Sea Voyages: The Fleet Fresco from Thera, and the Punt Reliefs from Egypt

Compared in the respective murals are aspects of narrative, such as causal and temporal sequences, the rendering of spatial depth, and the ability of the artist to engage the attention of the viewer through specific artistic devices. The narrative continuity across the two walls of the Punt reliefs is seenas likely to be the result of Aegean influence, a possibility that receives support from the recently attested interest of the Egyptian elite of the early New Kingdom in Aegean wall painting. A new coloured drawing of the reliefs is presented here to clarify some of the above points.

INTRODUCTION

It is not often that one has the opportunity to compare masterpieces of Egyptian and Aegean art that share a similar theme. The two examples considered here are those noted in my title by two of their more common nicknames. In a broad sense, the theme they depict is seafaring. Of the two, the 'Fleet fresco' is rendered simply as a wall painting. The 'Punt reliefs' were carved on the surfaces of stone built walls, then covered with a thin layer of plaster and painted.

There are differences in architectural context and date between the two murals. The Theran fresco decorated one of the rooms of the so-called West House in the Late Cycladic I settlement at Akrotiri (Marinatos 1974, 19-31). The Egyptian reliefs are part of the mural decoration of Queen Hatshepsut's funerary temple (Fig. 1) at Deir el Bahri in Egypt (Naville 1895; 1896; 1898; 1901; 1906; 1908). The sponsors, who commissioned the respective murals, and the potential audiences were thus different in each case. As for the chronological relationship, the exact span of time separating the two works cannot be resolved securely now, while two competing systems of dating are being used concurrently in Aegean prehistory. According to traditional Aegean chronology, the end of the Theran settlement as a result of a volcanic eruption occurred somewhat before 1500 BC (Warren and Hankey 1989, 212, 138-41, 169). This makes the Punt reliefs only a few decades later than the Fleet fresco (Hankey 1987, 53). Alternatively, the newly proposed high Aegean chronology (recent viewpoints in Kuniholm 1996 and Renfrew 1996) places the Theran destruction in the late seventeenth century BC. In this case, the two murals under consideration would be separated by over a century.

There is a difference in the kinds of inference one can draw in a comparison, depending on the two chronological alternatives. A narrower gap between the two murals allows one to contemplate the possibility of artistic interconnections between the Aegean and the Egyptian artists; a wider gap would make the comparison simply ethnographically interesting. However, even in the latter case, the comparison still has some archaeological validity when we remember that the Fleet fresco was probably only one of several other depictions dealing with the sea and ships that we have some reason to believe existed in Aegean art, both contemporary with Thera and later. Among the existing comparanda (Warren 1979; Morgan 1988; Televantou 1994) are representations rendered in an abbreviated form, particularly those in the minor arts. Examples are the repousse scene on the silver Siege rhyton from Mycenae (Negbi 1978), and the faience Town mosaic from Knossos (Immerwahr 1990, 70-75). There were also wall paintings, of which there are some scanty remains in two cases. Better preserved of the two is a miniature painting from the Late Cycladic I settlement at Kea, recently restored by Morgan (1990, 254-255, figs. 1-2). Of the other, a fresco on a larger scale from the palace at Mycenae, there are only part of a ship and some related plaster fragments (van Leuven 1979, 127-128 n.49; Shaw 1980, 177-178, fig. 12). Though not necessarily similar to the Fleet fresco, these now fragmentary paintings, along with those neither known nor found yet, would have still displayed at least the more general representational conventions characteristic of the Aegean artistic koine. Whether, then, there could be direct interconnections between the Theran and the Egyptian murals compared here will remain a moot question. Perhaps the similarities and differences between them will provide some perspective into the very issue of chronology.

In undertaking a comparison, we must recall that their seafaring theme also reflected the cosmopolitan mood and aspirations of an era. Though contacts between the Aegean and Egypt started earlier, it was not until the early New Kingdom that expansionist policies allowed Egypt to come into closer contact with the outside world. In the process, it appears that the Egyptian elite acquired a penchant for Aegean art. Notably, there is Queen Aahotpe's battle axe, which was decorated with Aegeanising motifs (Hankey 1993). The queen's taste for such art seems to have been shared by her son, the pharaoh Ahmose, if it is indeed his palace that was decorated with the recently discovered frescoes at Tell el Dab'a or Avaris, as M. Bietak, the excavator, has proposed. Ahmose was the pharaoh who ultimately expelled the Hyksos from Egypt (Bietak 1996, 78-81). Other expressions of the Egyptians' new fascination are the wall paintings depicting the Aegeans (the so-called Keftiu) bringing gifts to Egypt, which decorated the walls of several tombs of noblemen of the early New Kingdom. Significantly for the present study, the earliest known example is that in the tomb of Senmut, the brilliant architect who built Hatshepsut's temple at Deir el Bahri (Stevenson Smith 1981, 245, 247, fig. 242). Last, but not least, some scholars have detected emulations of the Aegean pictorial style in murals of private tombs of the Egyptian nobility in the later Eighteenth Dynasty (Groenewegen-Frankfort 1951, 84-85, and Stevenson Smith 1965, 72).

