Movatterモバイル変換

AUTHOR OF ‘A REPORT ON THE ANTIQUITIES OF LOWER NUBIA,’ ‘A CATALOGUE OF THE
WEIGHTS AND BALANCES IN THE CAIRO MUSEUM,’ ‘A GUIDE TO THE ANTIQUITIES
OF UPPER EGYPT,’ ‘DIE MASTABA DES GEMNIKAI’ (WITH PROFESSOR VON
BISSING), ‘TRAVELS IN THE UPPER EGYPTIAN DESERTS,’ ETC.

CONTENTS.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

INTRODUCTION.

The reign of Akhnaton, for seventeen yearsPharaoh of Egypt (fromB.C. 1375 to 1358),stands out as the most interesting epoch inthe long sequence of Egyptian history. Wehave watched the endless line of dim Pharaohsgo by, each lit momentarily by the pale lamp ofour present knowledge, and most of them haveleft little impression upon the mind. They areso misty and far off, they have been dead andgone for such thousands of years, that they havealmost entirely lost their individuality. We callout some royal name, and in response a vague[Pg 2]figure passes into view, stiffly moves its arms,and passes again into the darkness. With onethere comes the muffled noise of battle; withanother there is singing and the sound of music;with yet another the wailing of the oppresseddrifts by. But at the name Akhnaton thereemerges from the darkness a figure more clearthan that of any other Pharaoh, and with itthere comes the singing of birds, the laughter ofchildren, and the scent of many flowers. Foronce we may look right into the mind of a kingof Egypt and may see something of its workings;and all that is there observed is worthyof admiration. Akhnaton has been called “thefirst individual in human history”;[1] but if he isthus the first historical figure whose personalityis known to us, he is also the first of all humanfounders of religious doctrines. Akhnaton maybe ranked in degree of time, and perhaps also indegree of genius, as the world’s first idealist;and, since in all ancient Oriental research therenever has been, and probably never will be,[3]brought before us a subject of such intellectualinterest as this Pharaoh’s religious revolution,which marks the first point in the study ofadvanced human thought, a careful considerationof this short reign deserves to be made.

The following pages do not pretend to do morethan acquaint the reader with the subject, at atime when, owing to the recent discovery of thePharaoh’s bones, some interest may have beenaroused in his career. A series of volumes havelately been issued by the Egypt ExplorationFund,[2] in which accurate copies are to be foundof the reliefs, paintings, and inscriptions upon thewalls of the tombs of some of Akhnaton’s disciplesand followers. In the year 1893 Professor FlindersPetrie excavated the site of the city which thePharaoh founded, and published the results of hiswork in a volume entitled ‘Tell el Amarna.’[3]Recently Professor J. H. Breasted has devotedsome space to a masterly study of this periodin his ‘History of Egypt’ and ‘Ancient Records[4]of Egypt.’[4] From these publications the readerwill be able to refer himself to the remainingliterature dealing with the subject; but heshould bear in mind that the discovery [5] of thebones of Akhnaton himself, which have shownus how old he was when he died—namely,about twenty-eight years of age,—have modifiedmany of the deductions there made. Those whohave travelled in Egypt will probably havevisited the site of Akhnaton’s city, near themodern village of El Amarna; and in themuseums of Cairo, London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna,Leiden, and elsewhere, they will perhaps haveseen some of the relics of his age.

During the last few years an extraordinaryseries of discoveries has been made in the Valleyof the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes. In 1903the tomb of Thothmes IV., the paternal grandfather[5]of Akhnaton, was discovered; in 1905 thetomb of Yuaa and Tuau, the maternal grandparentsof Akhnaton, was found; in 1907 Akhnaton’sbody was discovered in the tomb of hismother, Queen Tiy; and in 1908 the tomb of thePharaoh Horemheb, one of the immediate successorsof Akhnaton, was brought to light. Atall but the first of these discoveries the presentwriter had the pleasure of assisting; and a particularinterest in the period was thus engendered,of which the following sketch, prepared duringan Upper Egyptian summer, is an outcome. Itmust be understood, however, that a volumewritten at such times as the exigencies ofofficial work allowed—partly in the shade ofthe rocks beside the Nile, partly at railway-stationsor in the train, partly amidst the ruinsof ancient temples, and partly in the darkenedrooms of official quarters—cannot claim thevalue of a treatise prepared in an English studywhere books of reference are always at hand. Itis hoped, however, that no errors have been madein the statement of the facts; and the deductions[6]drawn therefrom are frankly open to the reader’scriticism. There will certainly be no two opinionsas to the acknowledgment of the originality, thepower, and the idealism of the Pharaoh whoselife is now to be outlined.[6]

I.
THE PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTSOF AKHNATON.

1. THE ANCESTORS OF AKHNATON.

The Eighteenth Dynasty of Egyptian kings tookpossession of the throne of the Pharaohs inthe year 1580B.C., over thirteen hundredyears after the buildings of the great pyramids,and some two thousand years after the beginningof dynastic history in the Nile Valley. Thefounder of the dynasty was the PharaohAahmes I. He drove out the Asiatics whohad overrun the country during the previouscentury, and pursued them into the heart ofSyria. His successor, Amonhotep I., penetratedas far as the territory between theOrontes and the Euphrates; and the next[8]king, Thothmes I., was able to set his boundary-stoneat the northern limits of Syria, andthus could call himself the ruler of the entireeast end of the Mediterranean, the emperorof all the countries from Asia Minor to theSudan. Thothmes II., the succeeding Pharaoh,was occupied with wars in his southern dominions;but his successor, the famous QueenHatshepsut, was able to devote the yearsof her reign to the arts of peace.

She was followed by the great warriorThothmes III., who conducted campaign aftercampaign in Syria, and raised the prestigeof Egypt to a point never attained beforeor after that time. Every year he returnedto Thebes, his capital, laden with the spoilsof Asia. From the capture of the city ofMegiddo alone he carried away 924 splendidchariots, 2238 horses, 2400 head of variouskinds of cattle, 200 shining suits of armour,including those of two kings, quantities ofgold and silver, the royal sceptre, the gorgeoustent of one of the kings, and many minorarticles. Booty of like value was brought infrom other shattered kingdoms, and the Egyptian[9]treasuries were full to overflowing. The templesof the gods also received their share of theriches, and their altars groaned under theweight of the offerings. Cyprus, Crete, andperhaps the islands of the Ægean, sent theiryearly tribute to Thebes, whose streets, forthe first time in their history, were throngedwith foreigners. Here were to be seen thelong-robed Asiatics bearing vases fresh fromthe hands of Tyrian craftsmen; here werechariots mounted with gold and electrumdrawn by prancing Syrian horses; here werePhœnician merchants with their precious waresstripped from the kingdoms of the sea; herewere negroes bearing their barbaric treasuresto the palace. The Egyptian soldiers heldtheir heads high as they walked through thesestreets, for they were feared by all the world.The talk was everywhere of conquest, and thetales of adventure now related remained currentin Egypt for many a century. War-songs werecomposed, and hymns of battle were inscribedupon the temple walls. The spirit of the agewill be seen in the following lines, in whichthe god Amon addresses Thothmes III.:—

It was a fierce and a splendid age—the zenithof Egypt’s great history. The next king, AmonhotepII., carried on the conquests with a degreeof ferocity not previously apparent. He himselfwas a man of great physical strength, who coulddraw a bow which none of his soldiers coulduse. He led his armies into his restless Asiaticdominions, and having captured seven rebelliousSyrian kings, he hung them head downwardsfrom the prow of his galley as he approachedThebes, and later sacrificed six of them to Amonwith his own hand. The seventh he carried upto a distant city of the Sudan, and there hunghim upon the gateway as a warning to allrebels. Dying in the year 1420B.C., he left thethrone to his son, Thothmes IV., the grandfather[11]of Akhnaton, who at his accession was abouteighteen years of age.[7]

2. THE GODS OF EGYPT.

With the reign of Thothmes IV. we reach aperiod of history in which the beginnings are tobe observed of certain religious movements, whichbecome more apparent in the time of his sonAmonhotep III. and his grandson Akhnaton.We must look, therefore, more closely at theevents of this reign, and must especially observetheir religious aspect. For this reason, and alsoin order that the reader may the more readilyappreciate, by contrast, the pure teachings ofthe Pharaoh whose life forms the subject of thefollowing pages, it will be necessary to glance atthe nature of the religions which now held sway.Egypt had at this time existed as a civilisednation for over two thousand years, during thewhole of which period these religious beliefs hadbeen developing; and now they were so engrainedin the hearts of the people that changes,[12]however slight, assumed revolutionary proportions,requiring a master-mind for their initiation, anda hand of iron for their carrying into execution.At the time of which we now write, this mindand this hand had not yet come into existence,and the old gods of Egypt were at the zenithof their power.

Of these gods Amon, the presiding deity ofThebes, was the most powerful. He had beenoriginally the tribal god of the Thebans, butwhen that city had become the capital of Egypt,he had risen to be the state god of the country.The sun-god Ra, or Ra-Horakhti, originally thedeity of Heliopolis, a city not far from themodern Cairo, had been the state god in earliertimes, and the priests of Amon contrived toidentify the two deities under the name “Amon-Ra,King of the Gods.” Amon had severalforms. He was usually regarded as a man ofshining countenance, upon whose head two tallfeathers arose from a golden cap. Sometimes,however, he assumed the form of a heavy-hornedram. Sometimes, again, he adopted the appearanceof a brother god, named Min, who was lateridentified with the Greek Pan; and it may be[13]mentioned in passing that the goat-form of theGreek deity may have been derived from thisMin-Amon of the Thebans. On occasions Amonwould take upon himself the likeness of thereigning Pharaoh, choosing a moment when themonarch was away or was asleep, and in thismanner he would obtain admittance to thequeen’s bed-chamber. Amonhotep III. himselfwas said to be the son of a union of thisnature, though at the same time he did notdeny that his earthly father was Thothmes IV.Amon delighted in battle, and gave willing assistanceto the Pharaohs as they clubbed theheads of their enemies or cut their throats. Itis possible that, like other of the Egyptian gods,he was but a deified chieftain of the prehistoricperiod whose love of battle had never beenforgotten.

The goddess Mut, “the Mother,” was theconsort of Amon, who would sometimes cometo earth to nurse the king’s son at her breast.By Amon she had a son, Khonsu, who formedthe third member of the Theban trinity. Hewas the god of the Moon, and was very fairto look upon.

Such were the Theban deities, whose influenceupon the court was necessarily great. The Heliopolitanworship of the sun had also a very considerabledegree of power at the palace. Thegod Ra was believed to have reigned as Pharaohupon earth in the dim ages of the past, andit was thought that the successive sovereignsof Egypt were his direct descendants, thoughthis tradition actually did not date from a periodearlier than the Fifth Dynasty. “Son of theSun” was one of the proudest titles of thePharaohs, and the personal name of each successivemonarch was held by him in the officialtitulary as the representative of Ra. While onearth Ra had had the misfortune to be bittenby a snake, and had been cured by the goddessIsis, who had demanded in return the revealingof the god’s magical name. This was at lasttold her; but for fear that the secret wouldcome to the ears of his subjects, Ra decided tobring about a general massacre of mankind. Theslaughter was carried out by the goddess Hathorin her form of Sekhmet, a fierce lion-headedwoman, who delighted to wade in streams ofblood; but when only the half of mankind had[15]been slain, Ra repented, and brought the massacreto an end by causing the goddess to becomedrunk, by means of a gruesome potion ofblood and wine. Weary, however, with the caresof state, he decided to retire into the heavens,and there, as the sun, he daily sailed in his boatfrom horizon to horizon. At dawn he was calledKhepera, and had the form of a beetle; at noonhe was Ra; and at sunset he took the nameof Atum, a word derived from the Syrian Adon,“Lord,” better known to us in its Greek translation“Adonis.” As the rising and the settingsun—that is to say, the sun near the horizon—hewas called Ra-Horakhti, a name which thereader must bear in mind.

The goddess Isis, mentioned in the abovetradition, was the consort of Osiris, originallya Lower Egyptian deity. Like Ra, this godhad also reigned upon earth, but had beenmurdered by his brother Set, his death beingultimately revenged by his son Horus, thehawk. Thus Osiris, Isis, and Horus formed atrinity, which at this time was mainly worshippedat Abydos, a city of Upper Egypt, whereit was thought that Osiris had been buried.[16]Having thus ceased to live upon earth, Osirisbecame the great King of the Underworld, andall persons prayed to him for their future welfareafter death.

Meanwhile Horus, the hawk, was the tribalgod of more than one city. At Edfu he wasworshipped as the conqueror of Set; and in thismanifestation he was the husband of Hathor,the lady of Dendereh, a city some considerabledistance from Edfu. At Ombos, however, Setwas worshipped, and in the local religion therewas no trace of aught but the most friendlyrelations between Set and Horus. The goddessHathor, at the same time, had become patronof the Western Hills, and in one of her earthlyforms—namely, that of a cow—she is often seenemerging from her cavern in the cliffs.

