We now return to the middle court, and go round the end of the ramp in
order to reach the southern colonnade, on whose walls are the famous scenes of
the voyage to Punt .
These reliefs are, as Breasted has said, " Undoubtedly
the most interesting series of reliefs in Egypt " .
Their primacy is not altogether due to their artistic qualities, for
there are other reliefs, both of the Old and the Middle Kingdom, which at the
very least equal, if they do not excel, those of Queen Hatshepsut ; but when to
their artistic merit, which is great, is added the vivacity with which they
picture the incidents of the voyage and sojourn in a strange land, and the fact
that they do for the land of Punt what no other Egyptian records do .
Breasted's comment is amply justified . For they are, as he goes on to remark, " our only early source of information for the land of Punt " .
That land to which the Egyptian seemingly looked back with reverence, and with some obscure idea that their own ancestry was somehow derived thence . Punt was apparently the Somaliland coast at the southern end of the Red Sea ( as we mentioned ) .
The Egyptian habitually spoke of it as " God's Land ", or " The Divine Land ", and it was never mentioned with anything of the contempt with which they spoke of " vile Kush ( or Nubia Region, it is a region along the Nile river located in what is today northern Sudan and southern Egypt ) ", or " wretched Retenu ( or Retjenu, its include Palestine and southern Syria ) " . Indeed in the El-Deir El-Bahari reliefs Amûn himself says of it : " It is a glorious region of God's Land ; it is indeed my place of delight . I have made it for myself, in order to divert my heart " .
The
reliefs begin at the south angle of the colonnade, with the lowest scene on the
west wall, which shows with admirable clearness of detail the build and rig of
the small squadron of Egyptian ships, which is either leaving for Punt, or just
arriving at Punt . The inscription suggests the former ; but the illustration
itself seems to indicate the latter . In any case the matter is of no moment .
The inscription begins : " Sailing in the sea, beginning the goodly way
towards God's Land, journeying in peace to the land of Punt, by the army of the
Lord of the Two Lands " ( Hatshepsut ) .
The next scene is in the lowest row on the south wall . Here the Egyptian envoy, Nehsi ( the negro ), has landed, with an officer and eight heavily armed soldiers, and is standing in front of his little pile of " trade goods ", which consists of strings of beads, an axe, a dagger, some bracelets, and a wooden coffer . Pretty much the immemorial selection with which civilization has beguiled the guileless native of Africa from the beginning .
On the other side of the bundle stands the chief of Punt, with his hands raised in salutation or wonder . He is called Parihu ( or Perahu ), and his wife, who originally stood behind him, and was of enormous proportions, is called Aty ( or Ati ) .
The block which bears her portly figure is now in the Cairo Museum ( No. 452, G 12, north ), together with that containing the little ass ( donkey ) which had the onerous load of this mass of royalty ( No. 453 ) . Both of these blocks were stolen from the wall, and subsequently recovered .
Behind the royal pair are the houses of their subjects, built on piles beneath the trees and accessible by ladders . Cattle are grazing, a dog squats on his haunches, and looks lazily over his shoulder, and another one walks beside his negro master .
Above
this scene, trade is going on . The Egyptians have pitched a tent, in which, as
the inscriptions tells us, they are going to receive the chiefs of the country
. There are offered to them bread, beer, wine, meat, fruit, according to that
which was commanded in the court . Parihu and his colossal wife are again in
evidence . Behind them is the Puntite landscape as before .
The two top rows, cut off from the lower ones by a belt of water, show the incense which were one of the main objects of the expedition, being carried off with their roots done up in baskets of earth by the Egyptian sailors .
We now return to the second row of the west wall nearest the angle . Here the ships are being loaded for the return voyage ; men walk up the gangways with trees in baskets, and bundles of all sorts ; the vessels are already pretty deeply loaded, and several dog-headed apes are seen squatting on the deck cargo, or walking cautiously along the great cable which, strained from stem to stern, prevented hogging in the Egyptian ship .
Above are representative Puntites who are making the voyage to see the wonders of Egypt, and more sailors carrying the incense trees . The inscription tells us that this is the lading of the ships very heavily with marvels of the country of Punt .
To the right of this scene we have another with three ships in full sail for Egypt, " sailing, arriving in peace, journeying to Thebes with joy of heart " . Notice the stiffening of the ships near bow and stern by strong ropes lashed round them frapping, as in the case of St. Paul's ship . We used helps, undergirding the ship .
Above these two scenes, we have a relief of the Puntites who had made the voyage bowing down and offering the tribute of Punt, which is carried by other Puntites and by Egyptians . Both negroes and pure Puntites are represented among the bowing figures .
Next, in the middle of the west wall, is a great scene, in which ( left ) the queen, whose figure has been defaced, offers to Amûn the products of her expedition . These are to the right in two rows : the lower consisting of three sample incense trees out of the thirty-one brought back ; the upper, of panthers, a giraffe, electrum, panthers skins, cattle, and bows .
