ABSTRACT
A correct representation of a building or landscape is one that conveys no false information to those who know how to read the artist's style. There were two types of encounter between Egypt and other lands: those that actually occurred - some of which are only known through Egyptian sources - and those with imaginary lands invented by the Egyptians. Punt had a parallel existence as a literary landscape, at the border between the human world and the world of the gods. The Punt expedition evokes the theme of departure to the God's Land and return to Egypt, accompanied by the divine scents and qualities of distant places. Ancient ritual landscapes depicted or described on Egyptian coffins share some common features with elements of modern cartographic design. Yet, the danger is that in postulating the notion of Egyptian 'proto-maps' this becomes an act of intellectual colonialism, annexing their independent cultural tradition to assert our superior power of representation.
