cinnamon wood, khesyt wood, with two kinds of incense, eye-cosmetics, with apes, monkeys, dogs, and with skins of the southern panther, with natives and their children. Never was brought the like of this for any king who has been since the beginning."

You see in the middle of the ship (circled in red; click on photo to enlarge) one of the apes, a baboon to be exact. And therein lies the breaking news.

The Baboon

Sailing, arriving in peace, journeying to Thebes.

Three baboons were on board this ship, one of them -- as is clear in this close-up (left) -- squatting in their characteristic upright position. Very many baboons must have gone off into exile in Egypt in this way. When the Egyptians observed baboons barking at the rising sun, they imagined that the apes were worshipping the sun just as people did. That's why the baboon became an aspect of the sun god, Amun-Re, and whole colonies of these animals were kept in his temples.


When they died (and they didn't live long in the Egyptian climate**), they were mummified.

Now, thanks to mummified baboons (like this sad, partly unwrapped ape [left]) -- and some really smart, cutting edge science -- the search for Punt appears to be coming to an end.

At the 61st annual meeting of the American Research Center in Egypt (23-25 April 2010), a team from the University of California Santa Cruz, led by Professor Nathaniel Dominy, presented the results of their analysing the hairs of three mummified baboons from Thebes and the Valley of the Kings, and comparing them with living specimens from Eritrea and Ethiopia.

The team took hair samples from baboon mummies in the British Museum and examined them by using oxygen isotope analysis. Oxygen isotopes act as a 'signal' that can let scientists know where the hairs came from.

It works like this: depending on the environment where an animal lived, the ratio of various isotopes of oxygen will be different. “Oxygen tends to vary as a function of rainfall and the water composition of plants and seed,” explained Prof. Dominy. One baboon from Thebes appears to have spent some time living in Egypt as an exotic pet. All that time, it consumed the local diet so its oxygen isotope value changed. That change means that researchers could not tell where it originally came from. But two baboons apparently died fairly soon after arrival in Egypt and retained the isotope values of their homeland.

So the winner for the place of Punt is....

When the researchers compared the oxygen isotope values in the ancient baboons to those found in their modern day brethren, they discovered that “all of our specimens in Eritrea and a certain number of our specimens from Ethiopia – that are basically due west from Eritrea – those are good matches,” said Dominy.

“We think Punt is a sort of circumscribed region that includes eastern Ethiopia and all of Eritrea.”

Somalia, Yemen and Mozambique do not match.

But where in Eritrea?

Eritrea is a big place. Can they narrow it down further?

The team has a working hypothesis which they hope will locate exactly where the Treasurer Nehesj docked his ships in God's Land.

“If you have a map in front of you and you can zoom in on Eritrea there’s a major harbour there,” said Dominy. It's located near the modern port of Massawa.

Massawa is the so-called 'pearl of the Red Sea'. The town is located on two islands --absolutely perfect for a trading post, combining as it does, safety and accessibility. It should be clear by now that Punt was an early African trade emporium, not only trading its own products but other products of Africa, and probably Arabian frankincense as well. So an island location fits very well.

And the baboons agree.

The researchers say, "We have a specimen from that same harbour and that specimen is a very good match to the mummy.”

Welcome home, Queen Eti!

And I hope, one day, your fatness will be seen in this light, with you as a steatopygous princess of your people -- pictured through the prism of an astounded Egyptian artist.




*One of Hatshepsut's perfume flask on my blog post Hatshepsut Smells as Sweet.

** Though baboons were considered to be worshippers of the sun-god, and must have been given considerable care, investigations into the animal necropolises have revealed that their life expectancy in Egypt was very limited. Of the 200 or so specimens that have been examined, hardly any lived into their sixth through tenth years. Unfavourable living conditions resulted in undernourishment and the lack of freedom of movement and sunlight led to rickets, degenerative bone diseases and probably tuberculosis.

My thanks to Owen Jarus at Heritage Key's 'The Ancient World in London', 23 April 2010 (with a photograph of one of the British Museum baboons; under copyright) for the first report on the scientific breakthrough described above.

Other main sources include D. Meeks, 'Locating Punt' in (D. O'Connor and S. Quirke), Mysterious Lands, 2003, 53-80; R.S. Bianchi, Daily Life of the Nubians (Greenwood Press), 2004; and special mention for a paper by my friend, J. Phillips, 'Punt and Aksum: Egypt and the Horn of Africa', Journal of African History, 1997, 423-57; more useful material available on-line at the website of Dr K.H. Leser; the website of tripod.com (with excellent plans and photographs of Deir el-Bahri); and the website of Exploring Africa: Timeline, Index and Other Issues .
 




