Mareeg.com-One day in the 7th Century AD a great earthquake in the Red Sea rocked
the sea bed and created a tsunami so powerful that it travelled over
six kilometers inland and completely wiped off from the face of the
earth the ancient African city of Adulis, capital of Punt, “Land of
the Gods” or “God’s Land”.
Adulis, built in the dry stone method, was an extensive city that
existed for thousands of years before the giant wall of water sent it
stones and inhabitants alike tumbling inland and then back out to sea,
that which would float.
Today all that remains of Adulis is windblown sand filled foundations
and stones, stones everywhere, scattered suddenly by a cataclysmic
event so powerful it even erased history.
The story of Adulis is just now being uncovered with the discovery of
another great Red Sea earthquake and a biblically related tidal wave
that destroyed an ancient civilization.
What Italian archeologists digging in the soil of ancient Adulis, Zula
Bay, Eritrea, found was evidence of this greatest of marine disasters,
profound because it struck so suddenly, without warning scrapping all
and asunder before it and leaving no trace of what it had destroyed.
We know from the ancient Egyptian mummified baboons that baboons
living near the remains of Adulis are the closest match found in East
Africa settling the question once and for all with undeniable
scientific evidence that today’s Zula Bay in Eritrea was the ancient
“Punt, Land of the Gods”. Or so say the ancient Egyptian sarcophagi
that held the mummified remains of the ancestors of today’s Eritrean
baboons.
Adulis, capital of “Punt; Land of the Gods” as it was almost always
written (maybe “Gods Land”?) was a maritime civilization first
recorded in history during the 5th dynasty of ancient Kemet, what is
todays Egypt. It was a critical re-watering point on any maritime
journey down the Red Sea coast on the way to and from the fabulous
riches of the East, India and China. To this day sailors stick to the
African coast of the Red Sea when traversing this most salty of waters
and half way down the coast or so a legendary underground river fed
Adulis, so plentiful that it supported thousands of inhabitants, or at
least the preliminary surveys seem to show.
“Punt, Land of the Gods” was famous world wide for being the home of
sweet myrrh, Comophora Erytraea, the sacred oil used to anoint the
bodies of the Pharaohs so they could pass into the afterlife. The word
Kristos in Yesus Kristos means “the anointed one” as in anointed in
sweet myrrh oil, the source of which is still growing in today’s
Eritrea.
“Ethiopian Gold” from the highlands, ivory and ebony from the
lowlands, Onycha (snail nail/operculum shell), the sacred binding
agent once used in holy incense found only along todays Eritrean coast
and of course, Red Sea salt, white gold, used for currency even, from
the salt fields in what is todays port city of Massawa.
Maybe someday, when more digging brings more history to light the
world will find out more about Adulis and how a great civilization
disappeared from history without a trace, erased by a massive wall of
water obliterating everything before it and leaving nothing behind but
the writings of a few ancient texts.
Thomas C. Mountain is an independent journalist and historian in
Eritrea, living, writing and reporting from here since 2006. See
thomascmountain on Facebook, thomascmountain on Twitter or best reach
him at thomascmountain at g mail dot com
