Phut

Who is Phut?

Phut or Put is the third son of Ham, in the biblical Table of Nations.

The Persian historian Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari recounts a tradition that the wife of Put was named Bakht, a daughter of Batawil son of Tiras, and that she bore him the "Copts".

The name Put is also used in the Bible for the people or nation said to be descended from him, usually placed in Ancient Libya, but connections are sometimes proposed with the Land of Punt known from Ancient Egyptian annals.

Josephus writes: "Phut also was the founder of Libya, and called the inhabitants Phutites, from himself: there is also a river in the country of Moors which bears that name; whence it is that we may see the greatest part of the Grecian historiographers mention that river and the adjoining country by the appellation of Phut: but the name it has now has been by change given it from one of the sons of Mezraim, who was called Lybyos.". Pliny the Elder Nat. Hist. 5.1 and Ptolemy Geog. iv.1.3 both place the river Phuth on the west side of Mauretania. Ptolemy also mentions a city Putea in Libya.