At Memphis the tribal god was the littledwarf Ptah, the European Vulcan, the blacksmith,the artificer, and the potter of the gods.In this city also, as in many other districts ofEgypt, there was a sacred bull, here called Apis,who was worshipped with divine honours andwas regarded as an aspect of Ptah. At Elephantinea ram-headed deity named Khnum[17]was adored, and there was a sacred ram keptin his temple for ceremonial purposes. AsKhnum had some connection with the FirstCataract of the Nile, which is situated nearElephantine, he was regarded as of some importancethroughout Egypt. Moreover, he wassupposed by some to have used the mud at thebottom of the Nile to form the first humanbeing, and thus he found a place in the mythologyof several districts.

A vulture, named Nekheb, was the tribaldeity of the trading city of Eileithiaspolis; aferocious crocodile, Sebek, was the god of asecond city of the name of Ombos; an ibis,Thoth, was that of Hermopolis; a cat, Bast,that of Bubastis; and so on—almost every cityhaving its tribal god. Besides these there wereother more abstract deities: Nut, the heavens,who, in the form of a woman, spread herselfacross the sky; Seb, the earth; Shu, the vastnessof space; and so forth. The old gods ofEgypt were indeed a multitude. Here werethose who had marched into the country atthe head of conquering tribes; here wereancient heroes and Chieftains individually deified,[18]or often identified with the god whomtheir tribe had served; here were the elementspersonified; here the orbs of heaven whichman could see above him. As intercoursebetween city and city became more general,one set of beliefs had been brought into linewith another, and myths had developed toexplain the discrepancies. Thus in the timeof Thothmes IV. the heavens were crowdedwith gods; but standing above them all, thereader will do well to familiarise himself withthe figure of Amon-Ra, the god of Thebes,and with Ra-Horakhti, the god of Heliopolis.In the following pages the lesser denizens ofthe Egyptian Olympus play no great part, saveas a routed army hurled back into the ignorantdarkness from which they came.

3. THE DEMIGODS AND SPIRITS—THEPRIESTHOODS.

The sacred bulls and rams mentioned abovewere relics of an ancient animal-worship, theorigin of which is lost in the obscurity of prehistory.[19]The Egyptians paid homage to a varietyof animals, and almost every city or districtpossessed its particular species to which specialprotection was extended. At Hermopolis andin other parts of Egypt the baboon was sacred,as well as the ibis, which typified the god Thoth.Cats were sacred both at Bubastis, where the cat-goddess,Bast, resided, and in various other districts.Crocodiles were very generally held inreverence, and several river fish were thustreated. The snake was much feared andreverenced; and, as a pertinent example of thissuperstition, it may be mentioned that Amonhotep III.,the father of Akhnaton, placed afigure of the agathodemon serpent in a templeat Benha. The cobra was reverenced as thesymbol of Uazet, the goddess of the Delta, and,first used as a royal emblem by the archaickings of that country, it became the mainemblem of sovereignty in Pharaonic times. Itis unnecessary here to look more closely at thisaspect of Egyptian religion; and but a wordneed be said of the thousand demons and spiritswhich, together with the gods and the sacredanimals, crowded the regions of the unknown.[20]Many were the names which the magician mightcall upon in the hour of his need, and manywere the awful forms which the soul of a manwho had died was liable to meet. Osiris, thegreat god of the dead, was served by four suchgenii, and under his authority there sat no lessthan forty-two terrible demons whose businessit was to judge the quavering soul. Thenumerous gates of the underworld were guardedby monsters whose names alone would striketerror into the heart, and the unfortunate soulhad to repeat endless and peculiarly tediousformulæ before admittance was granted.

To minister to these hosts of heaven therehad of necessity to be vast numbers of priests.At Thebes the priesthood of Amon formed anorganisation of such power and wealth that theactions of the Pharaoh had largely come to becontrolled by it. The High Priest of Amon-Rawas one of the most important personages inthe land, and his immediate subordinates, theSecond, Third, and Fourth Priests, as they werecalled, were usually nobles of the highest rank.The High Priest of Amon was at this periodoften Grand Vizir also, and thus combined the[21]highest civil appointment with the highestsacerdotal office. The priesthood of Ra atHeliopolis, although of far less power than thatof Amon, was also a body of great importance.The High Priest was known as “the GreatOne of Visions,” and he was probably less of apolitician and more of a priest than his Thebancolleague. The High Priest of Ptah at Memphiswas called “the Great Master Artificer,” Ptahbeing the Vulcan of Egypt. He, however, andthe many other high priests of the various gods,did not rank with the two great leaders of theAmon and the Ra priesthoods.

4. THOTHMES IV. AND MUTEMUA.

When Thothmes IV. ascended the throne hewas confronted by a very serious political problem.The Heliopolitan priesthood at this timewas chafing against the power of Amon, andwas striving to restore the somewhat fallenprestige of its own god Ra, who in the farpast had been the supreme deity of Egypt, buthad now to play an annoying second to the[22]Theban god. Thothmes IV., as we shallpresently be told by Akhnaton himself,[8] didnot altogether approve of the political characterof the Amon priesthood, and it may have beendue to this dissatisfaction that he undertookthe repairing of the great Sphinx at Gizeh,which was in the care of the priests of Heliopolis.The sphinx was thought to represent acombination of the Heliopolitan gods Horakhti,Khepera, Ra, and Atum, who have beenmentioned above; and, according to a latertradition, Thothmes IV. had obtained the throneover the heads of his elder brothers throughthe mediation of the Sphinx—that is to say,through that of the Heliopolitan priests. Bythem he was called “Son of Atum and Protectorof Horakhte, ... who purifies Heliopolis andsatisfies Ra,”[9] and it seems that they lookedto him to restore to them their lost power. ThePharaoh, however, was a physical weakling, whosesmall amount of energy was entirely expendedupon his army, which he greatly loved, andwhich he led into Syria and into the Sudan.His brief reign of somewhat over eight years,[23]from 1420 to 1411B.C., marks but the indecisivebeginnings of the struggle between Amon andRa, which culminated in the early years of thereign of his grandson Akhnaton.

Some time before he came to the throne he hadmarried a daughter of the King of Mitanni, aNorth-Syrian state which acted as a bufferbetween the Egyptian possessions in Syria andthe hostile lands of Asia Minor and Mesopotamia,and which it was desirable, therefore, to placateby such a union. There is little doubt that thisprincess is to be identified with the QueenMutemua, of whom several monuments exist, andwho was the mother of Amonhotep III., theson and successor of Thothmes IV. A foreignelement was thus introduced into the court whichmuch altered its character, and led to numerouschanges of a very radical nature. It may be thatthis Asiatic influence induced the Pharaoh to givefurther encouragement to the priest of Heliopolis.The god Atum, the aspect of Ra as the settingsun, was, as has been said, of common origin withAton or Adonis, who was largely worshipped inNorth Syria; and the foreign queen with herretinue may have therefore felt more sympathy[24]with Heliopolis than with Thebes. Moreover,it was the Asiatic tendency to speculate inreligious questions, and the doctrines of thepriests of the northern god were more flexibleand more adaptable to the thinker than wasthe stiff, formal creed of Amon. Thus, the foreignthought which had now been introduced intoEgypt, and especially into the palace, may havecontributed somewhat to the dissatisfaction withthe state religion which becomes apparent duringthis reign.

Very little is known of the character ofThothmes IV., and nothing which bears uponthat of his grandson Akhnaton is to be ascertained.Although of feeble health and unmanlyphysique, he was a fond upholder of the martialdignity of Egypt. He delighted to honour thememory of those Pharaohs of the past who hadachieved the greatest fame as warriors. Thus herestored the monuments of Thothmes III., ofAahmes I., and of Senusert III.,[10] the threegreatest military leaders of Egyptian history.As a decoration for his chariot there were scenes[25]representing him trampling upon his foes; andwhen he died many weapons of war were buriedwith him. Of Queen Mutemua’s characternothing is known; and the attention of thereader may at once be carried on to Akhnaton’smaternal grandparents, the father and motherof Queen Tiy.

5. YUAA AND TUAU.

Somewhere about the year 1470B.C., while thegreat Thothmes III. was campaigning in Syria,the child was born who was destined to becomethe grandfather of the most remarkable of allthe Pharaohs of Egypt. Neither the names ofthe parents nor the place of birth are known;and the reader will presently find that it is noteasy to say whether the child was an Egyptianor a foreigner. His name is written Aau, Aay,Aai, Ayu, A-aa, Yaa, Yau, and most commonlyYuaa; and this variety of spelling seems ratherto indicate that its pronunciation, being foreign,did not permit of a correct rendering in Egyptianletters. He must have been some twenty yearsof age when Thothmes III. died; and thus it is[26]quite possible that he was one of those Syrianprinces whom the Pharaoh brought back to Egyptfrom the courts of Asia to be educated in theEgyptian manner. Some of these hostages whowere not direct heirs to Syrian thrones mayhave taken up their permanent residence on thebanks of the Nile, where it is certain that a fairnumber of their countrymen were settled forbusiness and other purposes. During the reignof Amonhotep II., Yuaa must have passed theprime years of his life, and at that king’s deathhe had probably reached about the forty-fifthyear of his age. He had married a woman calledby the common Egyptian name of Tuau, regardingwhose nationality there is, therefore, notmuch question. Two children were born of themarriage, the first a boy who was named Aanen,and the second a girl named Tiy, who laterbecame the great queen. Tiy was probably alittle girl some two years old when Thothmes IV.came to the throne, and as her parents bothheld appointments at court, she must have presentlyreceived those first impressions of royalluxury which influenced her childhood and herwhole life.

At this time Yuaa held the sacerdotal office ofPriest of Min, one of the most ancient of theEgyptian gods. Min, who had many of thecharacteristics of, and was later identified with,the Greek Pan, was worshipped at three or fourcities of Upper Egypt, and throughout the EasternDesert to the Red Sea coast. He was the godof fecundity, fertility, generation, reproduction,and the like, in the human, animal, and vegetableworlds. In his form of Min-Ra he was agod of the sun, whose fertilising rays madepregnant the whole earth. He was more noblethan the Greek Pan, and represented the pristinedesires of lawful reproduction in the family, ratherthan the erotic instincts for which the Greekgod was famous. Were one to compare himwith any of the gods of the countries neighbouringto Egypt, he would be found to have asmuch likeness to the above-mentioned Adonis,who in North Syria was a god of vegetation,as to any other deity. This fact offers food forsome thought, for if Yuaa was a foreigner, hailing,as may be supposed, from Syria, there wouldhave been no Egyptian god, except Atum, towhose service he would have attached himself[28]so readily as to that of Min. Although a tribalgod, Min was not essentially the protector andupholder of Egyptian rights and Egyptian prejudices.He was, in one form or another, universal;and he must have appealed to the senseand the senses of Syrian and Egyptian alike.

At this time, as we have seen, the priests ofAmon, whose wealth had brought corruption inits train, were under the cloud of royal displeasure,and the court was beginning to displaya desire to rid itself of an influence whichwas daily becoming less exalted. It may bethat Yuaa, upholding the doctrines of Min andof Adonis, had some connection with this movement,for he was now a personage of considerableimportance at the palace. He may havealready held the title of Prince or Duke, bywhich he is called in his funeral inscriptions;and one may suppose that he was a favouriteof the young king, Thothmes IV., and of hiswife, Queen Mutemua, whose blood was soonto unite with his own in the person of Akhnaton.When Thothmes IV. died at the age of twenty-six,and his son Amonhotep III., a boy oftwelve years of age, came to the throne, Yuaa[29]was a man of over fifty, and his little daughterTiy was a girl of marriageable age accordingto Egyptian ideas, being about ten years old.[11]

The court at this time was more or less underthe influence of the now Queen-Regent Mutemuaand her advisers, for Amonhotep III. was stilltoo young to be allowed to go entirely his ownway, and amongst those advisers it seems evidentthat Yuaa was to be numbered. Now the boy-kinghad not been on the throne more than ayear, if as much, when, with feasting and ceremony,he was married to Tiy; and Yuaa andTuau became the proud parents-in-law of thePharaoh.

It is necessary to consider the significance ofthe marriage. The royal pair were the merestchildren; and it is impossible to suppose thatthe marriage was not arranged for them bytheir guardians. If Amonhotep at this earlyage had simply fallen in love with this girl,with whom probably he had been brought up,he, no doubt, would have insisted on marryingher, and she would have been placed in hisharîm. But she became his Great Queen, was[30]placed on the throne beside him, and receivedhonours which no other queen of the mostroyal blood had ever received before. It isclear that the king’s advisers would never havepermitted this had Tiy been but the prettydaughter of a noble of the court. There musthave been something in her parentage whichentitled her to these honours and caused herto be chosen deliberately as queen.

