Latest News
NEWS DECEMBER 2022
Atlantipedia will be wound down in 2023. After nearly twenty years compiling Atlantipedia on my own, and as I am now approaching my 80th birthday, I have decided to cut back on the time I dedicate to developing this website. An orderly conclusion rather than an enforced one is always preferable before the Grim Reaper […]Read More »
Joining The Dots
I have now published my new book, Joining The Dots, which offers a fresh look at the Atlantis mystery. I have addressed the critical questions of when, where and who, using Plato’s own words, tempered with some critical thinking and a modicum of common sense.Read More »
Djibouti
Punt
Punt is the name given to a land with which the ancient Egyptians traded. The leading theory is that it was located to the southeast of Egypt, roughly occupying what is now called ‘the Horn of Africa, although there is also a popular view that it was situated on the Arabian Peninsula. Others suggest that a combination of parts of both regions might be nearer the truth. An article of November 2016 elaborates on the claim for this identification(e).
Along with the many luxury goods that Punt supplied to Egypt were baboons, so it was interesting to read in 2020 that “a new study tracing the geographic origins of Egyptian mummified baboons finds that they were sourced from an area that includes the modern-day countries of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, and Yemen, providing new insight into Punt’s location.”(i). The investigation centred on the strontium levels found in the ancient remains.
Thor Heyerdahl in The Tigris Expedition [1921] also identified the region around Djibouti as the land of Punt.
In 2013, a short book [1567] by Ahmed Ibrahim Awale, placed Punt in the same region, namely, in Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland. A favourable and well-illustrated review(f) of Awale’s book is worth a read. The worldhistory.org website has pointed out that the name of the Puntland State of Somalia may preserve a memory of the original mythical Punt(h).
>However, Immanuel Velikovsky wrote at length about Punt and its location in Palestine in Ages in Chaos [0039]. He maintains that Punt is consistently described as being to the east of Egypt, which would rule out Somalia. Added to this, he claimed that the Queen of Sheba and Queen Hatshepsut were one and the same person. Others, such as Eulalio Eguia, identify the Queen of Sheba with Nefertiti(l). Velikovsky’s comments are certainly worth a read. Emmet Sweeney has adopted both Velikovsky’s location for Punt and his identification of the Queen of Sheba(j). Damien Mackey offers new evidence to support Velikovsky’s claims(m).
By way of contrast, David Lorton has offered a series of criticisms of Velikovsky’s Punt/Sheba ideas(k).<
Frank Joseph in his Atlantis Encyclopedia[0104.37] claims that “the Lands of Punt (are) often associated with the islands of Atlantis.” Joseph expands on this in an Atlantis Rising article(a) where he refers to an ancient Egyptian story of “The Shipwrecked Sailor” in which the ‘Serpent King’ is identified as master of the island of Punt, which again Joseph claims to be Atlantis.
More recently, a small number of commentators have identified Punt/Atlantis with Indonesia(b)(c). Dhani Irwanto, who is a leading advocate of an Indonesian Atlantis[1093] published in November 2015 an extensive article online(d) in which he specifically names the Indonesian island of Sumatera (Sumatra) as the land of Punt. He has now expanded this into a book, Land of Punt: In Search of the Divine Land of the Egyptians [1628]. Irwanto goes further and also identifies the mysterious land of Ophir in the Bible as Punt.
Xavier Séguin proposed that Punt along with Atlantis, Mu and Hyperborea were in fact satellites(g)!!!
(a) See: Archive 2790
(b) https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/atlantida_mu/esp_atlantida_3a.htm
(c) http://www.lost-civilizations.net/true-history-atlantis-2.html
(d) https://atlantisjavasea.com/2015/11/14/land-of-punt-is-sumatera/
(f) The Mystery of the Land of Punt Unravelled – book review | Land of Punt (archive.org) *
(h) https://www.worldhistory.org/punt/?visitCount=48&lastVisitDate=2021-4-9&pageViewCount=64
(i) https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201215082048.htm
(j) https://www.hope-of-israel.org/expeditionpunt.html
(k) http://www.oocities.org/athens/academy/1326/hatshepsut.html
(l) Calaméo – Nefertiti – The Queen of Sheba ` (calameo.com) *
Heyerdahl, Thor
Thor Heyerdahl (1914-2002)was not an advocate for any particular theory regarding Atlantis, except to state[387] that in his view Plato’s text was more supportive of an Atlantic location rather than a Mediterranean one. However, in the same book, Early Man and the Ocean, he lists 53 cultural similarities between civilisations in Mesoamerica and those in the eastern Mediterranean. He did so in order to advance his belief in a diffusionist approach to the study of cultural development. His observations were not the first as parallels between cultures of both sides of the Atlantic were noted as soon as the Spanish invasion of America took place. Years earlier, Ignatius Donnelly, in the first attempt[021] at a more scientific approach to the Atlantis question, drew up similar lists.
>Thor Heyerdahl’s 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition gave credence to his theory of indigenous Americans and Polynesians being in contact with each other prior to European colonisation and is still relevant today, as his Kon-Tiki expedition completes 75 years, the Kon-Tiki Museum based in Oslo has said.
The strongest validation the theory received was in 2020 when an American research group made a comprehensive study of Polynesian DNA, the museum said in a statement on April 28, 2022.(b)<
The existence of similarities between societies on the two landmasses is unquestionable; that there were ancient contacts between the two is more than probable, but it is not logical to view it as conclusive evidence of a mid-Atlantic location for Atlantis.
>Heyerdahl has also identified the region around Djibouti as the land of Punt. [1921]<
Many of Heyerdahl’s ideas came under attack, as outlined in a 2002 Smithsonian article(a).