How Baboons Led Us to a Lost Civilization

Everyone knows where Punt is, right? The Ancient Egyptians sure did — they traded with them for millennia. But apparently they were *so* familiar with its location, they never bothered to write it down for posterity. So archaeologists have been trying to find Punt for over a century...and they may have finally done it.

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Sources:

[pshalleck]

The "Maybe Pwnt is Adilus?" theory makes me imagine that some archaeologist 4000 years from now is going to blow minds when they propose that Istanbul is Constantinople.

[cedaremberr]

I dunno about Thoth being pleased. He's the god of knowledge, but also more specifically the god of scribes. Maybe he'd be disappointed they never bothered to WRITE IT DOWN!

[jackryan]

The fact that ancient Egyptians had ancient Egypt scholars, who had many of the same questions about ancient Egypt, will never not blow my mind.

[BenschiVids]

I misread the title and was a lot more intrigued before i realised my mistake: "How Baboons lead to a lost civilization" - as in, how they caused one

[jameseddleman]

Posh sounding Egyptian - "you don't know where Punt is? everyone who is anyone knows."

[beretperson]

How do you lose a whole civilization?

You forget to cherish it :(

[Icanhasautomaticcheeseburger]

6:38: "Now, you can't ask a 3, 500 year old mummified baboon where it was born."

Not with that attitude, you can't...

[DeathnoteBB]

In the future: WHERE IS THIS MART OF WALLS?!

[radix]

The mitochondrial DNA is the powerhouse of the anthropology.

[jglaab]

my favorite "surprise city" was along the Inca trail where someone tried to cauterize a wound which led to a Forrest fire. After the fire cleared the realized there was a city built around the trail that no one had noticed before with all the undergrowth

[tsmithkc]

Future archaeologists searching for the lost civilization of IKEA.

[mellissadalby]

The mummy of Hatshepsut was lost for decades but when it was finally found they ran DNA analysis and detected that she suffered from Bilharzia and also died from a dental abscess. She was the Mother of Imhotep III and a fierce military strategist and the only female pharaoh during a time of prosperity.
She was extremely cool!

[ginnyjollykidd]

Hm maybe I'll go through my recipes and write "chicken" next to every mention of eggs.

[WinstnChurchill]

Archaeologists of the future: What the hell means "Made in China"? Why is it written on everything?

[ajogar]

when i was a kid i had pet hermit crabs, and when they died we burried them as we do with all of our pets, but we wrapped them in paper towels and put them in a ziplock so the local cats wouldn't dig them up. i've always thought about the moment a confused archeologist will dig up a seashell in a plastic bag and wondered what they'll think

[RedHair]

Baboons were never native to Egypt.
Or so we Thoth.

[brandongaines]

"Ah, lost a PWaNeT, Master Obi-Wan has. How embarrassing. How embarrassing!"

Also, I was totally expecting them to be live baboons who incidentally led a research team to a previously uncontacted tribe. As cool of a story as that would have been, this is somehow way cooler!

[Deckzwabber]

Are we sure there's only one place or region designated as Punt?
If the Egyptians set out to 're-discover' it after a few centuries of no contact, wouldn't there be a high risk of a Columbusesque India-America confusion?

[Srfingfreak]

I helped to build Hatshepsut's ship (literally the one at 2:06) to Punt and we sailed it down the Red Sea for a NOVA documentary called "Building Pharaoh's Ship" - in fact, my profile picture is on that ship. There's some videos on my page from on board.

It was fun and cool. People thought a keel-less ship with a square sale wouldn't make it down there but it did, and it could even sail upwind.

[MM]

Happens more often than you think. When you get into history an realize entire periods, maybe thousands of years, are labelled things like "Bell Beaker", "Middle Paleolithic", or "Dowris Phase" because they only have rocks, broken pots, holes, and few other scraps to go on, you realize how much of human history is actually a blank hole.