There are several possibilities. Tuau may havehad royal blood in her veins, and may have been,for instance, the granddaughter of ThothmesIII., to whom she bears some likeness in face.Queen Tiy is often called “Royal Daughter” aswell as “Royal Wife”; and it is possible thatthis is to be taken literally. In a letter sent byDushratta, King of Mitanni, to Akhnaton, Tiy iscalled “my sister and thy mother”; and thoughit is possible that the word “sister” is here usedto indicate the general cousinship of royalty, itis more probable that some real connection ismeant, for other relationships, such as “daughter,”“wife,” and “father-in-law,” are precisely statedin the letter. Yuaa may have been indirectlyof royal Egyptian blood, or he may have been,[31]as we have seen, the offspring of some Syrian royalhouse, such as that of Mitanni, related by marriagewith the Pharaoh; and thus Tiy may have hadsome distant claim to the throne, and Dushrattawould have had reason for calling her his sister.Queen Tiy, however, has so often been called aforeigner for reasons which have now been shownto be quite erroneous that we must be cautious inadopting any of these possibilities. It has beenstated that her face is North-Syrian in type,[12] and,as the portrait upon which this statement is basedis, in all features except the nose, reminiscent ofYuaa, that noble would also resemble the peopleof that country; and in this connection it mustbe remembered that the marriage of Tiy andAmonhotep took place under the regency ofMutemua, herself probably a North-Syrianprincess. Be this as it may, however, the twochildren, not yet in their ’teens, ruled Egypt[32]together, and Yuaa and Tuau stood behind thethrone to advise them.

Tuau now included amongst her titles those of“Royal Handmaid,” or lady-in-waiting, “thefavoured-one of Hathor,” “the favourite of theKing,” and “the Royal mother of the great wifeof the King,” a title which may indicate that shewas of royal blood. Amongst the titles of Yuaaone may mention those of “Master of the Horseand Chariot-Captain of the King,” “the favourite,excellent above all favourites,” and “the mouthand ears of the King,”—that is to say, his agentand adviser. He was a personage of commandingpresence, whose powerful character showeditself in his face. One must picture him now asa tall man, with a fine shock of white hair; agreat hooked nose, like that of a Syrian; full,strong lips; and a prominent, determined jaw.He has the face of an ecclesiastic, and there issomething about his mouth which reminds one ofthe late Pope, Leo XIII. One feels, in lookingat his well-preserved features, that here perhapsmay be found the originator of the great religiousmovement which his daughter and grandsoncarried into execution.

6. AMONHOTEP III. AND HIS COURT.

Besides Yuaa and Tuau and the Queen-DowagerMutemua, there was a certain noble,named Amonhotep-son-of-Hapu, who may haveexercised considerable influence upon the youngPharaoh. So good and wise a man was he, thatin later times he was regarded almost as adivinity, and his sayings were treasured fromgeneration to generation. It may be that hefurthered the cause of the Heliopolitan priesthoodagainst that of Amon; and it is to beobserved in this connection that, in the inscriptionengraved upon his statue, he refers to thePharaoh as the “heir of Atum” and the “first-bornson of Horakhti,” those being the Heliopolitangods. When, presently, a daughter wasborn to Tiy, who was named Setamon, thisphilosopher was given the honorary post of“Steward” to the princess; while at the sametime he filled the office of Minister of PublicWorks, and held various court appointments.At this period, when religious speculation wasbeginning to be freely indulged in, the influence[34]of a “wise man” of this character would necessarilybe great; and should any of his sayingscome to light, they will perhaps be found tobear upon the subject of the religious changeswhich were now taking place. A late traditiontells us that this Amonhotep had warned thePharaoh that if he would see the true God hemust drive from his kingdom all impure persons;and herein one may perhaps observe some referenceto the corrupt priests of Amon, whoseejection from their offices was daily becomingmore necessary.

At the time of which we write Egypt stillremained at that height of power to which themilitary skill of Thothmes III. had raised her.The Kings of Palestine and Syria were tributariesto the young Pharaoh; the princes of thesea-coast cities sent their yearly impost toThebes; Cyprus, Crete, and even the Greekislands, were Egyptianised; Sinai and the RedSea coast as far south as Somaliland were includedin the Pharaoh’s dominions; and thenegro tribes of the Sudan were his slaves. Egyptwas indeed the greatest state in the world, andThebes was a metropolis at which the ambassadors,[35]the merchants, and the artisans fromthese various countries met together. Herethey could look upon buildings undreamed ofin their own lands, and could participate inluxuries unknown even in Babylon. The wealthof Egypt was so enormous that a foreign sovereignwho wrote to the Pharaoh asking for goldmentioned that it could not be considered asanything more valuable than so much dust byan Egyptian. Golden vases in vast quantitiesadorned the tables of the king and his nobles,and hundreds of golden vessels of different kindswere used in the temples.

The splendour and gaiety of the court atThebes remind one of the tales from the ArabianNights. One reads of banquets, of splendidfestivals on the water, of jubilee celebrations,and of hunting parties. When the scenes depictedon the monuments are gathered togetherin the mind, and the ruins which are left arethere reconstructed, a life of the most intensebrilliancy is shown. This was rather a developmentof the period than a condition of thingswhich had been derived from an earlierrégime.The Egyptians had always been a happy, light-hearted[36]people; but it was the conquests ofThothmes III. that had given them the securityand the wealth to live as luxuriously as theypleased. The tendency of the nation was nowto break away from the old, hardy traditions ofthe earlier periods of Egyptian history; andvirtually no other body, except the priesthoodof Amon, held them down to ancient conventionalities.But while the king and his courtmade merry and amused themselves in sumptuousfashion, that god Amon and his representativestowered over them like some sombre bogie, holdingthem to a religion which they considered to beobsolete, and claiming its share of royal wealth.

About the time of his marriage Amonhotepbuilt a palace on the western bank of the Nile,on the edge of the desert under the Thebanhills, and here Queen Tiy held her brilliantcourt. The palace was a light but roomy structureof brick and costly woods, exquisitely decoratedwith paintings on stucco, and embellishedwith delicate columns. Along one side ran abalcony on which were rugs and many-colouredcushions, and here the king and queen couldsometimes be seen by their subjects. Gardens[37]surrounded the palace, almost at the gates ofwhich rose the splendid hills. On the easternside of the building the king later constructeda huge pleasure-lake especially for the amusementof Tiy. The mounds of earth which werethrown up during its excavation were purposelyformed into irregular hills, and these were coveredwith trees and flowers. Here the queen floatedin her barge, which, in honour of the Heliopolitangod, she called “Aton-gleams”; and asshe watched the reflections of the hills and thetrees in the still water, she may well haveimagined herself in those fair lands of Syriafrom which Aton or Adonis had come.

The name Aton was Syrian. The setting sun,as we have seen, was called in Egypt Atum,which was derived from the Asiatic Adon orAton; and it is now that we first find the wordintroduced into Egypt as a synonym of Ra-Horakhti-Khepera-Atumof Heliopolis. Presentlywe find that one of the Pharaoh’sregiments of soldiers is named after this godAton, and here and there the word now occursupon the monuments. Thus, gradually, the courtwas bringing a new-named deity into prominence,[38]closely related to the gods of Heliopolis; andit may be supposed that the priesthood ofAmon watched the development with considerableperturbation. The Pharaoh himself doesnot seem to have worried very considerably withregard to these religious matters. He was, itseems, a man addicted to pleasure, whose interestslay as much in the hunting-field as in thepalace. He loved to boast that during the firstten years of his reign he had slain 102 lions;but as he was a mere boy when he first indulgedin this form of sport, it is to be presumedthat his nobles assisted him handsomelyin the slaughter on each occasion. In one dayhe is reported to have killed fifty-six wildcattle, and a score more fell to him a few dayslater; but here again one may suppose that theglory and not the deed was his.

In the fifth year of his reign he led an expeditioninto the Sudan to chastise some tribewhich had rebelled, and he records with pride theslaughter which he had made. It is stated thatthese negroes “had been haughty, and greatthings were in their hearts; but the fierce-eyedlion, this prince, he slew them by the command[39]of Amon-Atum.” It is interesting to notice thatAtum is thus brought into equal prominence withAmon, and one may see from this the trend ofpublic opinion.

At this time the Vizir, a certain Ptahmes, heldalso the office of High Priest of Amon; butwhen he died he was not succeeded in his dutiesas Vizir by the new head of the Amon priesthood,as was to be expected. The Pharaoh appointeda noble named Rames as his prime minister, andthus separated the civil and the religious power:a step which again shows us something of themovement which was steadily diminishing thepower of Amon.

Queen Tiy seems to have borne severaldaughters to the king, and it is possible thatshe had also presented him with a son. But, ifthis is so, he had died in early childhood, and noheir to the throne was now living. It may havebeen partly due to this fact that Amonhotep, inthe tenth year of his reign, married the PrincessKirgipa or Gilukhipa, daughter of the King ofMitanni, and probably niece of the Dowager-QueenMutemua.[13] The princess came to Egypt[40]in considerable state, bringing with her 317ladies-in-waiting; but she seems to have beenthrust into the background by Tiy, who, evenin the official record of the marriage, is calledthe king’s chief wife. The marriage may havebeen purely political, as was that of ThothmesIV.; and there is certainly no record of anychildren born to Gilukhipa. She and her ladiesbut added a further foreign element to the lifeof the palace, and swelled the numbers of thosewho had no sympathy with the old gods ofThebes.

It must have been somewhere about the year1390B.C. that Tiy’s aged father, Yuaa, died;and Tuau soon followed him to the grave. Theywere buried in a fine sepulchre in the Valleyof the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes; and ifthey are not to be considered as royal, this willhave been the first time that persons not ofroyal blood had been buried in a tomb of largesize in this valley. A quantity of funeral furniturewas placed around the splendid coffins in whichtheir mummies lay, and amongst this there werea few objects which evidently had been presentedby the bereaved king and queen and by[41]the young princesses, Setamon and another whosename is now lost. Yuaa and his wife had evidentlybeen much beloved at the court, and asthe parents of the great queen they had commandedthe respect of all men. To us they areremarkable as the grandparents of that greatteacher, Akhnaton, whose birth has now to berecorded.

II.
THE BIRTH AND EARLY YEARSOF AKHNATON.

1. THE BIRTH OF AKHNATON.

It has been seen that Queen Tiy presentedseveral children to the king; but it was notuntil they had reigned some twenty-five ortwenty-six years that the future monarch wasborn. As the years had passed the queen musthave grown more and more anxious for a son,and many must have been the prayers she offeredup that a male child might be vouchsafed toher. In Egypt at the present day the desireto bear a son holds dominion in the heart ofevery young woman; and those to whom thisprivilege has not been granted forsake the lawsof the prophet and still lay their passionate[43]appeal before the old gods. The present writerwas asked recently by a young peasant to allowhis wife to walk round the outer wall of anancient temple, in order that she might perchancebear a male child thereafter; and on anotheroccasion three young women were seensliding down the plinth of an overturned statueof Rameses the Great for the same purpose.With similar emotion, though with greater intelligence,Queen Tiy must have turned in her grieffrom one god to another, promising them allmanner of gifts if they would grant her desire.To Ra-Horakhti Aton she appears to haveturned with the most confidence; and perhaps,as will presently be seen, she vowed that if ason were granted to her she would dedicate himto the service of that god.

It is probable that the little prince first sawthe light in the royal palace at Thebes, whichwas situated on the edge of the desert at thefoot of the western hills. It was, as has beensaid, an extensive building, lightly constructedand gaily decorated. The ceilings and pavementsof its halls were fantastically paintedwith scenes of animal life: wild cattle ran[44]through reedy swamps beneath the royal feet,and there many-coloured fish swam in the water;while overhead flights of pigeons, white againsta blue sky, passed across the hall, and wildduck hastened towards the open casements.Through curtained doorways one might obtainglimpses of the garden planted with flowersforeign to Egypt; and on the east of the palaceshone the great pleasure-lake, surrounded by thetrees of Asia.

In all the world there are few places morebeautiful than the site of this palace. Here onemay sit for many an hour watching the changingcolours on the wonderful cliffs, the pink andthe yellow of the rocks standing out from theblue and the purple of the deep shadows. Inthe fields which now surround the ruined palace,where the royal gardens were laid out, one obtainsan impression of colour, of beauty, and of gaiety—ifit can be so expressed—which is not easilyequalled. The continuous sunshine and thebracing wind render one intensely awake tonatural joys; and here, indeed, was a fittingbirthplace, one feels, for a king who taught hispeople to study the beauties of nature.

2. THE RISE OF ATON.

The little prince was named Amonhotep,[14] “thePeace-of-Amon,” after his father; but thoughthe supremacy of Amon was thus acknowledged,the Heliopolitan deity appears to have been consideredas the protector of the young boy. Whilethe luxurious court rejoiced at the birth of theirfuture king, one feels that the ancient priesthoodof Amon-Ra must have looked askance at thebaby who was destined one day to be theirmaster. This priesthood still demanded implicitobedience to its stiff and ancient conventions,and it refused to recognise the growing tendencytowards religious speculation.