Update: 9 May 2010

Readers who enjoy (as I do) intermingling ancient and contemporary visions in art may like to contemplate this image (left) kindly sent to me by Zenobia-blog reader, Hetty Boomkamp of The Netherlands.

From her collection: 'Double Pharaoh Portrait, Hatshepsut and the Queen of Punt' , a lithograph (1985) by my favourite Dutch artist, Gerti Bierenbroodspot.

I publish it with especial pleasure as today is Bierenbroodspot's birthday.



Illustrations

Top left: Queen Eti of Punt, King Perehu of Punt (AboveTopSecret).

Map: AboveTopSecret.

Middle left: Men carrying myrrh trees with roots in pots (AboveTopSecret).

Centre: Egyptian ship being loaded with produce of Punt (maat-ka-ra.de).

Left: Close-up drawing of above (ExploringAfricaBlogspot).

Inset: Baboons worshipping the sun god with Ramesses III at Medinet Habu (R.Hiller, The Baboons and Monkeys of Ancient Egypt).

Lower left: Mummified baboon in Cairo's Egyptian Museum (Al-Ahram Weekly, Issue 537).

Lowest left: A scene from Punt with ape climbing palm tree, short-horned cattle, head of giraffe (ExploringAfricaBlogspot).

An Uppity Stone-Age Venus (II) and an Hottentot Slave

Scroll down for Part I, or click on Uppity Venus I


Steatopygia is a genetic condition marked by an excess of fat on the buttocks, layers of fat that often extend down the front and sides of the thighs. In the modern world, it is common only among the females of certain African peoples, notably the Khoikhoi ('Hottentots'), San (Bushwomen), and Pygmies.

Internally, the buttocks of steatopygous women consist of masses of fat incorporated between criss-crossed sheets of connective tissue joined to one another in a regular manner.

How much rump is a big, fat rump?

The degree of steatopygia is recorded as the shortest distance between the deepest point in the hollow of the back and a plane, placed at right angles to the median sagittal,* just touching the most posterior point of the buttocks. Among the adult Kalahari Bushwomen, this averages 7.8 cm (3"), with a maximum of 11½ cm (4½") ; among Bushwomen of the Cape Province, a range of 7½ – 15 cm (3 – 6") has been measured.

Another way of looking at it is based on the sharpness of the angle between back and buttocks: steatopygia strictly speaking is diagnosed at an angle of about 90 degrees.

In that case, not even the famous Venus of Willendorf (above centre) qualifies as steatopygous. She -- and most other Venuses -- have an almost nymph-like angle of about 120 degrees between back and buttocks.

No matter. Enter scientists.

The Missing Link

Although Venus buttocks rarely stand at right angles, they are unarguably ample. As these figurines began to appear in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they first stunned, then titillated Europeans. That voluptuous body shape was quickly linked to the steatopygia found among some African women and interpreted as evidence of an African influence on the Cro-Magnon (whitish) European culture.

The French archaeologist Edouard Piette** (1827-1906), a Palaeolithic pioneer, attributed the unusual condition of steatopygia that afflicted these Palaeolithic hunters to the presence of a Negroid race of Europe.

Needless to say, 'Negroid' and 'primitive' were easily conflated.

In this two-race theory, the Negroids were responsible for whatever appeared grotesque and savage, while more pleasing objects (such as the Lady with the Hood, pictured in a footnote below) were credited to the Cro-Magnons -- thus demonstrating a “search of beauty” by dead white males.

Although Piette admitted being puzzled by “racial differences within the collection of Venuses and the resemblance of some of them to African populations”(my italics), he was nonetheless certain that they were Negroid in origin. And he was equally certain that the figurines were meant “to be read literally as realistic depictions of human anatomy” since, as he said, all Paleolithic people were “profound realists [who] represented themselves [as they were] in engraving and sculpture.”

It's a pity Piette died before the Venus de Monpazier (right) was found in a newly-ploughed French field [Oo là là, elle est vraiment très française celle-là]: she would surely have been the proof of the pudding. Not only has she a decidedly right-angled bum but also the enlarged vulva characteristic of some steatopygous women as well. That is, she exhibits extreme labial hypertrophy, in which uncommonly long labia minora protrude from the outer lips (labia majora) of the vagina -- looking, when she stands, for all the world like a small penis, or, when reclining, as a dangling curtain of skin.

Such an 'unnatural' development in women is but a hop, skip and jump from proof of unbridled primitive sexuality.

Sex-Toys Я Us

After the first flush of European imperialism had run its course, race was out and sex moved in. The figurines were now understood as erotic objects used by Paleolithic men.

Sex and hunger were the two motives which influenced the entire mental life of the mammoth hunters and their productive art.