Interconnections of a non-artistic type also exist, and here I shall restrict myself to those related to nautical technology and the physical appearance of the ships (Morgan 1988, 121-142). Among the sources of information are, naturally, the Theran fresco and the Punt reliefs. I refer in particular to such aspects as the positioning and structure of the cabins (Shaw 1980; 1982), the shape of the sails (Roberts 1991), and the mast device with attached lateral rings that was used for rigging (Georgiou 1991). Examples are illustrated both in the Fleet fresco and in the Punt reliefs (here Fig.2). Most interestingly, the National Archaeological Museum in Athens owns two real Egyptian mastheads, which are now on display in the newly opened Egyptian Gallery (Greek Ministry of Culture 1995, 87, pl. VII). They were made of cast copper and date to the Middle Kingdom. Their provenance, if known (for they are not yet fully published), would be of the utmost historical importance.

With these introductory remarks, I now turn to the murals themselves.

THE FLEET FRESCO FROM THERA

The choice of a "true miniature fresco" style (Evans 1930, 31-37) for rendering the fresco is most appropriate. Typically in Aegean wall painting, the style is used for rendering scenes of people engaged in well attended public or communal activities taking place in settings rendered by the artists with great detail. The miniature scale and the use of a continuous frieze as a compositional format provide an ideal combination for the depiction of narrative. The frieze ran at the tops of all four walls above the many openings of windows and doors in Room 5 - the largest upper storey space in the West House (Televantou 1994, figs. 9-12; Pls. 1-3).

However, despite the characteristics noted, narrative continuity from wall to wall is difficult to demonstrate in this case. This is partly because almost the entire west frieze is missing, but also because of the disruption of the flow of action caused by the sudden change of scenery and iconography in the east frieze (Doumas 1992, fig. 64). The latter lacks the ships and people (perhaps also the towns) prevalent in the other friezes. The scenery has been described alternatively as a tropical or Nilotic landscape.

The earliest and most complete study of the Fleet fresco has been published by L. Morgan. Of interest for our purpose here is the view she expressed there (1988, 143-165) that only broad underlying themes, such as "aquatic activity and its celebration" - rather than causal relationships -link the scenes shown in the four friezes. Here I choose to differ, in particular with her interpretation of the arrival of the ships at the harbour shown at the west end of the south frieze (Doumas 1992, fig. 35 right; Pl. 3 (3-3.95 m.)). This, she says, is a nautical procession during a religious festival.

Religion permeates each facet of life when we turn to the period and culture concerned, and it is not surprising that some of the ships are beautifully decked out with ornaments, some with religious symbolism, but as I shall try to argue later, the decking out may have had a pragmatic function as well. At present, my concern is that acceptance of the view of the scene as a religious festival implicitly negates another and equally plausible interpretation, namely that the arrival of the fleet is the last act in the story told by the fresco: a voyage involving many an incident, of the kind we see in the remaining friezes. The act is the return of the fleet to its destination, the location described by scholars as the 'arrival town'. The basic difference between the two alternative views is that the latter acknowledges a degree of causal relationship between the scenes, and an attempt to render temporal sequence. The question of which is the case is of the utmost importance for our understanding of the character of Theran painting.

The perception that there was narrative sequence of the type just described has recently found support in C.A. Televantou's reconstructions of the fresco (Televantou 1990, 323-324; 1994, 321-338; Pls. 1-3). These incorporate additional plaster fragments and provide the important information that ships appeared on more walls than was known before. A town is also restored at the south-western end of the west frieze. Televantou came to the conclusion that the overall theme of the fresco was "a victorious voyage of the Aegean fleet" in which the occupant of the house participated.

This view of the painting as a quasi-historical account of a specific voyage is thus similar to that originally held by S. Marinatos (1974, 38-57), and later by Doumas (1992, 45-49). Televantou (1990, 127) believes that the tale of the expedition starts at the south-western corner of the room, which would have been the first to be seen by a visitor coming in through the room's more formal eastern entrance.

