ABSTRACT
The seventeenth and eighteenth Dynasties frequently provide a retroactive context for literary compositions of the Ramesside era, the Golden Age of Late Egyptian literature. Ancient Egypt has bequeathed a variety of imaginary tales that depict wondrous beings or describe travels to mysterious lands. Literary tradition usually establishes a more or less open canon' that constitutes the object of cultural transmission. One of the literary features that has been little investigated within the Egyptological tradition is the choice of hieroglyph as determinative at the end of place names, or what might be called the geographic sign'. Old Kingdom autobiographic narratives show no awareness of passing a border, or any emotional dimension to the hero's journey. Wenamun is an official of the Amun temple at Karnak, during the time that Smendes ruled the north and Herihor the south, in the peaceful political division that ended the New Kingdom.