Strong male desires explained the origin of art: the Venuses were manufactured as erotic paraphernalia, providing pleasure to Paleolithic man during his meals . They also provided direct tactile and visual satisfaction. Art, in short, began as primitive pornography (or, if I may put it so, artefacts used with one hand).

The Dictionary of Medical Science agreed. In an essay written in 1819, a medical doctor wrote of black woman developing a voluptuousness and a degree of lascivity unknown to whites. He particularly stressed the consonance between the hideous form of the female Hottentot's physiognomy and sexual lasciviousness.

I would have thought that the desire to eat was unexceptional yet that, too, was brought into play:

"Among us [whites] the forehead is pushed forward, the mouth is pulled back as if we were destined to think rather than eat; the Negro has a shortened forehead and a mouth that is pushed forward as if he were made to eat instead of to think."

Enter the Hottentot Venus

This fetid stew of ultra-Negro savagery, primitive Negroids and sexual titillation was further stirred by a Khoikhoi woman named Saartjie Baartman -- the Hottentot Venus (left) -- who sailed into London in 1810.

The first time Saartjie Baartman was dragged out to squat before the mob at 225 Piccadilly, the show's promoters billed her genitals as resembling the skin that hangs from a turkey's throat. For several years, working-class Londoners crowded in to shout vulgarities at the protruding buttocks and large vulva of the unfortunate woman made famous across Europe as the "Hottentot Venus". The aristocracy were no less fascinated at what they saw as a sexual freak, but they had private showings.

The bizarre tale began in 1789, when Saartjie Baartman was born near the little village of Hankey on the Great Fish (Gamtoos) River in South Africa's Eastern Cape into the clan of Griqua people. The Griqua were called 'Hottentots' by the Dutch settlers, probably an onomatopoeic word imitating the clicking sounds of their language.

In her late teens, she migrated to Cape Town where she worked as a servant for a Boer farmer, Pieter Cezar. Colonial records show that in 1810 she was living in a small shack on his land when a British ship's doctor, William Dunlop, took an interest in her. He was fascinated by her large rump and genitalia -- exceptional even by Khoikhoi standards -- and was convinced he could capitalize on the prurient interest in primitive sexuality. Explorers of Africa had already spread stories about Hottentot women’s oversized buttocks and the mysterious 'Hottentot apron,' an enticing flap of skin covering the vaginal area.

Together with Pieter's brother Hendrik, Dunlop convinced the young woman to enter into a contract to sail with them to London, telling her that she would become rich by displaying her body. No doubt she saw the opportunity to live like the white colonialists in the Cape.

Baartman spent 4 years in London on display ostensibly for scientific purposes, but in truth as an extraordinary freak- show exhibit. In those days there was little distinction between zoological exhibitions and human freaks, whether women with hairy bodies and beards, or The Living Skeleton, or 'The Fattest Man on Earth' (weighing 700 lb., 317 kg), or a young lady measuring just 22½ inches tall (58 cm) whose stage name, the 'Sicilian Fairy', encapsulated both her size and frailty.

The supposedly excessive size of Baartman's buttocks and the 'Hottentot apron' fit the time perfectly. Her uncommon bum and genitals were an intellectually satisfying missing link between true (white) humans and the highest type of apes, the orang-utans.

Cezar advertised the show and billed Baartman as a “most correct specimen of her race.” The Hottentot Venus exhibition, which took place at 225 Egyptian Hall at the Piccadilly Circus, was instantly popular and inspired bawdy ballads and political cartoons (above left, two cartoon comments: "Oh! God Damn what roast beef!" and "Ah! how comical is nature."). A contemporary account describes how she was paraded on a "stage two feet high, along which she was led by her keeper and exhibited like a wild beast, being obliged to walk, stand or sit as he ordered."

Charles Matthews, comedian, who “was all his life a great sight-seer”, frequented the London neighbourhood in pursuit of the latest curiosities. Upon visiting Baartman:

He found her surrounded by many persons, some females! One pinched her; one
gentleman poked her with his cane; one lady employed her parasol to ascertain
that all was, as she called it, ‘nattral.’ This inhuman baiting the poor creature
bore with sullen indifference, except upon some provocation, when she seemed
inclined to resent brutality.... On these occasions it took all the authority of the
keeper to subdue her resentment.

The show also provoked outrage, as various witnesses described Baartman appearing nearly nude and being threatened with violence by her exhibitor. These complaints soon led to the intervention of the African Institution, an abolitionist organization that brought Hendrik Cezar to trial for practising slavery and public indecency. Baartman testified on her own behalf, but she did not corroborate stories of being held against her will and only complained about not having enough clothes to wear. The courts eventually dismissed the case but mandated that Cezar discontinue in the show’s indecency.