Even though not a subscriber to the theory of a historical event as the theme of the fresco, I nonetheless never doubted its amazing narrative qualities.⁽¹⁾ There is one serious challenge to that notion: the change in the type of landscape and activity we see in the east frieze, which has rightly been viewed as a disruption in the iconographic continuity prevalent in the rest of the fresco (Davis 1983, 5-6). I would like to argue that, paradoxically, the disruption was intentional. The frieze was above and behind the visitor entering Room 5, and thus not immediately visible. The artists deliberatcly encapsulated scenes with causal or temporal connections, that is the plot of the story, on the three walls, south, west and north, that could be seen all at once by a visitor entering the room.

The east frieze then had to play a different role. With its winding river, palm trees, papyri, animals, birds and fictitious creatures, the landscape probably evoked the idea of some enchanting land of the kind seamen might encounter in their long and distant voyages. Allusions to such magical places abound in the Odyssey (Shaw 1980, 179) - to mention but one of the many connections of the fresco with the Homeric epics (Morris 1989; Hiller 1990; Thomas 1992). The frieze thus acted like a literary flashback: it enhanced the impact of the tale, without being crucial to the plot. Once within the room, the viewer could turn around and, using some imagination, make the east frieze part of the story. The sea could be imagined as lying in the foreground, and the viewer, as a passenger of an unseen ship gliding along, would catch glimpses of the riverscape in the more remote background.⁽²⁾ Visual continuity was also helped by the fact that most birds and animals in the tropical landscape move from left to right, like the ships in the other friezes.

Once in the room, the viewer would thus be encouraged to read the story in a circular manner, one that was particularly suitable for this fresco, if the aim was to relate recurrent and cyclical events typical of a nautical expedition - which is what I believe was the case. A return of the fleet would be one of these events. The story, I would like to propose with Televantou, would end with the arrival of the ships at the 'arrival town'. The scene we see is a festive or celebratory return of the fleet to its home base.⁽³⁾

It remains to respond to the two main arguments put forward in the past in support of the view that the scene represents a religious festival. One is that this was the reason why the ships were adorned. Here, I would argue that some of the ornaments may have been permanently on display, while the rest could have been carried aboard regularly. They would have been brought up to the deck as the ship came close to its destination to be used as emblems of success, signals to the people who came to greet the ships that all was well. One only needs to remember the black and white sails kept in Theseus's ship returning to Athens from Crete, where he had just defeated the Minotaur. Failure on his part to use the white sail as a token of good tidings led to the tragic suicide of his father, King Aegaeus.⁽⁴⁾

The second argument I wish to respond to is 'use of paddling' on the large boats, an act interpreted by Casson (1975, 7) as an archaic form of propulsion, and, therefore, as a ritual performance. An alternative reason could be one suggested by Tilley and Johnstone (1976, 286), namely that the paddling was a matter of contingency, probably to negotiate tight spaces as the large ships crowded into the harbour.⁽⁵⁾ The ships we see in the fresco were clearly not designed for the regular use of that form of propulsion. Rather than being ceremonial, they were built for seafaring, given their long svelte shapes, and their dependence on large sails, to judge by the presence of masts.

In all these discussions about the meaning of the fresco, one other factor that should not be forgotten is the 'identity' of the main occupant of the West House. Most people would now agree that, strictly speaking, the building was a domicile, rather than a religious establishment (Michailidou 1991, 324; Niemeier 1992, 99-100). This is not to say that worship and ritual played no role in daily life. Moreover, few authors would deny that the main occupant probably held a position of leadership in maritime matters. Marinatos believed the person to be the admiral of the fleet who was shown in the largest and most decorated ship of the south frieze (Marinatos 1974, 54). Whether we wish to be that specific or not, we have to admit that this is as close as we may ever get to singling out an 'individual' in Aegean art.

That the sea was central to the concerns of its occupant is evident from the remaining mural decoration of this house, of which the marine subjects are too well known to need further comment. Significantly, marine themes are rare in the remaining murals in the Theran town. So too is the use of the true miniature schema with its Minoan affinities. Both these preferences likely reflect the cosmopolitan taste of a person well travelled. The very monumentalisation of the ships' cabins in a mural in Room 4, right behind Room 5, is surely an ostentatious display of the resident's occupation and status, even if the cabins could also impart divine protection.⁽⁶⁾ One can compare the array of the cabins, as I did elsewhere, to the enumeration of contingents of ships in the Homeric Catalogue of the Ships in the Iliad (Shaw 1980, 179). An array of cabins was similarly displayed in a painted frieze in a room north of the megaron in the palace at Mycenae (Shaw 1980).⁽⁷⁾

In interpreting the arrival of the ships as the return to their base - as I do here - it is important to recall the major role nostos played in early Greek literature involving war and naval expeditions, like that of the Theran fresco. Homecoming was a thought that keenly occupied the Achaean warriors fighting at Troy; it was also the main theme of the Odyssey and of a lost epic referred to as Nostoi (Liddell and Scott 1996, 1182). Centuries later, Kleitias's painting on the François vase depicts Theseus's return from Crete and expresses brilliantly the exultation felt at the sight of the motherland. One of the men is shown lying prostrate outside the boat, probably about to kiss the ground; youths and maidens join hands and start to dance (Arias 1962, pl. 43 top).