Probably stronger measures would have beentaken by it to resist the growing power of Ra-Horakhti,had it not been for the fact that Rawas also a form of Amon, and had been identifiedwith him under the name of Amon-Ra. Thegod Amon was originally but the local deity of[46]Thebes; and, when the Theban Pharaohs of theEighteenth Dynasty had elevated him to the positionof the state god of all Egypt, they madehim acceptable to the various provinces, as we haveseen, by pointing to his identification with Ra, thesun-god, who, under one form or another, founda place in every temple and held high rank inevery variety of mythology. As Amon-Ra hewas able to be appreciated by the sun-worshippersof Syria and by those of Nubia, for there werefew races who would not do homage to the greatgiver of warmth and light.

It is possible that those more thoughtfulmembers of the court who were quietly attemptingto undermine the influence of the priesthoodof Amon, and who were beginning to carry intoexecution the schemes of emancipation which wehave already noticed, now endeavoured to stripAmon of his association with the sun; for thatidentity was really his simple claim to acceptanceby any but Thebans. The priesthood, on theirpart, it may be supposed, drew as much attentionas possible to the connection of their deity withRa; for they knew that none but the Heliopolitangod could be advanced with success as a[47]rival of Amon by those who desired to overthrowthe Theban god. Thus one finds that the HighPriest of Ra at Heliopolis was given, and wasobliged to accept, the honorary office of SecondPriest of Amon at Thebes,[15] which at once placedhim under the thumb of the Theban High Priest.The propounders of the new thought, however,met this move by bringing into greater prominencethe claims, not of Ra-Horakhti, but ofAton, which was merely a more elusive form ofthe sun-god. The priesthood of Amon hadalways checked the individual growth of Ra-Horakhtiby regarding him simply as an aspectof Ra, and hence of Amon-Ra. One of theessential features of the new movement was theregarding of Ra as an aspect of Ra-Horakhti,and the calling of Ra-Horakhti by the uncontaminatedname of Aton. Aton, in fact, wasoriginally introduced into the matter largely forthe purpose of preventing any identificationbetween Amon-Ra and Ra-Horakhti. Soon thename of Aton, entirely supplanting that of Atum,was heard with some frequency at Thebes and[48]elsewhere, but always, it must be remembered,as another word for Ra-Horakhti.

The desire of the court for a change ofreligion is understandable. The cult of thegod Amon, as has been said, was so hedgedabout with conventionalities that free thoughtwas impossible. We have seen, however, thatthe upper classes were passing through aphase of religious speculation, and they wereready to revolt against the domination of apriesthood which forbade criticism. The worshipof the intangible power of the sun, under thename of Aton, offered endless possibilities forthe exercise of those tendencies towards theabstract which were now beginning to be feltall over the civilised world. This was man’sfirst age of philosophical thought, and for thefirst time in history the gods were being enduedwith ideal qualities.

Apart from all questions of religion, thepriesthood of Amon had obtained such powerand wealth that it was a very serious menaceto the dignity of the throne. The great organisationwhich had its headquarters at Karnakhad become an incubus which weighed heavily[49]upon the state. For political reasons alone,therefore, it was desirable to push the priestsof Heliopolis into a more prominent position.

There was, moreover, a third consideration.The god Aton, with whom Ra and Ra-Horakhtiwere now being identified, was, we have seen,originally the same as the Syrian and GreekAdonis, the word “Adon” or “Aton” meaningsimply “lord.” Thus the propounders of thenew doctrines must have dreamt of an Egypto-Syrianempire bound together by the ties of acommon religion. With one god understood andworshipped from the cataracts of the Nile tothe distant Euphrates, what power could destroythe empire?

3. THE POWER OF QUEEN TIY.

In Amonhotep III. one may see the lazy,speculative Oriental, too opinionated and toovain to bear with the stiff routine of hisfathers, and yet too lacking in energy toformulate a new religion. On the other hand,there is every reason to suppose that Queen[50]Tiy possessed the ability to impress the claimsof the new thought upon her husband’s mind,and gradually to turn his eyes, and those ofthe court, away from the sombre worship ofAmon, “the unknown god,” into the directionof the brilliant cult of the sun. Those whohave travelled in Egypt will realise how completelythe land is dominated by the sun.The blue skies, the shining rocks, the goldendesert, the verdant fields, all seem to cry outfor joy of the sunshine. The extraordinaryenergy which one may feel in Egypt atsunrise, and the deep melancholy which sometimesaccompanies the red nightfall, must havebeen felt by Tiy also in her palace at Thebes.

As the years passed the power and influenceof Queen Tiy increased; and now that shehad borne a son to the king there was addedto her great position as royal wife the equallygreatrôle of royal mother. Never beforehad a queen been so freely represented onall the king’s monuments, nor had so fine aseries of titles been given before to the wifeof a Pharaoh. At Sedênga, far up in theSudan, her husband erected a temple for her;[51]and in distant Sinai a beautiful portrait headof her was recently found. All visitors toThebes have seen her figures by the side ofthe legs of the two great colossi at the edgeof the Western Desert; and the huge statuesof herself and her husband, now in the CairoMuseum, will have been seen by those whohave visited that collection. Of Grilukhipa,[16]however, and the king’s other wives, one hearsnothing at all: Queen Tiy relegated them tothe background almost before their marriageceremonies were over.

By the time that Amonhotep III. had reignedfor thirty years or so, he had ceased to givemuch attention to state affairs, and the powerhad almost entirely passed into the capablehands of Tiy. Already an influence, which wemay presume to have been to a large extenthers, was being felt in many directions: Ra-Horakhtiand Aton were being brought intothe foreground, a tone of thought which canhardly be regarded as purely Egyptian wasbeing developed, the art was undergoing modificationsand had risen to a pitch of excellence[52]never attained before or after. The exquisitelow-reliefs of the end of the reign of AmonhotepIII.—for example, those to be seen at Thebesin the tombs of Khaemhat and Rames,[17] bothof which are definitely dated to the close ofthe reign—stir one almost as do the works ofthe early Florentine masters. There is an elusivegrace in the dainty figures there sculptured,which, through another medium and under otherlaws of convention, cause them to appeal withthe same force of indefinable sweetness as dothe figures in the works of Filipino Lippi andBotticelli. In the mass of Egyptian paintingand sculpture of secondary importance such gemsas these have been overlooked and have notbeen appreciated by the public; but the presentwriter ventures to think that some day they willset the heart of all art-lovers dancing as dancedthose of Queen Tiy’s great masters.

The court in which the little prince passedhis earliest years was more brilliant than everit had been before, and Queen Tiy presided overscenes of indescribable splendour. Amonhotep[53]III. has been truly called “the Magnificent”;and at no period, save that of Thothmes III.,were the royal treasuries so full or the nobles sowealthy. Out of a pageant of festivities, fromamidst the noise of song and laughter, the littlesad-eyed prince first emerges on to the stageof history, led by the hand of Queen Tiy; butas he appears before us, above the clink of thegolden wine-bowls, above the sound of thetimbrels, one seems to hear the lilt of a moresimple song, and the peaceful singing of a lark.

4. AKHNATON’S MARRIAGE.

During the last years of his reign the Pharaoh,although well under fifty years of age,[18] seems tohave suffered from permanent ill-health. Ontwo occasions the King of Mitanni sent toEgypt a miracle-working statuette of the goddessIshtar, apparently in the hope that Amonhotepmight be cured of his illness by it. Itis probable that the king had never been a verystrong man. Having been born when his father—himself[54]extremely delicate—was but a child,he had had little chance of enjoying a robustmiddle age, and he passed on to his childrenthis inherent weakness. One hears no more ofhis daughters,[19] whom we have seen mourningfor their grandparents Yuaa and Tuau, andthere is some likelihood that they died young.The little Prince Amonhotep was already developingconstitutional weaknesses which renderedhis life very precarious. His skull wasmisshapen, and he must have been subject tooccasional epileptic fits. And now Queen Tiygave birth to a daughter, who was namedBaketaton in honour of the new god, and whoseems to have lived less than a score of years,since nothing more is heard of her after hertwelfth or thirteenth year.

As Amonhotep, at the age of forty-eight orforty-nine, felt his end approaching, he seemsto have shown considerable anxiety in regardto the succession. Here was his only son—nowa boy of ten or eleven years of age—in so sada state of health that he could not be expected[55]to live to manhood, and in the event of hisdeath the throne would be without an occupantin the direct line. Obviously it was necessarythat he should be married as soon as possible, inorder that he might become a father as earlyas that was naturally possible. Amonhotep III.himself had been married to Tiy when he wasabout twelve years of age, and his father ThothmesIV. had likewise been married at thatearly age.[20] The little Prince Amonhotep should,therefore, also be given a wife at once; and thePharaoh now began to look around for a suitableconsort for him. He had heard thatDushratta, King of Mitanni, had a smalldaughter who was said to be a comely maiden;but it appears that she was only eight or nineyears of age,[21] and therefore could not be expectedto provide an heir for at least anotherfour years. Nevertheless there were many politicalreasons for proposing the union. Mitanniwas, as we have seen, the buffer state betweenthe Pharaoh’s Syrian possessions and the lands ofthe Hittites and of the Mesopotamians. ThothmesIV. had asked a bride from Mitanni, and AmonhotepIII. himself had obtained Gilukhipa from[56]thence, if not Queen Tiy also: both these beingprobably political matches, designed for the welfareof the Syrian empire. The Pharaoh thereforedecided upon this marriage for his sicklyson, and sent an embassy to Dushratta tonegotiate the union between these two children.

The reply of Dushratta has, fortunately, beenpreserved to us. The Mitannian king acknowledgesthe arrival of the envoy, and is muchrejoiced at this further binding together of thetwo countries. In a subsequent letter it is evidentthat the princess has already been sent toEgypt, and we are led to suppose that PrinceAmonhotep has at once been married to her.The little princess was named Tadukhipa, buton her arrival in Egypt she was renamedNefertiti. Her age, as mentioned above, is apparentfrom the fact that, although in after lifeshe gave birth to children at very regularintervals, her first child was not born until nearlyfive years after her marriage.[22] So young was[57]she that she did not at once cohabit with theprince, but was put under the care of a certainlady of the court named Ty, the wife of a nobleof the name of Ay, who afterwards usurped thethrone. This lady Ty called herself in lateryears “great nurse and nourisher of the Queen,”and Ay always called himself the king’s father-in-law(neter at). It would thus seem that theyhad become the actual foster-parents of the littleSyrian girl. It was not at all unusual in Egyptfor a child to be adopted thus; and it is acurious fact that if a woman gave the breast toa child of any age but for a moment, or if a manplaced his finger in the child’s mouth, a formaladoption was considered to have been made.[23]

The court had hardly settled down after thecelebration of the marriage of Amonhotep andTadukhipa-Nefertiti, when it was thrown intomourning by the death of Amonhotep “theMagnificent,” which occurred in the thirty-sixthyear of his reign. Queen Tiy at once assumedcontrol of state affairs, on behalf of her barelyeleven-year-old son, who as Amonhotep IV. nowascended the throne of the Pharaohs.

5. THE ACCESSION OF AKHNATON.

On coming to the throne the young kingfixed his titulary in the following manner:—

These titles were drawn up on more or lessprescribed lines, and conformed to the old customof the Pharaohs. Like his ancestors, he wascalled “Beloved of Amon-Ra,” although, as wehave seen, the power of that god was alreadymuch undermined. To counterbalance this referenceto the god of Thebes, however, one findsthe surprising title—

Let the boy be said to be beloved of Amon-Ratill the walls of Thebes reverberate with the cry;[59]let Amon-Ra be called Lord of Heaven till thepriestly heralds can shout no more: the doom ofthe god of Thebes cannot now be averted, for thereigning Pharaoh is dedicated to another god.

It is obvious that a boy of eleven years of agecould not himself have claimed the office of theHigh Priest of Ra-Horakhti. Queen Tiy andher advisers must have deliberately endowed theyouthful king with this office, largely in orderto set the seal upon the fate of Amon. Therewere, perhaps, other reasons why this remarkablestep was decided upon. It may be, as has beensaid, that the queen, before the birth of herson, had vowed him to Ra-Horakhti. Again, theboy was epileptic, was subject to hallucinations;and it may be that while in this condition hehad seen visions or uttered words which led hismother to believe him to be the chosen one of theHeliopolitan god, whose name the prince musthave been constantly hearing. In a palace wherethe mystical “Heat-which-is-in-Aton,” which wasthe new elaboration of the god’s name, wasbeing daily invoked, and where the youthfulmaster of Egypt was constantly falling intowhat appeared to be holy frenzy, it is not[60]unlikely that the rising deity would be connectedwith the eccentricities of the youngPharaoh. The High Priest of Ra-Horakhti wasalways called “The Great of Visions,” and wasthus essentially a visionary prophet either bynature or by circumstance; and the unfortunateboy’s physical condition may have been turned,thus, to account in the struggle against Amon-Ra.

