• Due to O. Eljcre in his Aegppten und <h'e Duchrr ifoce'g, p. 84, iccepU-d, e.g., tjy Stode (d« lia. vat. jl'.th.). On the weak att«nipt at contradiction by Dilimann, Bee the present writer's Aficn, p. 116.
t A great nuus of earlier lltemture on the much diBcuBsed situation of this country is ariti(|uatcd. Formerly scholarB tried to identify Punt with Soutlurn Arabia, then (after Mas- pcro) they located it on both sides of the Ked .Sea. Tlie latest literature will be found in Krall, Dot Land I'uiil ('.Silzun|{8- bericlite Altad. Vienna,' cicxi. 1890); Naviilc, Deir etiltihari. Hi. ; W. M. Miiller in MittheiL vorderat. Getelts. lii. ls«^, 148 (cf. Ari^n UTul Kuropa, ch. 7)l Olaser (MUthrit. vonleras. OetdlH. iv. etc.) unfortunately uses some very antiquated sources.
VOL. IV. — 12
incense needed by the Egyptians for the divine worship and for cosmetics lormed the must im- portant product of the country. The parts of Punt producing it were called ' the incense- terraces ' (or ' stairs '), apparently situated on the Aljyssiniau coast (incense in sutiicient quan- tity -TOWS only E. of Bab el-Mandeb), but it would be wrong to limit Punt to these regions. The inhabitants were rude nomadic shepherds, some of them negroes or mixed with negroes, but mostly of the pure Hamitic race, i.e. near relativea of the Egyptians and the other white Africans. Consequently their descendants are the desert tribes called Troijlodj/tce (better Trogoclytce) or Icltthyoplmgi by the Greeks, Bcdja by the Arabs in the north, Saho and Afar (Uanakil) on the Abyssinian coast.* They can hardly have fonned a larj'e contingent of the Egy|itian armies, because the desert regions north of Abyssinia were too thinly jiopulated. Only the archers of the region Mnza (Masiya of the Persians, see above), more inland, i.e. nearly in the modern province of Taqa, were as popular as policemen and guards as the Nubas are in modern Egypt ; this country of the Mazoyu is frequently separated from Punt. But the prophets speaking of Put- Punt evidently did not consider the scanty population of this country. To them it represented all Africa east of Eg3'pt and Ethiopia (i.e. the Nubian Nile valley, not modern Ethiopia or ^abesh), an en<lless and luystcrious part of the world. The Phoenicians (ci. Ezk 27'°) may have extended their commercial connexions to what the Greeks called the ' coasts of the aromata,' after the completion of Necho's canal between the Nile and the Ked Sea ;t before that time the difficulties must have been too great to allow a direct contact.
Commentators who wished to follow the trans- lation of the LXX, compared the Coptic name (JiAiAT ' Liljya (especially the western part of the Helta), Libyan' (thus Knobcl and, following him, Dillmann). The hieroglyphic equivalent of Phnint has not yet been found, but the word looks like a (plural ?) denominative from a feminine noun ending in -ct. This would not at all a^ee with the I (ts) of the Semites, unless an n liad been assimilated (see above). The Greek translators of the prophets may have thought of this name, nevertheless. See, however, above, the objections from the biblical passages and the (•onlirmation of the reading PAt from the Persian inscription. Some Eg}'ptologi.sts compare the Egyptian ex- pression for ' foreign warriors,' which they errone- ously read pet, pite, etc. But the Amania tablets have shown that this expression ' bowmen ' was pcdnte (singtilar 'a troop of bowmen' ])cditc{t), derived from pide{t) ' bow '). Consequently neither the Coptic (Jjaiat nor the Semitic Put agrees with these formations. How the com- parison of 'a river Phut in Mauretania' (i.e. Morocco, which was never even known to the Egyptians !) in Josephus (^n<. I. vi. 2); was seri- ously considered by modem commentators, re- mains a mystery.§ W. Max MCller.
• If we have a ripht ttt compare the tribea more to the south- eaflt, we might Kpt-iili also of tlie (Jfilla.'*. Tiie frequent com- parison of tiie Soinalis with the 'I'unli' is erroneous. Tlie .Sotnalia lived originally only on the eastern coast of modern Sonmliland, i.e. at too great a distance. Some writers have tried to find in I'unt tlie original African Beat of the ' rim-- nicians.' But this idea rest.s only on the accidental Biniilarit*' of a Latin pronunciation (Punicus for Phiunicus). No ethno- logic connexion lieLwecn those African savages and the higlily cultured Asiatic nation can be found. The position of the rluunicians in Gn 10 among the llaniites seems to be due to other reasons than tlioso of ethnology.
f See Miilheil. vordera: Ge»:'Ut. iii. 16!, on the completion of the cjinal.
t Called Phthutli Ptol. Ir. 1, 8 ; Fut Plln. t. 1, and known thtis also to Jerome.
fi Winckler (Forechuvgen, I. 613) has raised the qucntii'n
n
PUTEOLI
PYTHON
PUTEOLI (IlorloXoi, modern Pozzuoli). — The great commercial port of Italy, in what is called now the Bay of Naples, but was at one time called the Sinus Puteolanus. It was at this port that Ht. Paul landed on his journey to Konie (Ac 28"). There were alreadj- brethren there, and he and St. Luke were entreated to tarry with them seven days. Its name is of doubtf\il origin, hut is attributed either to the putrid smell of the sul- I)hurous s|)rin^s close by, or to the wells (piitei) of the place. Cicero, like St. Paul, landed there TN-hen he came from Sicily (pro Plane. 2(3). It was the resort of trade from all parts, notably from the East, and the corn supplies for the capital were landed here. Josephus speaks of himself as havin" landed there after being sliipwrecked ( Vit. 3), and gives its other name of Dicajarchia. There must have been a Jewish population in the place (cf. Jos. Ant, xvill. vi. 4), and this may perhaps ac- count for the presence of Christians there. Some of the ruins of the ancient mole, at which the apostle must have landed, are still in e.xistence.