Punt

Punt, ancient land S of Egypt accessible by way of the Red Sea. Its exact location has not been identified, but it probably included the Somali coast. Temple reliefs at Deir el Bahari in W Thebes depict an Egyptian expedition to Punt in the reign of Hatshepsut. From Punt the Egyptians obtained slaves, as well as gold and incense.

In ancient Egyptian and Greek geography, the southern coast of the Red Sea and adjacent coasts of the Gulf of Aden, corresponding to modern coastal Ethiopia and Djibouti. Visited by Egyptian expeditions as early as 2200 BC, it was a place of ancient legend and fable and Egypt's source for incense, ivory, and ostrich feathers. During the reign of Queen Hatshepsut, an expedition was sent to Punt, and the queen had the details of the journey recorded on the walls of the Deir el-Bahri temple near Thebes. Only in the late 4th century BC were the trade routes to Punt opened to the Greeks.

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Punt can mean the following:

• A type of boat
• Punt (boat), a flat-bottomed boat with a square-cut bow developed on the River Thames
• Norfolk Punt, a type of racing dinghy developed in Norfolk
• Cable ferry, known as a punt in Australian English
• Punt (football), a way of kicking a ball
• Land of Punt, a fabled site in eastern Africa that was the source of many exotic products
• Punt, the indentation on the bottom of a wine bottle
• the Irish word for pound, specifically the Irish pound
• El Punt, a Catalan newspaper

People

• Jos Punt (1946– ), a Dutch bishop
• Steve Punt (1962– ), a British comedian, of Punt and Dennis