ABSTRACT
The purpose and the aim of the entire Punt episode, the presentation of incense by Hatshepsut to Amun, forms both the coda and starting point for the scenes of the expedition, and serves as visual witness that Hatshepsut has fulfilled one of her sacred obligations to her divine father. The goal of the Punt expedition was not just to procure large amounts of incense, but to capture live, transplantable trees to create a regenerating, incense-producing garden for Amun on the soil of Thebes, literally a Punt in Egypt. Although the eighteenth Dynasty provides the most extensive evidence for travel to Punt, texts show that the securing of a steady supply of incense was a concern for Egyptian rulers since the Old Kingdom, beginning with reign of King Sahura of the fifth Dynasty. The questions that arise from analysis of the Punt reliefs need to be examined as much from an art historical as from a geographical, ethnographic or biological perspective.