And what greater comfort could there be for a seafarer residing in the West House, than for him to be able to peruse the painted visions of typical and recurrent adventures at sea that were part of his own life, and to be reassured by the scene of a safe and triumphant return? Exact overall temporal sequence might even lose its urgency during such contemplation, for, as any seaman knows, today's arrival town is tomorrow's departure town, and the never-ending cycle goes on: departure, voyage, homecoming.

THE PUNT RELIEFS

Discovered by Mariette in 1877 (Mariette 1877), the funerary temple of Hatshepsut and its reliefs were more fully published later by E. Naville (1895-1908). The Punt reliefs have, perhaps, been less an issue for debate than the Theran miniature fresco. The main question has been the specific geographical location of Punt, which is still generally believed today to be the area of modern Somaliland on the east African coast of the Red Sea (Stevenson Smith 1981, 240).⁽⁸⁾ Among the best evaluations of the artistic merits of the reliefs are those by W Stevenson Smith (1965, 137-139; 1981, 239-244), from which I quote the following:

     "The factual nature of this accurately depicted record of a trading  venture in which Queen Hatshepsut took great pride is as typically Egyptian as the beautifully drawn trees and animals and the neat regularity of the composition. The intent is unusually specific and is like the detailed written records of campaigns in the Annals of Tuthmosis III." (Stevenson Smith 1965, 138)

My own aim here is to discuss the broader aspects of the narrative structure of the depiction of the expedition to Punt, and to compare them with those used in the Theran fresco.

Fig. 3 here reproduces a diagram published in a study of the inscriptions that accompany the reliefs by J.H. Breasted (1906, 102-122, at 105). It maps out the organisation of the scenes in the Punt gallery. The chamber was located on the south side of the middle platform of the temple (Fig. 4, at F), and is one of several such long rooms placed north and south of a ramp that leads up and down the successive terraces of the temple. Only the south, west, and north walls were decorated with murals in each case, for the east side of the galleries was open and fronted by rows of pillars and/or columns.

The part of the decoration of the Punt gallery that is specifically relevant here is the one that occupies the south-west corner of the room, where the story of the naval expedition to the land of Punt is told. Scenes beyond, on the remaining west wall and the north wall of the gallery, describe the aftermath of the expedition - the celebrations held by the queen in honour of her divine father, the god Amun, in Egypt (Fig. 3, VII-X). The aim of the expedition was to acquire exotic raw materials, especially incense. The venture had been commissioned by the queen, to whom all goods were ultimately delivered. The imported trees were used to create a botanical garden, which Hatshepsut later dedicated to the god Amun (Naville 1898, pl. LVIII). Some of these trees may have been planted in the forecourt of Hatshepsut's mortuary temple.

The propagandistic import of the portrayal of this commercial venture is obvious. Although travel to Punt had occurred earlier, as known from written sources, Hatshepsut's was the first depiction of an actual voyage.⁽⁹⁾ Some of the incentives behind her decision to create a pictorial record have much to do with concerns that were typical among Egyptian royalty, such as the usual need for a pharaoh to defend the right to rule by claiming divine kinship (Leprohon 1995). At Deir el Bahri, the reiteration of such a relationship with Amun was thus important (Kemp 1989, 128-210). This god's shrine occupies a central position in the temple (Fig. 4, at C), while scenes of Hatshepsut's divine birth (located in the north gallery of the middle platform) declare him to be her father (Fig. 4, at G; Naville 1898, pls. LVI-LXVII). Her earthly father, Tuthmosis I, was the co-owner of the temple in which a funerary chapel was specially dedicated to him (Fig.4, at B).

Such need for self-justification must have been felt rather keenly by Hatshepsut in her exceptional status as a female pharaoh. Upon the death of her brother, Tuthmosis II, she appropriated and kept the royal status for some time, while acting as the regent for the young Tuthmosis III - her nephew and grandson of her father.

