The Land of Punt

Abstract

In conjunction with Nicholas Millet's account1 of the newly recovered block from the remarkable depiction of the land of Punt as seen by Queen Hatshepsut's expedition, it seems appropriate to present here an essay at reconstructing the original appearance of the whole scene which is interesting for the way in which it is composed as well as for its wealth of factual detail. A number of blocks from the ruined upper part of the wall were published as separate fragments on Plates 70 and 71 in Vol. Ill of Edouard Naville's The Temple of Deir El Bahari in 1898. These were photographed by the Fremdvb'lker expedition instigated by the great German historian Eduard Meyer.2 Other important fragments were found in the course of the new work undertaken by the Expedition of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and built into the upper part of the south wall of the Punt Colonnade in the reconstruction of the temple which was carried out by the Egyptian Department of Antiquities during the 1930's. These new pieces do not seem to have been photographed in detail and are rather difficult to study in position since they are set at a considerable height from the floor of the colonnade which forms the southern half of the middle terrace of the great building designed by the architect Senmut. However, several years ago, Charles F. Nims kindly provided two photographs which together comprise the whole wall on a small scale. It was found possible to enlarge these prints to the same size as that of the lower part of the wall reproduced on Naville's PL 69 and similarly to reduce the fragments on his PL 70 to the same scale. While it has not been possible to do justice to the fine draughtsmanship of the original in tracing the tiny details on the photographs, it is hoped that a fair state of accuracy has been achieved. A few slight errors which the photographs reveal in Naville's plates could not be corrected. The rather sketchy drawing made for Mariette's3 publication of 1877 proved difficult to adjust to the blank spaces caused by the subsequent removal of several blocks in the lowest two registers. The men bringing offerings in the second register, for example, are too tall for the other figures and do not adequately occupy the width of the gap. The second and third men on this block have been roughly altered to show that they are really carrying sacks on their shoulders, with their arms in a different position from that shown by Marie tte. They are now represented on the wall by a plaster cast of the block which is in the Cairo Museum, along with that containing the figure of the fat wife of the chieftain of Punt in front of them and that portraying her saddled donkey in the register below. To this group of important pieces in Cairo is now to be added the block with the three men following the donkey in the lowest register as reported in Mr. Millet's article. For the second representation of the chief's family in the lowest register we are still entirely dependent upon Mariette's drawing and it was thought better to make use of this drawing for all the portions missing from Naville's record of the two processions of figures. Large blanks still remain in the upper portion of the wall but by studying the way in which the artist has alternated the different kinds of trees it is possible to suggest the general system of his composition and

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