One may now imagine the Pharaoh as a pale,sickly youth. His head seemed too large forhis body; his eyelids were heavy; his eyes asone imagines them were wells of dream. Hisfeatures were delicately moulded, and his mouth,in spite of a somewhat protruding lower jaw,is reminiscent of the best of the art of Rossetti.He seems to have been a quiet, studious boy,whose thoughts wandered in fair places, searchingfor that happiness which his physical conditionhad denied to him. His nature wasgentle; his young heart overflowed with love.He delighted, it would seem, to walk in thegardens of the palace, to hear the birds singing,to watch the fish in the lake, to smell theflowers, to follow the butterflies, to warm hissmall bones in the sunshine. There was a grave[61]dignity in his gait, or the artists have lied; andhis words were already fraught with wisdom.The great crown of the Pharaohs sat easilyupon his head, for his every movement wasroyal. He accepted as his due the homage ofthe court; yet he does not seem to have actedwith arrogance, and was ever a tender-hearted,impulsive child. Already he was sometimescalled “Lord of the Breath of Sweetness”;[24]and already he was so much beloved by hissubjects that their adherence to him throughthe rough places of his future life was assured.For the first years of his reign he was, ofcourse, entirely under the regency of his mother.Dushratta, the King of Mitanni, writing to congratulatethe boy on his accession, addressedhimself to Queen Tiy, as though he thoughtthe king would hardly yet be able to understanda letter; and in a later communication he asksthe Pharaoh to inquire of his mother as tocertain matters of international policy. Butalthough so young, the king was wise beyondhis years, as the reader will presently see.

6. THE FIRST YEARS OF AKHNATON’S REIGN.

In a subsequent chapter it will be the writer’spurpose to show to what heights of ideal thought,and to what profundities of religious and moralphilosophy, this boy, in the years of his earlymanhood, attained; and it will but enhance ourrespect for his abilities when he reached maturity,if we find in his early training all manner ofshortcomings. The beautiful doctrines of the religionwith which this Pharaoh’s name is identifiedwere productions of his later days; and untilhe was at least seventeen years of age neitherhis exalted monotheism nor any of his futureprinciples were really apparent. Some time afterthe eighth year of his reign one finds that hehad evolved a religion so pure that one mustcompare it with Christianity in order to discoverits faults; and the reader will presently see thatthis superb theology was not derived from hiseducation.

One of the first acts of the king’s reign, undertakenat the desire of Queen Tiy or of the royaladvisers, was the erection of a temple to Ra-Horakhti[63]Aton at Karnak.[25] This was in noway an insult to Amon, for Thothmes III. andother Pharaohs had dedicated temples at Karnakto gods other than Amon. The priesthoodof Amon-Ra recognised the existence of themany deities of Egypt, and gave them theirplace in the constitution of heaven, reservingfor their own god the title of “King of theGods.” There was a temple of Ptah here; therewere shrines set apart for the worship of Min;and other gods, unconnected with Amon, werehere accommodated. The priests of Amon-Rathus could not offer any serious objection tothe project. The building [26] was to be constructedof sandstone, and therefore various officials weredispatched to the great quarries of Gebel Silsileh,which lie on the river between Edfu and KomOmbo, and to those near Esneh. Large tabletswere there carved upon the cliffs towards theclose of the work, and on them the figure of the[64]Pharaoh was represented worshipping Amon, whowas thus still the state god. Above the king’sfigure, however, the disk of the sun is seen, andfrom it a number of lines, representing rays, projectdownwards towards the royal figure. These raysterminate in hands, which thus seem to be distributingthe “Heat-which-is-in-Aton” aroundthe Pharaoh. This is the first representation ofthe afterwards famous symbol of the religion ofAton, and it is significant that it should make itsdébut in a scene representing the worship of Amon.

The king is called the High Priest of Ra-Horakhti;but the title “Living in truth,” whichhe took to himself in later years, and which hadreference to the religion of Aton which he wassoon to evolve, does not yet appear.

A large number of fragments from this shrinehave been discovered, and on these one seesreferences to the gods Horus, Set, Wepwat,and others. The king is still called by thename Amonhotep, which was later banned, andthe names of Aton, afterwards always writtenwithin the royal ovals or cartouches, are stilllacking in that distinction. The temple wascalled “Aton-is-found-in-the-House-of-Aton,” a[65]curious name of which the meaning is not clear.[27]A certain official named Hataay was “Scribeand Overseer of the Granary of the House of theAton,” by which this temple is probably meant;and in the tomb of Rames a reference is madeto the building by its full name, and a pictureof it is given, but otherwise one knows littleabout it. The rapidity with which it was desiredto be set up is shown by the fact that the great,well-trimmed blocks of stone usually employedin the construction of sacred buildings werelargely dispensed with, and only small easily-handledblocks were used. The imperfections inthe building were then hidden by a judicioususe of plaster and cement, and thus the wallswere smoothed for the reception of the reliefs.The quarter in which the temple stood was nowcalled “Brightness of Aton the Great,” andThebes received the new name of “City of theBrightness of Aton.”

There are two other monuments which datefrom these early years of the king’s reign: bothare tombs of great nobles. At this period oneof the greatest personages in the land was the[66]above-mentioned Rames, the Vizir of UpperEgypt. This official was now engaged in constructingand decorating a magnificent sepulchrefor himself in the Theban necropolis. In thegreat hall of this tomb the artists were busypreparing the beautiful sculptures and paintingswhich were to cover the walls, and ere halftheir work was finished they set themselves tothe making of a fine figure of Amonhotep IV.seated upon his throne, with the goddess Maatstanding behind him. The scene was probablyexecuted a few months before the making ofthe tablets at the quarries. The sun’s rays donot appear, and the work was carried out strictlyaccording to the canons of art obtaining duringthe last years of Amonhotep III. and the firstof his son. But hardly had the figures beenfinished before the order came that the Atonrays had to be included, and certain changesin the art had to be recognised; and thereforethe artists set to work upon another figure ofthe king standing under these many-handedbeams of “heat,” and now accompanied by his, asyet, childless wife. The two scenes may be seenby visitors to Thebes standing side by side, and[67]nowhere may the contrast between the old orderof things and the new be so clearly observed.

While Rames was providing a tomb forhimself at Thebes, another great noble namedHoremheb, who ultimately usurped the throne,was constructing his sepulchre at Sakkârah,the Memphite necropolis near Cairo. Horemhebwas commander-in-chief of the army, andin his tomb some superb reliefs are carvedshowing him receiving rewards in that capacityfrom the king. Some of the scenes representthe arrival of Asiatic refugees in Egypt, whoask to be allowed to take up their abode onthe banks of the Nile, and the figures of theseforeigners rank amongst the finest specimens ofEgyptian art. In the inscriptions, Horemheb,who is supposed to be addressing the king,states that the Pharaoh owes his throne toAmon,[28] but yet we see that the figure of theking is drawn in that style of art which istypical of the new religion.[29]

7. THE NEW ART.

This sudden change in the style of the reliefswhich we have observed in these two tombsand on the quarry tablets seems to be attributableto about the fourth year of the king’sreign. The reliefs which were now carvedupon the walls of the new temple of Ra-Horakhtiat Karnak show us a style of artquite different from that of the king’s early years.The figure of the Pharaoh, which the artistsin the tomb of Rames represented as standingbelow the newly-invented sun’s rays, is asdifferent from the earlier figure there executedas chalk is from cheese. The Pharaoh whomwe see in the tomb of Horemheb and on thequarry tablets is represented, according tocanons of art, entirely different from thoseexisting at the king’s accession.

In the drawing of the human figure, andespecially that of the Pharaoh, there are threevery distinct characteristics in this new styleof art. Firstly, as to the head: the skull iselongated; the chin, as seen in profile, is drawnas though it were sharply pointed; the fleshunder the jaw is skimped, thus giving anupward turn to the line; and the neck isrepresented as being long and thin. Secondly,the stomach is made to obtrude itself uponthe attention by being drawn as though froma fat and ungainly model. And thirdly, thehips and thighs are abnormally large, thoughfrom the knee downwards the legs are of morenatural size. This distortion of human anatomyis marked in a lesser degree in allthe lines of the body; and the whole figurebecomes a startling type of an art which seemsat first to have sprung fully developed fromthe brain of the boy-Pharaoh or from one ofthe eccentrics of the court.

The king was now fifteen years old, andseems to have been extraordinarily mature forhis age. It may be that he had objected tobe represented in the conventional manner, and[70]had told his artists to draw him as he was.The elongated skull, the pointed chin, andeven, perhaps, the protruding paunch, maythus have originated. But the ungainly thighscould only be accounted for by some radicaldeformity in the royal model, and that he wasa well-made man in this respect his recentlydiscovered bones most clearly show.

Purely tentatively a suggestion may here beoffered to account for this peculiar treatment ofthe human body. It is probable that the kinghad now, in a boyish way, become deeply interestedin the religious contest which was beginningto be waged between Amon-Ra andRa-Horakhti Aton. Having listened to thearguments on both sides, it may have occurredto him to study for himself the ancient documentsand inscriptions bearing on the matter. In sodoing, he would have found that Amon hadbecome the state god only some few hundredyears before his own time, and that previous tohis ascent to this important position, previouseven to the earliest mention of his name, Ra-Horakhtihad been supreme. Carrying hisinquiries back, past the days of the pyramid[71]kings to the archaic Pharaohs who reigned atthe dim beginning of things, he would still havefound the Heliopolitan god worshipped. Oneof the Pharaohs’ most cherished titles was “Sonof the Sun,” which, as we have seen, had beenborne by each successive sovereign since thedays of the Fifth Dynasty, whose kings claimeddescent from Ra himself. Such studies wouldinevitably bring two matters into prominence:firstly, that Amon was, after all, but a usurper;and, secondly, that as Pharaoh he was thedescendant of Ra-Horakhti, and was that god’srepresentative on earth.

On these grounds, more than on any others,all things connected with Amon would becomedistasteful to him. He was too young to understandfully which of the two religions was thebetter morally or theologically; but he wasold enough to be moved by the romance ofhistory, and to feel that those great, shadowyPharaohs who lived when the world was young,and who at the dawn of events worshipped thesun, were the truest and best examples for himto follow. They were his ancestors, and as theywere the sons of Ra, so he, too, was the proud[72]descendant of that great god. In his veinsthere ran the blood of the sun, that “Heat-which-is-in-Aton”pulsed through and throughhim; and the more he read in those old documentsthe more he was stirred by the gloryof that distant past when men worshipped thegod whose rights Amon had usurped. Now thecanons of art were regarded as a distinctlyreligious institution, and the methods of treatingthe human figure then in vogue had in the firstplace the sanction of the priesthood of Amon;and few things would be more upsetting totheirrégime than the abandoning of these canons.This was probably recognised by those whowere furthering the cause of Ra-Horakhti, andthe young king may have been assisted andencouraged in his views. Presently it mayhave been brought home to him that, since hewas thus the representative of those archaickings and the High Priest of their god, it wasfitting that the canons acknowledged by thosefar-off ancestors should be recognised by him.Here, then, he would both please his ownromantic fancy and deal a blow at the Amonpriesthood by banning the art which they upheld,[73]and by infusing into the sculptures and paintingsof his time something of the spirit of themost ancient art of Egypt.

In the old temples of Heliopolis and elsewherea few relics of that period, no doubt, were stillpreserved; and the king was thus able to studythe wood and slate carvings and the ivoryfigures of archaic times. We of the presentday can also study such figures, a few specimenshaving been brought to light by modern excavators;and the similarity between the treatmentof the human body in this archaic art andthe new art of Akhnaton at once becomesapparent. In the accompanying illustrationssome archaic figures are shown, and one mayperhaps see in them the origin of the idiosyncrasiesof the new school. Here and in allrepresentations of archaic men one sees theelongated skull so characteristic of the king’sstyle; in the ivory figure of an archaic Pharaohone sees the well-known droop of Akhnaton’shead and his pointed chin; in the clay andivory figures is the prominent stomach; andhere also, most apparent of all, are the unaccountablylarge thighs and ponderous hips.

Akhnaton’s art might thus be said to bea kind of renaissance—a return to the classicalperiod of archaic days; the underlying motiveof this return being the desire to layemphasis upon the king’s character as therepresentative of that most ancient of allgods, Ra-Horakhti.

