Five fragments of Hatshepsut’s expedition

to the land of Punt

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These five fragments are representing the expedition to Punt. It is considered to be the first pictorial documentation for an expedition sent to this region or to any other foreign country, but it is not the first expedition to Punt as there was a previous one that was sent during the Old Kingdom time, more precisely during the reign of Sahure of the 5th dynasty which brought back a great amount of myrrh, gold and ebony (it is in written sources). The expedition of Hatshepsut to Punt took place nearly in the 9th year of her reign and remained for 3 years. This expedition was directed by a high official called panehsy. This mission was to exchange Egyptian merchandise for the products of Punt, such as incense and myrrh, ivory, ebony, malachite, gold and electrum. The whole story of Punt expedition was well carved in high relief over the southern portico in the middle terrace in the mortuary temple of Queen Hatshepsut but nowadays we can see replicas instead of the originals and we can see the originals exhibited in front of us in the Egyptian Museum.

On the first fragment we can see the representation of the chief of Punt Parehu who is represented with slender figure with short hair or hair wig and with pointed beard, necklace, a short kilt with two tassels held by a belt from which hangs a dagger sign of power. He is represented holding something in his hand may be a report from Punt having the names of products they want to exchange.

Behind Parehu we have a figure for a fat woman who is his wife Ati she is not of good nor pleasant appearance, she has been treated with realism and humor at the same time. She was clearly suffering from a disease called obesity that causes certain deformations as the curvature of vertebral column with high size with folds of fats over the wrists, ankles, shoulders, arms, legs, chest and the whole body.

Behind Ati we have three slaves or followers of the chief of Punt carrying different types of gifts and products of Punt to the Egyptian expedition. These followers are represented brown in color which indicates their ethnic features. (the word ethnic is derived from the skin and its color). Behind these figures we have a representation of three donkeys, the most important one is the last one which looks poor and weak as it is the one responsible for carrying the fat wife. The inscriptions over this donkey are:

aA fAi Hmt.f

The donkey which carried his wife

Of course the scene deals with a kind of sarcasm or sense of humor as it refers to the chief of Punt who is having his fat and bad looking wife behind him and is following them a poor donkey that had a tough life because he always carried this fat lady around and suffered. This wasn’t a kind of insulting it is only a kind of sarcasm like nowadays if you look at the characters in the newspapers they are doing sense of humor over very important characters or very important economical situations. They have to be sarcastic in order to kill the monotony.