The emphasis on nautical activities in the mural decoration of the temple is noteworthy. Scenes in various galleries include the transport by ship of obelisks to be dedicated to the temple of Amun at Kamak (Fig. 4, at I; Naville 1908, pl. CLIII), and that of monumental statues of Hatshepsut to where they would be used in special ceremonies (Fig. 4, at D; Naville 1906, pls. CII and CIV).

The Punt reliefs - the crowning example of this fascination with ships in the temple - replaced depictions of military campaigns that were previously commissioned for buildings by Hatshepsut's father, grandfather and, later, her nephew Tuthmosis III. Hers was a reign of relative peace, and a pause in the imperialistic policy that had already made Egypt politically powerful, cosmopolitan and prosperous.⁽¹⁰⁾

A coloured drawing, provided here, for the first time illustrates the compositions on the south and west walls together (Pl. 23). The walls meet at right angles, and of these the south one depicts Punt, while the south part of the west wall shows the sea voyage itself (equivalent to scenes I-VI in Fig. 3).⁽¹¹⁾  The inscriptions, also in painted relief, were placed in vertical rows separated by lines, but they have been deliberately omitted here. Their locations in the mural composition are simply indicated by the vertical lines. A degree of simplification was also necessary as far as iconographic details were concerned, since an illustration of such a huge mural can only be reproduced in a publication at a relarively small scale.

The many fascinating ethnographic details - the varying physiognomies and attires of assortments of people, the geography and habitat of the land of Punt involved in the story - have all already been described by Egyptologists. The more specific reason for producing the new drawing is to illustrate a crucial aspect of the representational mode of the reliefs. This is the pictorial and, in places, narrative continuity that exists across the compositions on the two walls. Stevenson Smith has stressed this feature, for it is unusual in Egyptian murals (Stevenson Smith 1965, 138-139). Normally, there, vertical bands crossed by transverse multicoloured bars frame the sides of the composition of a wall and separate it from that of the adjacent wall (comparanda in Stevenson Smith 1981, 176, fig. 168 and 247, fig. 246). Each wall was thus usually treated by the Egyptian artist as a separate pictorial page.

In discussing the remarkable continuity that marks the Punt scenes, Stevenson Smith called attention to the unifying role of the sea, rendered conventionally in the reliefs as a band filled with vertical zigzag lines and a variety of fish. These bands run uninterruptedly from one wall to the other in the lower registers of the two walls. On the west wall, they represent the sea traversed by the ships travelling to Punt and back to Egypt. On the south wall, a blue band underlines the land of Punt, showing the area to be coastal. Appropriately, this is where diplomatic contacts are taking place. First (in the bottom register), the Egyptian representative arrives in the small boat we see at the south end of the west wall, escorted by soldiers. Gifts are delivered by him to the local chieftain and his family,who have come to meet him. In the next register up, the chieftain and his retinue bring their own gifts, which include a huge mound of incense. On the west wall, we note that most of the captains' cabins are empty in the bottom register. The captains have already disembarked. Later, they (the only men among the crew wearing shirts) return to their posts (the cabins), when the ships start going back to Egypt, an event shown ill the next register up.

Implicit in the scenes just described is a temporal sequence, which commonly in Egyptian mural scenes reads from bottom up. Action continues all the way to the top of each wall. On the west one, the men have disembarked and are walking formally to where they will deliver the imported goods they carry to Queen Hatshepsut. The collection of the goods takes place in the higher registers of the south wall, where the thickened vegetation and fewer houses probably suggest the area to be wilder than the one along the coast. The men are seen carrying varieties of trees and trunks of wood, collecting eggs from nests, or being accompanied by exotic animals (like monkeys and felines). Raw materials, hides, weapons, tools, personal ornaments, long-horned cattle, aromatic plants and spices appear to be other precious items taken to Egypt, as we learn either from the inscriptions, or from the gifts brought by the Puntite chief illustrated in the bottom register of the wall.

Besides the band of water that runs across the two walls, continuity of human activity is also conveyed in the same manner, that is horizontally rather than vertically (the latter being the predominant fashion). It occurs midway up the two walls, in two corresponding registers that are underlined by the band of water. Here, some of the collectors of goods cross over from the south to the west wall, where they are seen walking up the gangplanks to load the ships making ready to leave for Egypt. Oddly, however, their size diminishes drastically once on the west wall. Though Egyptians conventionally render hierarchy through the manipulation of scale in their art, this is clearly not the case here. Rather, it is the inability of the artists to maintain a coherent scale across the now unusually interconnected compositions on the two walls.

Does this lack of a coherent scale and the simultaneous use of two different methods of reading narrative sequence (vertically and horizontally) indicate signs of local experimentation, or of influence from the art of another people?