Another feature of the new religion nowbecomes apparent. In the worship of Ra-HorakhtiAton there was an endeavour todo honour to the Pharaoh as the son of thesun, and to the god as the founder of theroyal line. Tradition stated that Ra or Ra-Horakhtihad once reigned upon earth, andthat his spirit had passed from Pharaoh toPharaoh. This god was thus the only trueKing of Heaven, and Amon was but a usurperof much more recent date. It was for thisreason that the names of the new god wereplaced within royal cartouches; and for thisreason the king was so careful to call Ra-Horakhtihis “father,” and to name him “godand king.” For this reason also Akhnaton oftenwore the crown of Lower Egypt which was[75]used at Heliopolis, but never the crown ofUpper Egypt, which history told him did notexist when Ra ruled on earth.[30]

Apart from the representation of the humanform, the new art is chiefly characterised byits freedom of poses. An attempt is made tobreak away from tradition, and a desire isshown to have done with the conventions ofthe age. Never before had the artists caughtthe swing of a walk, the relaxation of aseated figure, so well or so truthfully. Sculpturein the round now reached a height ofperfection which places it above all but theart of the Greeks in the old world; andthere is a grace and naturalness in the low-reliefswhich command one’s admiration.

There are only two artists of the periodwho are known by name. The one was acertain Auta, who is represented in a reliefdating from some eight years after the changein the art had taken place. It is a significantfact that this personage held the post of master-artist[76]to Queen Tiy; and it is possible that inhim and his patron we have the originatorsof the movement. The king, however, wasnow old enough to take an active interestin such matters; and the other artist whois known by name, a certain Bek, definitelystates that the king himself taught him.Thus there is reason to suppose that theyoung Pharaoh’s own hand is to be tracedin the new canons, although they were institutedwhen he was but fifteen years old.

8. THE NEW RELIGION DEVELOPS.

There is an interesting record, apparently datingfrom about this period, which is to be seenupon the rocks near the breccia quarries ofWady Hammamât. Here there are three cartouchesstanding upon twoneb signs, symbolicof sovereignty, and above them is the disk andrays of the new religion. One of these cartouches,surmounted by the tall feathers wornby the queens of this period, contains a veryshort name, which can only be that of Queen[77]Tiy.[31] The other two cartouches contain thenames Amonhotep (IV.) and the Pharaoh’s seconddesignation. Thus we see that after the newreligious symbol had been introduced, and justbefore the king took the name of “Akhnaton,”Queen Tiy still held equal royal rank with him,and was evidently Regent.

During the fifteenth to the seventeenth yearsof his age the king devoted a considerableamount of time and thought to the changeswhich were taking place. With the enthusiasmof youth he threw himself into the new movement,and one may suppose that it requiredall Queen Tiy’s tact and diplomacy to keep himfrom offending his country by some rash actionagainst the priesthood of Amon. Those priestswere by no means reconciled to the king’s devotionto Ra-Horakhti; and although he stillnominally served the Theban god, they felt thatevery day he was becoming more estranged fromthat deity. No doubt there were many passages[78]of arms between the High Priest of Amon-Raand this royal High Priest of the sun,young as he was. The new art, upsetting allthe old religious conventions, was distastefulto the priests; the new religious thought didnot conform to their stereotyped doctrines; andmuch that the king said was absolutely hereticalto their ears. The tide of new thought, directedin so eager and boyishly unreserved a manner,was sweeping them from their feet, and theyknew not whither they were being carried.

The court officials blindly followed their youngking, and to every word which he spoke theylistened attentively. Sometimes the thoughtswhich he voiced came direct from the mazes ofhis own mind; sometimes perhaps he repeatedthe utterances of his deep-thinking mother;and sometimes there passed from his lips thepearls of wisdom which he had gleaned fromthe wise men of his court. It had been theboy’s desire to listen to the dreams of theEast, to receive into his brain those speculationswhich ever meander so charmedly throughthe lands more near the sunrise. At his behestthe dreamers of Asia related to him their visions;[79]the philosophers made pregnant his mind withthe mystery of knowledge; the poets sung tohim harp-songs in which echoed the cry of theelder days; the priests of strange gods submittedto him the creeds of strange people.To him was made known the sweetness of thelegends of Greece. The laughter of the woodsrang in his ears, though never in narrowEgypt had he felt the enchantment of greatforests. He had not seen the mountains, andthe wooded slopes which rise from the Mediterraneanwere scenes but dreamed of; and yetit was the flute of Pan and the song of thenymphs in the mountain streams which set thethoughts dancing within his misshapen skull.He had not walked in the shadow of the cedarsof Lebanon, nor had he ascended the Syrianhills; but nevertheless the hymns of Adonis andthe chants of Baal were as familiar to him aswere the solemn chants of Amon-Ra. The rose-gardensof Persia, the incense-groves of Araby,added their philosophies to his dreams, and thehaunting lips of Babylon whispered to himtales of far-off days. From Sardinia, Sicily,Crete, and Cyprus there came to him the[80]doctrines of those who had business in greatwaters; and Libya and Ethiopia disclosed theirmysteries to his eager ears. The fertile brainof the Pharaoh was thus sown at an earlyage with the seed of all that was wonderful inthe world of thought.

It must always be remembered that the kinghad much foreign blood in his veins. On theother hand, those men to whom he spoke, thoughhighly educated, were but superstitious Egyptianswho could not relieve themselves of the beliefthat a divine power rested upon the Pharaoh.Thus his speculative young brain poured itsfantasies into attentive minds unbiassed by rivalspeculations, though narrowed by conventions.Egyptians, ever lacking in originality, havealways possessed the power to imitate andadapt; and those nobles whose fortunes weredependent upon the royal favour soon learnt toattune their minds to the note of their king.Daily they must have gone about their business,ostentatiously attempting to hold to the difficultpath of truth; laboriously telling themselveswhat wonders the new thought revealed to them;loudly praising the wisdom of the boy-Pharaoh;[81]and nervously asking themselves whether andwhen the wrath of Amon would smite them.

Thus encouraged, the king and his motherdeveloped their speculations, and drew into theircircle of followers some of the greatest nobles ofthe land. A striking example of this proselytisingis to be found in the tomb of the VizirRames. It has already been stated that thatofficial had constructed for himself a sepulchrein the Theban necropolis, upon the walls of whichhe had first caused a portrait of the young kingto be sculptured in the old conventional style,and later had added another portrait of thePharaoh standing beneath the radiating beamsof the sun, executed in the new style. Ramesnow added various other scenes and inscriptions,and he records a certain speech made by the kingto him, and his own reply.

Thus one sees how the king was already formulatingsome kind of doctrine in his head, and thatthe nobles were receiving it; but it is significantthat there are here representations of Ramesloaded with gifts by the Pharaoh, as though inreward for his allegiance. The Pharaoh seems,indeed, to have showered honours upon thosewho appeared to grasp intelligently the thoughtswhich were still immature in his own head; andthere must have been many an antagonist whorallied to his standard from the sheer love ofgold. The king was in need of all the supportwhich he could muster, for an open break withthe priesthood of Amon-Ra grew more and moreprobable as his doctrines shaped themselves inhis mind; and although the people of Egypt asa whole would, without question, follow theirPharaoh for the one reason that hewas Pharaoh,there was every probability that the Amon priesthoodand the Theban populace would make something[83]of a stand against any infringement of therights of their local god.

The young Pharaoh seems to have been verypopular, and one may presume that he inherited,from his illustrious fathers, the charm of mannerwhich there is not a little evidence to showthey possessed. Throughout his life, and forsome years after his death, he retained theaffection of his people; and when one considershow faithfully his nobles followed him so longas he had strength and health to lead them,and how completely lost they were at his death,one realises how great an influence he must haveexerted over them. Even at this early age theyseem to have possessed a deep regard for thegrave, thoughtful boy; and behind all the pretence,the hypocrisy, and the merely conventionalloyalty, one surely catches a glimpse of astrong, personal affection for the king.

We must here record the birth of the king’sfirst daughter, which occurred in about the fifthyear of his reign, when he was some sixteen yearsof age, and when Nefertiti was about thirteenyears old. The child was named Merytaton,“Beloved of Aton”; and though the advent of[84]a daughter instead of a son must have been agrave disappointment to the royal couple, a remarkabledegree of affection was lavished uponthe little girl, as will be apparent in the sequel.

9. THE NATURE OF THE NEW RELIGION.

There was nothing strikingly exalted in thereligion which was now so filling the king’s mind.Ra-Horakhti Aton was in no wise considered asthe only god: there were as yet no ideas ofmonotheism in the doctrine. In the new templeat Karnak, as we have seen, Horus, Set, Wepwat,and other gods were named; and elsewhereAmon was reluctantly recognised. The goddessMaat, in the tomb of Rames, was not obliteratedfrom the walls, but still stood protecting the king;and in the same tomb Horus of Edfu is invoked.In the tomb of Horemheb, Horus, Osiris, Isis,Nephthys, and Hathor are mentioned, and thegods of the Necropolis still receive honour;Horemheb himself still holds the honorary postof High Priest of Horus, Lord of Alabastronpolis;Thoth and Maat are referred to; and there is[85]a magical prayer to Ra, which is by no meansof lofty character. Scarabs of this period speakof the Pharaoh as beloved of Thoth. And ina letter to the king dated in the fifth year ofhis reign, Ptah and “the gods and goddesses”of Memphis are referred to.

This letter is of such interest that a fulleraccount of it must here be given. It wasaddressed to the king, who is still called Amonhotep,by a royal steward named Apiy, wholived at Memphis. Two copies of the letterwere found at Gurob,[33] both dated in the fifthyear of the king’s reign, the third month ofwinter, and the nineteenth day. The letterbegins with the full titles of the Pharaoh, includingthe phrase “living in truth,” whichfrom this time onwards was always added tohis name. Then follows the invocation: “MayPtah of the beautiful countenance work forthee, who created thy beauties, thy true fatherwho raised (?) thee from his house to rule theorbit of the Aton.” Next comes the real businessof the letter: “A communication is thisto the Master, [to whom be] life, prosperity, and[86]health, to give information that the temple ofthy father Ptah ... is sound and prosperous;the house of Pharaoh ... is flourishing; theestablishments of Pharaoh ... are flourishing;the residence of Pharaoh ... is flourishing andhealthy; the offerings of all the gods and goddesseswho are upon the soil (?) of Memphis are... complete; complete [are they] there is nothingdelayed from them.” Again the titles of the kingare given, and the letter ends with the date.

Thus in the fifth year of the king’s reign,when he was about sixteen years of age, thevarious gods of Egypt were still acknowledged;and, though the art had been changed and theworship of Ra-Horakhti under the name of Atonhad made great strides towards supremacy, thereis as yet no sign of the lofty monotheism whichthe Pharaoh was soon to propound.

In the portions of the tomb of Horemheb whichdate from this period, Ra-Horakhti is invokedin the following words: “Ra-Horakhti, greatgod, Lord of heaven, Lord of earth, who comethforth from his horizon and illuminateth theTwo Lands [of Egypt], the sun of darknessas the great one, as Ra;” and again: “Ra,[87]Lord of Truth, great god, sovereign of Heliopolis,... Horakhti, only god, king of the gods, whorises in the west and sendeth forth his beauty.”From other sources, which we have seen, thegod is called “Ra-Horakhti rejoicing in thehorizon in his name Heat-which-is-in-Aton.”

Here we have simply the old religion ofHeliopolis, to which has been grafted somethingof the doctrines of the Syrian Adonisor Aton. At Heliopolis there was a sacredbull, known as Mnevis, which was regarded as theliving personification of Ra-Horakhti, and whichwas treated with divine honours, like the morefamous Apis bull of Memphis. Even this superstitionwas accepted by the king at this time,and continued to be acknowledged by him foryet another year or two.[34] The “Heat-which-is-in-Aton”offered food for much speculation, and,by directing the attention to an intangible qualityof the sun, opened up the widest fields for religiousthought. But, with this exception, there wasnothing as yet in the new religion to commandone’s admiration.

III.
AKHNATON FOUNDS A NEW CITY.

1. THE BREAK WITH THE PRIESTHOODOF AMON-RA.

The expected break with the priesthood ofAmon was not long in coming. One knowsnothing of the details of the quarrel, but itmay be supposed that Akhnaton himself flungdown the gauntlet, making the rash attemptto rid himself of the weight of an organisationwhich had proved such a drag upon his actions.There is no evidence to show that he disbandedthe priesthood, or prohibited the worshipof Amon at this period of his reign; but asthe ultimate persecution of that god, some[89]years later, commenced very soon after thedeath of his mother, one may suppose thatit was her restraining influence which preventedhim from precipitating a struggle to the deathwith the god of Thebes. The king was nowentering upon the sixth year of his reign andthe seventeenth of his age, and he was alreadydeveloping in his mind theories and principleswhich were soon to produce radical changes inthe new religion of the Court. He found, nodoubt, that it was hopeless to attempt toconvert the people of Thebes to the newdoctrines; and daily he realised the moreclearly that the development either of thefaith of Ra-Horakhti Aton, or of the idealswhich he was beginning to find therein,was cramped and checked by the hostilityof the influences which pressed around hisimmediate circle. From the walls of everytemple, from pylons and gateways, pillars andobelisks, the figure of Amon stared down athim in defiance; and everywhere he was confrontedwith the tokens of that god’s power.His little temple at Karnak was overshadowedby the larger buildings of Amon; and the[90]few priests who served at the new altar werelost amidst the crowds of the ministers of theTheban god. How could the flower thriveand bloom in such uncongenial soil? How couldthe sun shine through such density of conventionaltradition?