Then comes a double row of scenes : the lower consisting of the measuring of the great heaps of incense gum in bushel measures ( above the heaps, a row of seven more incense trees planted in tubs ) .
The upper, much defaced, of the weighing of gold rings against weights in the form of oxen . Safkhet, the recording goddess, keeps the tally, and the inscription reads : " recording in writing, reckoning the numbers, summing up in millions, hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands, thousands, and hundreds . Reception of the marvels of the South countries, for Amûn, Lord of Thebes, preside over Karnak " .
In the large scene ( two rows ) which occupies the rest of the west wall, the queen ( erased ) offers to the enthroned figure of Amûn ( also erased ) her formal announcement of the success of her expedition, and the god replies, blessing Hatshepsut and promising encouragement to the trade to Punt, now happily revived . The long inscription occupies the space between the queen and the god .
Behind this scene is another in which Tuthmosis III ( as usual, in a subordinate position ) offers incense before the barque of Amûn . The barque, with its attendant priests, has been erased by Akhenaten ; but Tuthmosis remains perfect, a characteristic figure, with the prominent nose which we have known from the green schist statue to associate with his masterful character . Above him hover the figures of the vulture of El-Kâb and the hawk of Edfu .
Last of all, on the return wall which forms the south side of the ramp, comes a scene in which Hatshepsut makes her announcement of the results of her expedition to representative officials of her court . The middle figure of the three who stand before the queen is the great Senmût, Hatshepsut's most prominent supporter . The queen's figure, and those of her nobles have been most mercilessly hacked out, so that only the shadows of them remain ; but the inscription is of extreme value, as giving the date, " year 9 ", in which the expedition returned to Thebes . It closes with what we may almost call a sigh of contentment on the part of the great queen : " I have made for Amûn a Punt Land in his garden, just as he commanded me, in Thebes . It is big enough for him to walk about in " .
Altogether
these reliefs produce an impression such as is made by few other examples of
Egyptian work in this kind . They have about them a savour of reality and
enjoyment, as though the artist felt that he was doing a good thing, and
commemorating an event worthy of commemoration . " They are as beautiful
in execution as they are important in content " .
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That land to which the Egyptian seemingly looked back with reverence, and with some obscure idea that their own ancestry was somehow derived thence . Punt was apparently the Somaliland coast at the southern end of the Red Sea ( as we mentioned ) .
The Egyptian habitually spoke of it as " God's Land ", or " The Divine Land ", and it was never mentioned with anything of the contempt with which they spoke of " vile Kush ( or Nubia Region, it is a region along the Nile river located in what is today northern Sudan and southern Egypt ) ", or " wretched Retenu ( or Retjenu, its include Palestine and southern Syria ) " . Indeed in the El-Deir El-Bahari reliefs Amûn himself says of it : " It is a glorious region of God's Land ; it is indeed my place of delight . I have made it for myself, in order to divert my heart " .
In her great inscription, the Queen Hatshepsut tells
us that she sent the expedition to Punt by divine inspiration : " A
command was heard from the great throne, an oracle of the god himself, that the
ways to Punt should be searched out, that the high-ways to the Myrrh-terraces
should be penetrated " .
There had, of course, been several previous
expeditions to Punt ; one sent by Sahurê in the 5th Dynasty, and
another by Isesi of the same Dynasty, which brought back a pigmy dancer . In
the 6th Dynasty, one of the officials of Pepi II was killed by Arabs
while superintending the building of a ship for the voyage, and a second
expedition was made in the same reign ; in the Middle Kingdom, Henu ( or Hannu
or Hennu or Henenu ) of the 11th Dynasty conducted an expedition for
Mentuhotpe III, and other voyages were made under Amenemhêt II and Senusret II
of the 12th Dynasty . But none of these adventures have been
described for us with anything like the fullness of detail, to say nothing of
the wealth of illustration, with which Hatshepsut has published the particulars
of the voyage of her squadron .
Besides, the practice of sailing to Punt had
apparently ceased since the time of the Middle Kingdom . " No one trod the
Myrrh-terraces, which the people knew not ; it was heard of from mouth to mouth
by hearsay of the ancestors ", says Amûn in Hatshepsut's inscription . So
the queen's expedition had, for her and her subjects, all the interest of
novelty, or at least of the renewal of an old adventurous habit .
The next scene is in the lowest row on the south wall . Here the Egyptian envoy, Nehsi ( the negro ), has landed, with an officer and eight heavily armed soldiers, and is standing in front of his little pile of " trade goods ", which consists of strings of beads, an axe, a dagger, some bracelets, and a wooden coffer . Pretty much the immemorial selection with which civilization has beguiled the guileless native of Africa from the beginning .