If we are looking for a culprit for the latter, Aegean wall painting would naturally be the most obvious candidate. Generally in the Aegean, compositions on adjacent walls were not separated from each other, unless as a result of an architectural feature, such as the opening for a door. On the contrary, many of the compositions continued uninterruptedly - that is, without intervals or separating frames between them - on two and three walls. A spread over four walls, as in the Fleet fresco, may have been rarer. Continuity could be simply visual, as in the Spring fresco from Thera, where the same landscape continues on three walls (Marinatos 1984, 90-91, fig. 62). At other times it is of a more complex type as it involved human activity. An example is the fresco above the Lustral Basin in Xeste 3, which depicts the harvesting of saffron crocuses and the delivery of the saffron itself to a goddess on two walls (Marinatos 1984, 62, fig. 40), though no claim is made here that temporal sequence was detailed or even correct. Ultimately, it is rather difficult to find precedents for unrelated actions in figural scenes in the Theran frescoes. Such continuity likely marked Minoan frescoes also, although evidence there is less clear because of poor preservation.

Pursuing further the rendering of temporal sequence in the Punt reliefs, I would like to call attention to the use of manoeuvres related to sails, as a device for marking time or the progress of the voyage.⁽¹²⁾ Examples can be seen in the bottom registers on the west wall. Furled sails there (Fig. 5) indicate that a ship has reached its destination and is no longer moving (unless oars are used). Open sails denote motion (Fig. 6). In other cases the crew is shown busy pulling the ropes to hoist or furl the sails.

It is worth turning briefly to the Theran fresco to note that similar ideas appear to be at work there, although perhaps carried out with less clarity. We note that all but one of the ships in the arrival scene have furled their sails; the exception is the small cargo ship, which displays a square white sail (Doumas 1992, fig. 37). "Currently" the sailors, shown seated under the boom, are pulling the ropes to lower the sail (Morgan 1988, 121, 124, fig. 70). Perhaps it is the lesser urgency involved in navigating a smaller vessel which explains the lack of haste. By contrast, the larger ships have furled their sails and all but two have retracted their masts. Both these items are shown in the fresco as already stored away, placed horizontally above the seated passengers in the ships. The items are held by the double-hooked crutches that are seen amidships (Marinatos 1974, 49; Televantou 1994, 283). The sails are represented by the undulating pattern, which resembles that of those sails in the Punt reliefs that are furled and tied around the yards at regular intervals. The reclining masts in the Theran fresco are marked by a spiralling pattern, which may represent rope wound around them to strengthen them. This and another related pattern, one of successive horizontal lines, mark the two masts that are still standing. Thus, it appears, when it came to recording nautical information, both the Theran fresco and the Punt reliefs became quite specific.

The concept of space, a crucial aspect of narration, also warrants comparative analysis. As far as spatial depth or physical ambience is concerned, it was noted earlier how the upper registers of the south wall of the reliefs seem to evoke a remote, inland area of Punt. If so, the conceptual way in which it is conveyed, still using the traditional stacking of scenes in registers, prevents the creation of an optical illusion of depth.

By contrast, depth in Aegean representation is conveyed in more impressionistic ways, using both vertical and horizontal overlapping to arrive at some rudimentary form of perspective (Chapin 1995). A brilliant example is the sea battle depicted in the north frieze of the Fleet fresco (Doumas 1992, fig. 26; Pl. 1 (0.70-2 m.)). Military action there takes place along the coast, while the countryside with its people (shepherds, women fetching water) looms large in the distant background - eternal and relatively unaffected by the coastal events (see also Marinatos 1984, 40, and Doumas 1992, 47-48). Adding to the impression of a receding space is the staged involvement of the viewer in what goes on. Greater empathy is solicited by the artist in the case of the most important actions. These were put closer to the viewer in the front plane of the image. Perhaps there is a somewhat parallel device used in the Punt reliefs. The more mundane activities of harvesting and transporting the products are shown in the higher registers, while diplomatic encounters and the stages of the voyage are shown in the lower ones.

Specification of location and geographical citing are other dimensions of the concept of space. Here, it has already been noted by several Egyptologists how the course of the voyage in the Punt reliefs graphically adheres to the actual geographical orientation of the sites involved. On the west wall, the ships move in two directions: left or south, when they go to Punt; right or north, when they return to Egypt. This kind of correspondence to orientation has not yet been demonstrated to exist in Aegean representation, although the east frieze of the Fleet fresco has sometimes been thought to represent a country east of the Aegean. Of interest is that both the Theran and the Egyptian murals depict exotic places. Whether or not realistically or accurately rendered, the land of Punt was a real place in the minds of the Egyptians. The landscape in the east frieze of the Fleet fresco ultimately seems generic.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

A number of incidental comparisons were made above in the process of discussing each of the two murals. Here, broader aspects of interconnections will be considered as a form of conclusion.