The king, no doubt, endeavoured to cripplethe priesthood of Amon by cutting down itsbudget as much as possible, and by attemptingto win over to his side some of thepriests of high standing. Had he succeeded inreducing it to the rank of the smaller cults,it is probable that he would have been satisfiedso to leave it; for at this time he wishedonly to place Ra-Horakhti in a position ofundoubted supremacy above all other gods.But the vast resources of Amon seemed unconquerable,and there appeared to be littlechance of reducing the priesthood to a positionof inferior rank.

In this dilemma the king took a stepwhich had been for some time consideredin his mind and in the minds of his advisers.He decided to abandon Thebes. He wouldbuild a city far away from all contaminating[91]influences, and there he would hold his courtand worship his god. On clean, new soil, hewould establish the earthly home of Ra-HorakhtiAton, and there, with his faithfulfollowers, he would develop those schemeswhich now so filled his brain. Thus also,by reducing Thebes to the position of a provincialtown, he might lessen the power ofthe priesthood of Amon; for no longer wouldAmon be the royal god, the god of the capital.He would shake the dust of Thebes fromoff his sandals, and never again would heallow himself to be baffled and irritated bythe sight of the glories of Amon.

The first step which he took was that ofchanging his name from Amonhotep, “The-Peace-of-Amon,”to Akhnaton, “The-Glory-of-Aton”;and from that time forth the wordAmon hardly passed his lips. He retainedtwo of his other names,—i.e., “Beautiful-is-the-Being-of-Ra,”and “The-Only-One-of-Ra,” thelatter being often used by him; but such titlesand names as that which made mention ofKarnak be entirely dispensed with. He nowlaid more stress upon the nature of his god[92]as “Aton” or “the Aton”[35] than as Ra-Horakhti;and from this time onwards the nameRa-Horakhti becomes less and less prominent,though retained throughout the king’s reign.

2. AKHNATON SELECTS THE SITE OF HIS CITY.

Down the river it would seem that the youngPharaoh now sailed in his royaldahabiyeh, lookingto right and left as he went, now inspectingthis site and now examining that. At last hecame upon a place which suited his fancy to perfection.It was situated about 160 miles above themodern Cairo. At this point the limestone cliffsupon the east bank leave the river and recede forabout three miles, returning to the water somefive or six miles farther along. Thus a bay isformed which is protected on its west side bythe river in which there here lies a small island,and in all other directions by the crescent of the[93]cliffs. Upon the island he would erect pavilionsand pleasure-houses. Along the edge of the riverthere was a narrow strip of cultivated land whereonhe would plant his palace gardens, and thoseof the nobles’ villas. Behind this verdant bandthe smooth desert stretched, and here he wouldbuild the palace itself and the great temples.Behind this again, the sand and gravel surfaceof the wilderness gently sloped up to the footof the cliffs, and here there would be roads andcauseways whereon the chariots might be whirledin the early mornings. In the face of the cliffshe would cut his tomb and those of his followers;and at intervals around the crescent of thesehills he would cause great boundary-stones tobe made, so that all men might know andrespect the limits of his city. What splendidquays would edge the river, what palaces reflecttheir whiteness in its waters! There would bebroad shaded avenues, and shimmering lakes surroundedby the fairest trees of Asia. Templeswould raise their lofty pylons to the blue skies,and broad courts should lie stretched in thesunlight.

In Akhnaton’s youthful mind there already[94]stood the temples and the mansions; already heheard the sound of sweet music. The laughterof maidens was added to the singing of thebirds which he heard in the trees; the pompof imperial Egypt displaced the farm-houses andthe fields of corn which now occupied the site;and the song of the shepherd in the wildernesswas changed to the rolling psalms of the Aton.Fair was this dream and enthralling to thedreamer. To Queen Tiy it probably did notappeal so strongly; for Thebes was full ofassociations to her, and her palace beside thelake was very dear. There is, indeed, everyreason to suppose that the dowager-queen livedon at Thebes after her son had abandoned it.

3. THE FIRST FOUNDATION INSCRIPTION.

Preparations were soon made for the layingout of the city, and in a very short timeAkhnaton was called upon to visit the site inorder to perform the foundation ceremonies.Fortunately the inscriptions upon some of theboundary tablets in the desert tell us something[95]of the manner in which the king marked thelimits of the city.[36] The first inscription readsas follows:—

Year 6, fourth month of the second season,day 13.[37] ... On this day the King was inthe City of the Horizon of Aton.[38] His Majestyascended a great chariot of electrum, [appearing]like Aton when he rises from his [eastern]horizon and fills the land with his love; andhe started a goodly course [from his campingplace] to the City of the Horizon.... Heavenwas joyful, earth was glad, and every heart washappy when they saw him. And his Majestyoffered a great sacrifice to Aton, of bread, beer,horned bulls, polled bulls, beasts, fowl, wine,incense, frankincense, and all goodly herbs onthis day of demarcating the City of theHorizon....

After these things, the good pleasure of Atonbeing done, ... [the King returned from] theCity of the Horizon, and he rested upon his greatthrone with which he is well pleased, which[96]uplifts his beauties. And his Majesty continuedin the presence of his father Aton, and Atonshone upon him in life and length of days,invigorating his body each day.

And his Majesty said, “Bring me the companionsof the King, the great ones and themighty ones, the captains of soldiers, and thenobles of the land in its entirety.” And theywere conducted to him straightway, and theylay on their bellies before his Majesty, kissingthe ground before his mighty will.

And his Majesty said unto them, “Ye beholdthe City of the Horizon of Aton, which theAton has desired me to make for him as amonument in the great name of my Majestyfor ever. For it was the Aton, my father,that brought me to this City of the Horizon.There was not a noble who directed me to it;there was not any man in the whole landwho led me to it, saying, ‘It is fitting for hisMajesty that he make a City of the Horizonof Aton in this place.’ Nay, but it was theAton, my father, that directed me to it tomake it for him.... Behold the Pharaoh foundthat [this site] belonged not to a god, nor toa goddess, it belonged not to a prince, nor toa princess. There was no right for any manto act as owner of it.” ...

[... And they answered and said] “Lo!it is Aton that putteth [the thought] in thyheart regarding any place that he desires. He[97]doth not uplift the name of any King exceptthy Majesty; he doth not [exalt] any otherexcept [thee.] ... Thou drawest unto Atonevery land, thou adornest for him the towns whichhe had made for his own self, all lands, allcountries, the Hanebu [39] with their products andtheir tribute upon their backs for him that madetheir life, and by whose rays one lives andbreathes the air. May he grant eternity inseeing his rays.... Verily, the City of theHorizon will thrive like Aton in heaven for everand ever.”

Then his Majesty lifted his hand to heavenunto Him that formed him, saying, “As myfather Ra-Horakhti Aton liveth, the great andliving Aton, ordaining life, vigorous in life, myfather, my rampart of a million cubits, my remembrancerof eternity, my witness of thatwhich pertains to eternity, who formeth himselfwith his own hands, whom no artificer hathknown, who is established in rising and in settingeach day without ceasing. Whether he isin heaven or in earth,[40] every eye seeth himwithout [failing,] while he fills the land withhis beams and makes every face to live. Withseeing whom may my eyes be satisfied daily,when he rises in this temple of Aton in theCity of the Horizon, and fills it with his ownself by his beams, beauteous in love, and lays[98]them upon me in life and length of days forever and ever.

“I will make the City of the Horizon ofAton for the Aton, my father, in this place. Iwill not make the City south of it, north of it,west of it, or east of it. I will not pass beyondthe southern boundary-stone southward, neitherwill I pass beyond the northern boundary-stonenorthward to make for him a City of the Horizonthere; neither will I make for him a city onthe western side. Nay, but I will make theCity of the Horizon for the Aton, my father,upon the east side, the place which he didenclose for his own self with cliffs, and madea plain (?) in the midst of it that I might sacrificeto him thereon: this is it. Neither shallthe Queen say unto me, ‘Behold, there is agoodly place for the City of the Horizon inanother place,’ and I hearken unto her. Neithershall any noble nor [any one] of all men whoare in the whole land [say unto me], ‘Behold,there is a goodly place for the City of theHorizon in another place,’ and I hearken untothem. Whether it be down-stream or southwards,or westwards, or eastwards, I will not say ‘Iwill abandon this City of the Horizon and willhasten away and make the City of the Horizonin this other goodly place’ for ever. Nay,but I did find this City of the Horizon forthe Aton, which he had himself desired, andwith which he is pleased for ever and ever.

[99]

“I will make a temple of Aton for theAton, my father, in this place. I will makea ... of Aton for the Aton, my father, inthis place. I will make a Shadow-of-the-Sun [41]of the Great Wife of the King, Nefertiti, forthe Aton, my father, in this place. I willmake a House of Rejoicing for the Aton, myfather, on the island of ‘Aton illustrious inFestivals’ in this place.... I will make allworks which are necessary for the Aton, myfather, in this place. I will make ... for theAton, my father, in this place. I will makefor myself the Palace of Pharaoh; and I willmake the Palace of the Queen in this place.There shall be made for me a sepulchre in theeastern hills; my burial shall be made therein ...and the burial of the Chief Wife of the King, Nefertiti,shall be made therein, and the burial of theKing’s daughter Merytaton shall be made therein.If I die in any town of the north, south, west,or east, I will be brought here and my burial shallbe made in the City of the Horizon. If the GreatQueen, Nefertiti, who lives, die in any town of thenorth, south, west, or east, she shall be brought hereand buried in the City of the Horizon. If theKing’s daughter Merytaton die in any town ofthe north, south, west, or east, she shall be broughthere and buried in the City of the Horizon. Andthe sepulchre of Mnevis shall be made in the[100]eastern hills and he shall be buried therein. Thetombs of the High Priests and the Divine Fathersand the priests of the Aton shall be made inthe eastern hills, and they shall be buried therein.The tombs of the officers, and others, shall bemade in the eastern hills, and they shall beburied therein.

“For as my father Ra-Horakhti Aton liveth ...[the words?] of the priests, more evil are theythan those things which I heard until the yearfour, more evil are they than those things whichI have heard in ... more evil are they thanthose things which King [Nebmaara [42]] heard,more evil are they than those things whichMenkheperura [43] heard....”

The rest of the inscription is so much brokenthat only a few words here and there can beread. They seem to refer to the king’s furtherprojects,—how he will make ships to sail to andfrom the city, how he will build granaries, celebratefestivals, plant trees, and so on.

The reference to the year four is very interesting,and it would seem that it was at aboutthat date that the king’s eyes were opened tothe necessity of making war upon the priesthood[101]of Amon. As we have seen, it was in aboutthe fourth year of his reign that the greatchanges in the art took place, and the symbolof the sun’s rays was introduced into thesculptures. The mention of the two previousPharaohs shows that troubles were alreadybrewing then; but it had remained for theenergetic young Akhnaton to bring matters toa head.

4. THE SECOND FOUNDATION INSCRIPTION.

The inscription recording these events wasprobably not written until some months afterthey had occurred. Just when the engravershad made an end of their work a second daughterwas born to the king and queen, whom theynamed Meketaton; and orders were given thather figure should be added upon the boundarytablet beside that of her sister, which already appearedthere with Akhnaton and Nefertiti. Theking was somewhat distressed that a son hadnot been granted to him; for the thought wasbitter that, in the event of his death, all his[102]projects would fall to the ground. He thereforealtered the wording of the inscriptions aboutto be written on the other boundary tablets; and,by including his oath in the text, he added aneven greater integrity to the decree. The nameof the second daughter was now inserted in thisinscription, which reads:—

Year six, fourth month of the second season,thirteenth day.

On this day the King was in the City of theHorizon of Aton, in the parti-coloured tent madefor his Majesty in the City of the Horizon, thename of which is “The Aton is well pleased.”And his Majesty ascended a great chariot of electrum,drawn by a span of horses, and [he appeared]like Aton when he rises from the horizon and fillsthe two lands with his love. And he started agoodly course to the City of the Horizon, on this thefirst occasion, ... to dedicate it as a monumentto the Aton, even as his father Ra-Horakhti Atonhad given command.... And he caused a greatsacrifice to be offered.

And his Majesty went southward, and haltedon his chariot before his father Ra-Horakhti Aton,at the [foot of the] south-east hills, and Aton shoneupon him in life and length of days, invigoratinghis body every day.

[103]

Now this is the oath pronounced by the King:—

“As my father Ra-Horakhti Aton liveth, asmy heart is happy in the Queen and her children—asto whom may it be granted that the Chief Wifeof the King, Nefertiti, living for ever and ever, growaged after a multitude of years, in the care of thePharaoh, and may it be granted that the King’sdaughter Merytaton and the King’s daughterMeketaton, her children, grow old in the care ofthe Chief Wife of the King, their mother....

“This is my oath of truth which it is my desireto pronounce, and of which I will not say ‘It isfalse’ eternally for ever.