On the other side of the bundle stands the chief of Punt, with his hands raised in salutation or wonder . He is called Parihu ( or Perahu ), and his wife, who originally stood behind him, and was of enormous proportions, is called Aty ( or Ati ) .
The block which bears her portly figure is now in the Cairo Museum ( No. 452, G 12, north ), together with that containing the little ass ( donkey ) which had the onerous load of this mass of royalty ( No. 453 ) . Both of these blocks were stolen from the wall, and subsequently recovered .
Behind the royal pair are the houses of their subjects, built on piles beneath the trees and accessible by ladders . Cattle are grazing, a dog squats on his haunches, and looks lazily over his shoulder, and another one walks beside his negro master .
The inhabitants are of mixed race, some, like the
chief Parihu, brown and slender, others genuine and characteristic negroes .
The inscription tells of the surprise of the Puntites at seeing the Egyptians :
" They say, as they pray for peace : Why have ye come hither unto this
land ?, which the people [ of Egypt ] knew not ? . Did ye come down upon the
ways of heaven, or did ye sail upon the waters, upon the sea of God's Land ? .
Have ye trodden the path of the Sun ? . Lo, as for the King of Egypt, is there
no way to His Majesty, that we may live by the breath which he gives ? " .
The two top rows, cut off from the lower ones by a belt of water, show the incense which were one of the main objects of the expedition, being carried off with their roots done up in baskets of earth by the Egyptian sailors .
We now return to the second row of the west wall nearest the angle . Here the ships are being loaded for the return voyage ; men walk up the gangways with trees in baskets, and bundles of all sorts ; the vessels are already pretty deeply loaded, and several dog-headed apes are seen squatting on the deck cargo, or walking cautiously along the great cable which, strained from stem to stern, prevented hogging in the Egyptian ship .
Above are representative Puntites who are making the voyage to see the wonders of Egypt, and more sailors carrying the incense trees . The inscription tells us that this is the lading of the ships very heavily with marvels of the country of Punt .
To the right of this scene we have another with three ships in full sail for Egypt, " sailing, arriving in peace, journeying to Thebes with joy of heart " . Notice the stiffening of the ships near bow and stern by strong ropes lashed round them frapping, as in the case of St. Paul's ship . We used helps, undergirding the ship .
Above these two scenes, we have a relief of the Puntites who had made the voyage bowing down and offering the tribute of Punt, which is carried by other Puntites and by Egyptians . Both negroes and pure Puntites are represented among the bowing figures .
Next, in the middle of the west wall, is a great scene, in which ( left ) the queen, whose figure has been defaced, offers to Amûn the products of her expedition . These are to the right in two rows : the lower consisting of three sample incense trees out of the thirty-one brought back ; the upper, of panthers, a giraffe, electrum, panthers skins, cattle, and bows .
Then comes a double row of scenes : the lower consisting of the measuring of the great heaps of incense gum in bushel measures ( above the heaps, a row of seven more incense trees planted in tubs ) .
The upper, much defaced, of the weighing of gold rings against weights in the form of oxen . Safkhet, the recording goddess, keeps the tally, and the inscription reads : " recording in writing, reckoning the numbers, summing up in millions, hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands, thousands, and hundreds . Reception of the marvels of the South countries, for Amûn, Lord of Thebes, preside over Karnak " .
In the large scene ( two rows ) which occupies the rest of the west wall, the queen ( erased ) offers to the enthroned figure of Amûn ( also erased ) her formal announcement of the success of her expedition, and the god replies, blessing Hatshepsut and promising encouragement to the trade to Punt, now happily revived . The long inscription occupies the space between the queen and the god .
Behind this scene is another in which Tuthmosis III ( as usual, in a subordinate position ) offers incense before the barque of Amûn . The barque, with its attendant priests, has been erased by Akhenaten ; but Tuthmosis remains perfect, a characteristic figure, with the prominent nose which we have known from the green schist statue to associate with his masterful character . Above him hover the figures of the vulture of El-Kâb and the hawk of Edfu .
Last of all, on the return wall which forms the south side of the ramp, comes a scene in which Hatshepsut makes her announcement of the results of her expedition to representative officials of her court . The middle figure of the three who stand before the queen is the great Senmût, Hatshepsut's most prominent supporter . The queen's figure, and those of her nobles have been most mercilessly hacked out, so that only the shadows of them remain ; but the inscription is of extreme value, as giving the date, " year 9 ", in which the expedition returned to Thebes . It closes with what we may almost call a sigh of contentment on the part of the great queen : " I have made for Amûn a Punt Land in his garden, just as he commanded me, in Thebes . It is big enough for him to walk about in " .
So we may leave the colonnade with this impression of
the queen satisfied with the result of her piety, and picturing her god "
walking in the garden in the cool of the day ", as the Hebrew writer pictured
Jehovah centuries later .
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