The skulls of two baboons, mummified more than 3,000 years ago, have helped narrow down the location of a fabled “land of plenty”, which once supplied ancient Egypt with gold, frankincense, myrrh and monkeys. Known as the land of Punt, or ‘God’s land’, this faraway fantastical realm may have actually existed outside its renowned mythology, despite no physical remnants of it having ever been found. Ancient writings and drawings from the time have many archaeologists convinced the land of Punt was located somewhere around the Red Sea and was pivotal in the rise of the spice routes, also known as the maritime silk roads, which first linked Eastern and Western cultures and commerce. Or perhaps they should have been called the ‘baboon beats’. Researchers now think the traffic of a sacred monkey, known as the Hamadryas baboon (Papio hamadryas), was “an important, contributing factor to the rise of Red Sea trade during the 2nd millennium BC.” Ancient Egyptians seemed to have revered the Hamadryas baboon. The god Thoth, the supreme being of the moon and wisdom, is sometimes…
