Comparison of Aquatic Life Depicted in Illustrations and Plaster Casts of the Punt Relief from the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir El-Bahari

The primary objective of this study is to document differences between image characteristics of two sources (illustrations in Na ville, 1898; and images in the cast of the relief at Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) of the Punt relief from the temple ofHatshepsut at Deir El-Bahri . Our second is to compare cast images to photographs of the original relief. Characteristics of 30 species in the illustrations were described and compared to descriptions of the corresponding 30 species photographed from the cast at VMF A. The number of differences and similarities were recorded for each pair of corresponding icons and used to calculate percent difference hypothesized to be zero. Compared to cast images, all illustrations contained errors. Total average difference in the 30 icon comparisons was 43.5 % (s.d.=18.5; range= l4.390.0% ). Average number of errors between 300 external characteristics of cast images and illustrations was 4.5 (s.d.=2.16; range= l-9). Over 76% of the illustrations had three or more errors. Cast images were comparable to those in the original relief containing only 5 errors ( 1.6% ). Results of a paired t-test indicated that the average character difference ( 41.8) between illustrations and cast and cast and relief was significant (t= 13.96; p>t=0.0001).We reject the hypothesis that there are no differences between illustrations and photographs of casts of aquatic species on Punt Relief from the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir El-Bahari, but accept the hypothesis that cast images are an accurate representation of the original relief depicted in photographs of Meyer ( 1913 ).