Sahura's and Hatshepsut's Punt Reliefs in Comparison

The discovery of some new blocks from the causeway of Sahure’s pyramid at Abusir (1994-2004) and their publication (El Awadi 2009) have already given a fundamental contribution to Egyptology. They allowed both to revise the history of the beginning of the Fifth Dynasty, with a particular focus on the question of the royal kinship, and to update our knowledge on the figurative repertoires of Old Kingdom royal temples. Among the bas-reliefs, those referring to the expedition to the land of Punt have been the object of a great interest among scholars, as they confirm a historical datum previously known only from the Annals of the Palermo Stone. Obviously, this exotic and demanding journey also recalled the well-known scenes from the temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el Bahari, so that some studies have already been published and different opinions have been expressed on Hatshepsut’s “debts” towards earlier figurative programs, although El Awadi himself was extremely cautious in dealing with it. In one of my articles of some years ago, I suggested not to read the Punt reliefs solely as a realistic representation of that land and of the events that occurred, but to analyze the complex of scenes within the entire figurative and textual program of the temple. The present paper intends to resume those considerations and compare the two groups of scenes in order to discuss and verify whether, to what extend and why part of Hatshepsut’s figurative program (and not only the “Punt scenes”) might have been, in some way, borrowed from Sahure’s bas-reliefs.