In 2001 the Uniersity of Naples "L'Orientale" (UNO), Naples (Italy), and the Italian Institute for Africa and the Orient (IsIAO), ROme, in collaboration with Boston University (BU), Boston (USA), began investigations at the site of Mersa/Wadi Gawasis on the Red Sea coast, Egypt, under the direction of Rodolfo Fattovich (UNO/IsIAO) and Kathryn Bard (BU). Investigations have focused on testing the hypothesis of Egyptian maritime trade along the Red Sea in the 3rd - 2nd millennia BC, especially the problem of Punt.
The project is part of long-term investigations, in progress at UNO since the early 1980s, regarding the evelopment of long-distance trade between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocena, from the late prehistorical times, and the possible impact of this trade on the origins of hierarchical societies and states in the northern Horn of Africa. Mersa/Wadi Gawasis was chosen as an area of investigation because this site was already identified in the mid-1970s as the possible Egyptian harbor from where seafaring expeditions were sent to the land of Punt.