Seafaring, with its usual connotations of freedom and adventure, has always been a popular theme among artists. As with any other subject, the artist's perception of a sea voyage can vary widely. It can tend towards realistic detail, or it can be romantic or symbolic. The lovely engraving on an Early Cycladic 'frying pan' (Renfrew 1991, 67, fig. 35), depicting a ship with oars (but no oarsmen) embedded in a net of spiral waves, can convey the notion to the romantically inclined viewer of a never-ending voyage. This would also be the fantasy of the passionate seafarer, who sees the end of a voyage as the end of freedom and adventure. Perhaps it was such a fear that lay behind Homer's decision to make Odysseus's return to Ithaca last so long in the epic - even though the poet attributed the delay to vicissitudes common to seafaring. Some of the same spirit is also reflected in Tennyson's poem, quoted above.

Which of the two moods, then, romantic or pragmatic, prevails in each of the two murals, and what were their respective aims?

Comparisons above made it clear that the Egyptian and Theran perceptions and interests have much in common. The theme in both murals is a naval expedition, which in reality must have had multiple aims. In the reliefs, the declared purpose was trade, but the presence of Egyptian soldiers at Punt reminds us that military presence and the possible exaction of tribute from the Puntites are not out of the question (Naville 1898, 16; Stevenson Smith 1981, 241).

War is one of the obvious activities in a number of incidents in the Theran fresco (Doumas 1992, fig. 26; Pl. 1 (0.70-2 m.)), but the naval expedition must have had additional goals. These could be the establishment of new political contacts, or the cementing of old alliances. An example of such encounters could be the meeting on the hill (Doumas 1992, fig. 27). A sacrosanct, ceremonial attitude evident in the scene would not have been out of place for such an occasion. Finally, one of the aims may have been trade. The interpretation of some of the ornaments on the ships as symbols of wild silk production at Akrotiri and its export, proposed by E. Panagiotakopulu here, vol. II, brings such a possibility to our attention.

To some extent, both murals deal with recurrent events, though in Hatshepsut's case propagandistic purposes required that the representation be seen as a unique event, a formal royal chronicle. Though the ideological aim may not be completely absent in the West House, the targeted audience in this case may have had different needs. The needs of the resident of the West House and his sailing companions - a successful expedition and a safe return - were discussed earlier. Emotional, personal appeal must have played a greater role in the painting than in the Punt reliefs.

The question of emotional appeal to the viewer will be the last aspect of comparison between the two murals to be considered. It naturally occurs in different degrees in each case, given the different aims as well as differences in representational traditions.

The official character of the Punt reliefs required that formality play a greater role in representation: we see it in the meetings between Puntite and Egyptian potentates, and in the ceremonial procession of the carriers of the goods on arrival in Egypt. Fortunately, there is light-hearted relief as well. As usual in Egyptian representations, it was when dealing with people of a lesser status that the artist could indulge in lively detail. We see this best in the animated interaction among the crewmen, some in positions of command, some rowing, all caught up in typical urgencies involved in managing a ship (Figs. 5-6). That such intimate mood was considered a desired effect by the artists is clear from an other incident, but using an inscription to express it this time. One of the men carrying the products to be delivered to Queen Hatshepsut turns his head around and complains to the man behind him that his burden is too heavy! (Naville 1898, 15).

The Theran artist managed to convey intimate feeling without resorting to writing - not that the latter was a choice in this case! The arrival town contains scenes that convey such an immediacy of reaction on the part of the people catching sight of the arriving fleet. The artist uses this device to gain an empathy on the part of the viewer as far as the scene shown is concerned, and in this manner the artist helps the viewer 'read' the meaning of the scene. The spontaneity and feeling displayed clearly speak of the joy of those witnessing the safe return of the mariners after a lengthy and probably dangerous sea voyage.⁽¹³⁾ There is a sense of wild excitement on the part of the inhabitants. Young men (or teenage boys) have already rushed through the town gate. They stand along a narrow strip of land between the sea and the town walls, exchanging comments, turning their heads to converse, using varied, animated gestures. This immediacy of reaction is also seen in the case of the fishermen, who, still carrying their catch nets hung on poles over their shoulders, have hurriedly left the beach and are now clambering up the slope. They are trying to reach the top of the hill to gain a view of the fleet already filling the harbour. Women - perhaps mothers and wives (one with a young boy next to her) - have come to windows and balconies. This group saw the ships earlier than the fishermen, having a higher vantage point. Some ships have retracted their masts, most have furled their sails. There is a sense of "dramatic actuality", to use one of Groenewegen-Frankfort's phrases (Groenewegen-Frankfort 1951, 116). Everything indicates that the arrival of the fleet is the climactic end of a story. Ultimately, and despite its staccatos, the Theran miniature frieze resembles most the flowing music of a fugue.