As a consequence, Cezar and Baartman moved to Paris in 1814, where she was abandoned (or sold) to a "showman of wild animals" at a travelling circus. The Hottentot Venus caused the same sensation in Paris as she had in London. When she was not being paraded for the hoi-polloi, Baartman was displayed at society functions.

It was at a ball for France's new establishment -- where she was dressed in nothing but a few feathers -- that Napoleon's surgeon general and founder of the disciplines of geology, paleontology, and comparative anatomy, Georges Cuvier, spotted her and claimed a scientific interest. Over the following year she was repeatedly studied by doctors and anthropologists, who invariably concluded that she was evidence of the superiority of the white race.

All this prodding and oogling took its toll on her, driving her into prostitution and alcoholism. She died in 1815, just five years after arriving in Europe. Descriptions of her death point to syphilis and tuberculosis as the cause. She was 25 years old.

Upon her death, Cuvier acquired her cadaver. Her body was first copied in a plaster-cast (right) and then dissected. In his 1817 scientific thesis, Histoire naturelle des mammifères, Cuvier unveiled the mystery of her 'apron' (which she had refused to display to him even when offered money) and compared her genitalia with those of apes, developing his theories on African women’s oversexed and subhuman status. Her bones were boiled and her brain and genitals bottled.

Her skeleton, pickled brain, and pickled sex organs were mounted for display and shown in the great Musée de l’Homme next to her naked plaster-cast -- the very first exhibits to be seen by a visitor in the foyer of the museum. She was only removed from public view in 1976.***

The Unexpected Palaeolithic Trilogy

Having allowed myself to be side-tracked by Saartjie Baartman's story, I don't have the heart to return to my little Palaeolithic female figurines for the moment. So we'll have to tackle the next great theory -- the figurines as objects used in fertility rites and rituals -- in a third post, when I also hope to bring the narrative up to our own time and, with any luck, to a conclusion.




* That is, the point at the top of the head dividing the body into left and right halves

** As it happens, the 'Treasures of Edouard Piette' are now being shown at the Musée des antiquités nationales, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, just outside Paris. The exhibition includes the Venus of Brassempouy (left)- also known as the "Lady with the Hood" (discovered by Piette) - being shown in its original form to the public for the first time. From 29 Nov. 2008 - 2 March 2009.

*** Some Africans never forgot Baartman. Nelson Mandela made a request to France in 1994 for her remains to be handed back. Her cause gained momentum amid post-apartheid South Africa's new awareness of tribal identity. All over the country, aboriginal peoples were asserting their heritage rights, claiming not only political and cultural recognition, but also the restitution of ancestral lands. Baartman's tribe, now recognized by the United Nations as an indigenous First Nation, won a victory for tribal recognition by securing the return of the 'Hottentot Venus' : in March 2002, the French Senate finally agreed to return Baartman’s remains—including her preserved organs—to her homeland. She was buried near her birthplace on the River Gamtoos on 9 August 2002, South African Women’s Day.

Some recommended resources for Saartjie Baartman: Reliable information and a nuanced historical discussion, with full references, in S. Qureshi, "Displaying Sara Baartman, the 'Hottentot Venus'"; a not-to-be-missed blog post (although somewhat historically shaky) at the Diary of an Anxious Black Woman; an article in the Guardian newspaper shortly before Baartman's repatriation; and some context on "Exhibiting 'Others' in the West".

Two books, neither entirely satisfactory, has since appeared.

Rachel Holmes, African Queen: The real life of the Hottentot Venus (Random House, 2007), reviewed by Caroline Elkins in the New York Times, "A Life Exposed":

It is difficult not to be propelled through “African Queen.” The story of Saartjie Baartman — the Hottentot Venus’s real name — is inherently fascinating, and littered with a diverse cast of highly unlikable characters....

Clifton Crais & Pamela Scully, Sarah Baartman and the Hottentot Venus: A ghost story and a biography (Princeton University, 2009) reviewed by Kathryn Hughes in the TLS 7 August 2009:

...lust for the racial "other", a sentimental desire to see on of Rousseau's noble savages in person, and a more generalized freak show hysteria all lay behind the storm of interest which the "Hottentot's" presence produced at every level of British culture.

Illustrations:

Centre top: Venus of Willendorf (Austria), discovered 1908.

Above left: one of the Kostienki Venuses (Russia), with woven breast ornament [back view of image in previous post].

Above right: one of the Gargarino Venuses (Ukraine), discovered in a house pit, 1926-1929.

Below right: Venus of Monpazier (France), discovered 1970.

Below left: Kostienki I Venus, discovered in 1936. Her head is covered with rows of shallow teeth cuts, depicting hair or a closely fitting head-dress. Engraved and relief lines on the chest and on the back. Mammoth's tusk.

Photographs of Saartjie Baartman and cartoons are available at various sites on the Internet.