Hatshepsut's expedition to the Land of Punt

Date

c. 1469 BCE

Category

Economy & trade

Region

Egypt & the Red Sea (Land of Punt)

Era

Ancient Civilizations

Significance

Hatshepsut, one of the few women to rule Egypt as pharaoh, dispatched a major sea-borne trading expedition to the Land of Punt, a region probably on the southern Red Sea coast (near modern Eritrea/Somalia).

Five ships returned laden with myrrh and frankincense, ebony, ivory, gold, exotic animals, and—most prized—living incense trees transplanted to Egypt. The voyage, undertaken around the ninth year of her reign, is among the best-documented events of the New Kingdom, depicted in detailed painted reliefs in her mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahari. The expedition reopened long-distance commercial contact with Punt, supplied resins essential to temple ritual, and exemplified the wealth and reach of early New Kingdom Egypt. Hatshepsut presented the venture as divinely sanctioned, reinforcing her contested legitimacy as a female king.

Empires active in c. 1469 BCE

• New Kingdom of Egypt
  1550 BCE – 1077 BCE
• Hittite Empire
  1650 BCE – 1178 BCE
• Shang Dynasty
  1600 BCE – 1046 BCE
• Mitanni
  1500 BCE – 1300 BCE
• Elamite Kingdom
  2700 BCE – 539 BCE

Related economy & trade events

• The Uluburun Shipwreck: Late Bronze-Age International Trade
  c. 1320–1300 BCE
• Old Assyrian trade network and the karum of Kanesh
  c. 1950–1750 BCE
• Meluhha: Indus Trade with Akkadian Mesopotamia
  c. 2400-2300 BCE
• Standardised Binary Weights System of the Indus
  c. 2600 BCE
• Invention of Standardised Coinage in Lydia (the Lydian Stater)
  c. 630 BCE
• Laurion silver strike funds the Athenian fleet
  483 BC

Further reading

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

The wider story

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

Peter Frankopan

Best-selling world history told through the trade routes that moved goods, faiths and ideas.

Get it on Amazon →

As an Amazon Associate, Human Saga earns from qualifying purchases.