Seen in a wider perspective, the Theran and Egyptian murals under consideration are products of a special era marked by an adventurous spirit, based on real contacts and exchanges. Ships and the sea, so prominent in both, represent the vehicle and the medium which made such accomplishments possible. Each set of murals shows a remarkable awareness of the historical and the specific, even if expressed by a pictorial language that is often traditional and generic.

(1). The nature of narrative quality in Aegean art is excellently discussed by Cain (1997) with reference to narratological theory and other interpretative approaches.

(2). Immerwahr remarks on how all the landscapes are shown as if seen from the sea (1990, 70). The river is rendered as if seen from above, in bird's eye view perspective. Doumas (1992, 48) sees in the east frieze a shift from "seashore episodes" in an exploration of a hinterland.

(3). N. Marinatos endorsed and summed up my view of a celebratory return in the discussion following her paper.

(4). The only situation that would accommodate the idea of a religious festival is one in which the Aegean artist combined two separate, but iconographically similar, occasions: a coincidental festive arrival of a fleet with a proper festival that would normally be celebrated on a separate, fixed occasion.

(5). It should be noted here that paddling also occurs in one of the ships added to the north frieze by Televantou, which is also seen approaching a bay or a harbour (Pl. 1). For further examples of pragmatic navigational routines, see Ernstson (1985), who argues for pilot boats in the fresco, and Landström (1970, 58-59) for the occasional practical use of paddles by large Egyptian ships.

(6). Polinger Foster (1988, 14), like Morgan, invests the cabins in the Theran fresco with religious significance. She likens them to the Egyptian pavilions used in the Sed Festival.

^(7). One indeed wonders if the miniature painting in the megaron might have included ships and sea battles, like the fleet fresco. This would have made the correspondences between the Mycenaean and Theran rooms and their respective murals even closer (Shaw 1980, 175-177).

(8). Naville also suggests the African coast, but well north of the Straits of Bab el Mandeb (Naville 1898, 11-12, 16). Eritrea is supported by others. For a location on the east coast of the Sinai, see Nibbi 1981. For trade between Punt and Egypt, see Potts 1995, 1459-1460, and Phillips 1997, 425-439 - the latter published after the present study was submitted.

(9). Ships appear frequendy in Egyptian murals and other artistic media. Interesting, because it shows the departure and return of ships, is an unfortunately fragmentary mural in Pharaoh Sahure's Fifth Dynasty burial chamber at Abusir (Landström 1970, 63, and fig. 187). Stevenson Smith (1965, 137) sees the depictions of sea voyages in private tomb paintings in Thebes as echoing "a royal precedent".

(10). Cf. Redford 1992, 153, for the respective reigns of Hatshepsut and her father.

(11). For the west wall, the drawing combines the many plates published in Naville 1898, pls. LXXII-LXXVII; for the south wall, Srevenson Smith's restoration was used instead (Stevenson Smith 1962, 61; with contribution by Millet (1962). I thank the artist Roxana Docsan for her help with the many technical difficulties involved in the process, but especially for her fine drawing. The colours, which I added, are based on those in the modern casts of the reliefs on display in the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto (Currelly 1956, 137, 156). Often they have faded (probably already in the original murals), and no complete accuracy is to be expected. In the colour version, I have completed missing parts of the iconography, where it was safe to do so. Restored details omit the black outline used elsewhere. It should also be explained that the gap between the two walls in the drawing is the result of the unavoidable flattening of representations originally carved on the oblique surfaces of two walls that lean outwards from their bases.

(12). Cf. Schäfer 1974, 227-230 for other ways in which stages of action are portrayed in Egyptian art.

(13). Morgan suggests that there is an analogy between the Theran arrival town and a miniature fresco from Kea, where a festival seems to be taking place on a coast, with ships visible off the shore (Morgan 1990, 253-258). In the latter, however, there is none of the excitement we see in the arrival town. Rather, people go about in a businesslike manner, apparently preparing food in large cauldrons. No such preparations are shown in the Theran fresco. Perhaps we are dealing with related, but differentiated, schemata. In the Kean fresco, we see a festival in process, in the Theran one a festive return of the home fleet.

--------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------