“The southern boundary-stone which is on theeastern hills. It is the boundary-stone of the Cityof the Horizon, namely this one by which I havemade halt. I will not pass beyond it southwardsfor ever and ever. Make the south-west boundary-stoneopposite it on the western hills of the Cityof the Horizon exactly.

“The middle boundary-stone which is on theeastern hills. It is the boundary-stone of the Cityof the Horizon by which I have made halt on theeastern hills of the City of the Horizon. I willnot pass beyond it eastwards for ever and ever.Make the middle boundary-stone which is to beon the western hills opposite it exactly.

“The north-eastern boundary-stone by which Ihave made halt. It is the northern boundary-stoneof the City of the Horizon. I will not pass beyond[104]it down-stream for ever and ever. Make the northboundary-stone which is to be on the western hillsopposite it exactly.

“And the City of the Horizon of Aton extendsfrom the south boundary-stone as far as the northboundary-stone, measured between boundary-stoneand boundary-stone on the eastern, hills [whichmeasurement] amounts to 6ater,[44] ¾khe, and 4cubits. Likewise from the south-west boundary-stoneto the north-west boundary-stone on thewestern hills [the measurement] amounts to 6ater,¾khe, and 4 cubits likewise exactly.

“And the area within these four boundary-stonesfrom the eastern hills to the western hills is theCity of the Horizon of Aton in its proper self.It belongs to my father Ra-Horakhti Aton: mountains,deserts, meadows, islands, high-ground, low-ground,land, water, villages, embankments, men,beasts, groves, and all things which the Aton myfather shall bring into existence for ever and ever.

“I will not neglect this oath which I havemade to the Aton my father for ever and ever;nay, but it shall be set on a tablet of stone asthe south-east boundary, likewise as the north-eastboundary of the City of the Horizon; and itshall be set likewise on a tablet of stone as thesouth-west boundary, likewise as the north-westboundary of the City of the Horizon. It shallnot be erased, it shall not be washed out, it shall[105]not be kicked, it shall not be struck with stones,its spoiling shall not be brought about. If it bemissing, if it be spoilt, if the tablet on which itis shall fall, I will renew it again afresh in theplace in which it was.”

5. THE DEPARTURE FROM THEBES.

From the above inscription one sees thatAkhnaton had now decided to include thewest bank of the river, opposite to the originalsite, in the new domain; and the greatboundary tablets are there to be found as onthe eastern side. By the time these decreeswere engraved the Pharaoh was nearly eighteenyears of age; and these developments inhis plans are the natural signs of the progressof his brain towards that of a grown man.

Having laid the foundations of the city, theking probably returned to Thebes, where hewaited as patiently as possible for his dreamto take concrete form. This period of waitingmust have been peculiarly trying to him, forhis troubles with the Amon priesthood musthave embittered his days. He seems, however,[106]to have been extremely devoted to his wife,Nefertiti, who had now grown, it would seem,into a beautiful young woman of fifteen orsixteen years of age; and the arrival of thesecond baby afforded an interest which meantmuch to him. One may now picture the kingand queen living, in the seclusion of the palace,a homely, simple existence, ever dwelling ina happy day-dream upon the future glories ofthe new city, and the rising power of thereligion of Aton. Akhnaton’s ill-health, ofcourse, must have caused both his friendsand himself much anxiety; but even this hadits compensations, for those who suffer fromepilepsy are by the gods beloved, and Akhnaton,no doubt, believed the hallucinations due tohis disease to be god-given visions. Theremust have been a very considerable amountof business to be worked through in connectionwith the building of the city, and hecould have had little time to brood upon whathe now considered to be the wrongs inflictedupon him and his house by the priests ofAmon.

So passed the seventh year of his reign[107]without any particular records to mark it.At Aswan there is a monument which perhapsdates from about this period. The king’schief sculptor, Bek, was there employed inobtaining red granite for the decoration ofthe new city; and he caused to be madeupon a large rock a commemorative tablet.On it one sees him before Akhnaton, whosefigure has been erased at a later date; andthe altar of the Aton, above which are theusual sun’s rays, stands beside them. Bek callshimself “The Chief of the Works in the Red[Granite] Hills, the assistant whom his Majestyhimself taught, Chief of the Sculptors onthe great and mighty monuments of theKing in the house of Aton in the City ofthe Horizon of Aton.” Here also one seesMen, the father of Bek, who was also Chiefof the Sculptors, presenting an offering to astatue of Amonhotep III., under whom he hadserved.

The eighth year of Akhnaton’s reign, and thenineteenth year of his age, was memorable, forit would seem that he now took up his permanentresidence in the City of the Horizon. On some[108]of the boundary tablets a repetition of the royaloath is recorded; and, as this is the last mentionofa visit made by Akhnaton to the new capital,one may suppose that henceforth he was residentthere. The inscription reads:—

Then follows a list of these boundary-stones,and the inscription ends with the words:—

Thus was the king’s city planned and laid[109]out. The two years of feverish work hadprobably produced considerable results, andalready we may picture the city taking form.The royal palace was perhaps almost finishedby now, and the villas of some of the nobleswere habitable. With many a sigh of reliefAkhnaton must have bade farewell to Thebes. Athird daughter, who was named Ankhsenpaaton,had just been born; and one may thus picturethe royal party which sailed down the riveras being very distinctly a family. One seesAkhnaton, a sickly young man of nineteen yearsof age, walking to and fro upon the deck of theroyal vessel, with his hand upon the shoulderof his fair young wife, now some seventeen yearsold, in whose arms the baby princess is carried.Toddling beside them are the two other princesses,one somewhat over two years of age, the otherabout four years. The queen’s sister, Nezemmut,records of whose existence soon become apparent,was perhaps also of the party, having left thecourt of Mitanni to be a companion to Nefertiti.Ay and Ty, the foster-parents of Nefertiti, weredoubtless with the royal family now as theysailed down the river; and several of the nobles[110]who play a part in the following pages no doubtformed the suite which attended to the royalcommands.

6. THE AGE OF AKHNATON.

We have spoken of the king as being nineteenyears old. The story has now reached a pointat which we must pause to consider this vexedquestion of Akhnaton’s age. In the abovepages it has been said that the Pharaoh wasabout eleven years old at his marriage andaccession to the throne; was fifteen when thecanons of art were changed and the symbols ofthe Aton religion introduced; was seventeenwhen the foundations of the new city were laid;and was nineteen when he took up his residencethere. Let us study these ages in the aboveorder.

Firstly, then, as to the king’s marriage. Themummy of Thothmes IV., the grandfather ofAkhnaton, has been shown by Dr Elliot Smithto be that of a man not more than about twenty-sixyears of age. That king was succeeded by[111]his son Amonhotep III., who is known to havebeen married to Queen Tiy before the secondyear of his reign, and to have been old enoughat that time to begin to hunt big game. Itwould be difficult to believe that he would bepermitted to join any hunting party, howeversecure against accident, before the twelfth yearof his age; but, on the other hand, if he wasmore than that age, his father would have tohave been less than twelve athis marriage.Thus the only possible conclusion is that bothThothmes IV. and Amonhotep III. were barelythirteen when they were married, and verypossibly even younger. This is shown to be acorrect conclusion by the fact that the mummyof Amonhotep III. has been pronounced by DrElliot Smith to be that of a man of forty-five orfifty; and as he reigned thirty-six years he musthave beenat most fourteen, and probably someyears younger, at his accession and marriage.

There is not sufficient evidence to show atwhat ages the previous Pharaohs of the dynastyhad married, but as Akhnaton’s father andgrandfather entered into matrimony at thisearly age, it would not be safe to suppose[112]that he himself delayed his marriage till alater age. Queen Tiy was in all probabilitymarried when she was ten or eleven years old.[45]Akhnaton’s daughter Merytaton, who was bornin the fourth or fifth year of his reign, was, aswill be seen in due course, married before theseventeenth year of the reign—that is to say,when she was twelve or younger. The PrincessAnkhsenpaaton, who was born in the eighthyear, was married, at latest, two years afterAkhnaton’s death—i.e., when she was eleven.Another of Akhnaton’s daughters, Nefernefernaton,who has not yet appeared, was bornin her father’s eleventh year and was marriedbefore the fifteenth, and therefore could onlyhave been four or five years of age.

Child-marriages such as these are commonin Egypt, even at the present day. Thosewho have lived on the Nile, and have studiedthe national habits, will assuredly fix the probableage of a royalmariage de convenance atabout thirteen years, and will agree that elevenand twelve are also highly likely ages.

Secondly, as to Akhnaton’s age at the[113]changing of the art. In the biography ofBakenkhonsu, the High Priest of Amon underRameses II., that official tells us that he arrivedat the state of manhood at the age of sixteen,and one may therefore suppose that this wasthe recognised legal age at which a man becamea responsible agent in Egypt. Now it hasbeen clearly seen that Akhnaton was under theregency of his mother during the first yearsof his reign, and mention has been made ofthe inscription at Wady Hammamât, where,although the new symbol of the religion isshown, Queen Tiy’s name is placed beside thatof her son in an equally honourable position.She was thus still Queen Regent when the artwas changed, and her son could not yet havecome of age—i.e., he must then have been undersixteen.

Thirdly, we have to consider the questionof his age when he laid the foundations of thenew city. This was the first decisive actionperformed by the king in which his motherhas no concern, and of which she perhaps evendisapproved, and it surely marks the periodat which he took the government into his[114]own hands. If, like Bakenkhonsu, he came ofage at sixteen, in the fifth year of his reign, thefounding of the new capital in the followingyear would well fit in with the suppositionthat the abandoning of Thebes marks the dateof the king’s arrival at maturity.

It may be asked how so young a personcould conceive that great dream of the newcity dedicated to the Aton. But, after all, hewas seventeen years of age when the ideacame to him, nineteen when he had properlydeveloped the plan, and perhaps as much astwenty when he took up his residence there.Akhnaton’s greatness, as will be seen later,dates from the height of his reign in the Cityof the Horizon, and not from his early years.Still, when one calls to mind the infant prodigies,the child preachers who stir an audienceat the age of twelve, one may credit a boy ofsixteen or seventeen with the planning of a newcity. Even in the cold Occident such youthfulwiseacres are not rare, and surely theyblossom forth less infrequently in the maturingwarmth of the Orient.

IV.
AKHNATON FORMULATES THERELIGION OF ATON.

1. ATON THE TRUE GOD.

Amidst the fair palaces and verdant gardensof the new city, Akhnaton, now a man of sometwenty years, turned his thoughts fully to thedevelopment of his religion. It is necessary,therefore, for us to glance at the essentialfeatures of this the most enlightened doctrineof the ancient world, and in some degree tomake ourselves acquainted with the creed whichthe king himself was evolving out of that worshipof Ra-Horakhti Aton in which he hadbeen educated.

Originally the Aton was the actual sun’s disk;but, as has been said, the god was now called“Heat-which-is-in-Aton,” and Akhnaton, concentratinghis attention on this aspect of thegodhead, drew the eyes of his followers towardsa force far more intangible and distant thanthe dazzling orb to which they bowed down.Akhnaton’s conception of God, as we now beginto observe it, was as the power which createdthe sun, the energy which penetrated to thisearth in the sun’s heat and caused all thingsto grow. At the present day the scientist willtell you that God is the ultimate source of life,that where natural explanation fails there Godis to be found: He is, in a word, the authorof energy, the primal motive-power of all knownthings. Akhnaton, centuries upon centuries beforethe birth of the scientist, defined God injust this manner. In an age when men believed,as some do still, that a deity was but an exaggeratedcreature of this earth, having a formbuilt on material lines, this youthful Pharaohproclaimed God to be the formless essence,the intelligent germ, the loving force, whichpermeated time and space. Let it be clearly[117]understood that the Aton as conceived by theyoung Pharaoh was in no sense one of thoseold deities which our God ultimately replacedin Egypt. The Aton is God as we conceiveHim. There is no quality attributed by theking to the Aton which we do not attributeto our God. Like a flash of blinding light inthe night-time the Aton stands out for amoment amidst the black Egyptian darkness,and disappears once more,—the first signal tothis world of the future religion of the West.No man whose mind is free from prejudice willfail to see a far closer resemblance to the teachingsof Christ in the religion of Akhnaton thanin that of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Thefaith of the patriarchs is the lineal ancestorof the Christian faith; but the creed of Akhnatonis its isolated prototype. One might believethat Almighty God had for a moment revealedhimself to Egypt, and had been more clearly,though more momentarily, interpreted there thanever He was in Syria or Palestine before thetime of Christ.

2. ATON THE TENDER FATHER OF ALLCREATION.

Amon-Ra and the old gods of Egypt were,for the most part, but deified mortals, enduedwith monstrous, though limited, powers, and stillhaving around them traditions of aggrandisedhuman deeds. Others, we have seen, had theirorigin in natural phenomena: the wind, the Nile,the starry heavens, and the like. All wereterrific or revengeful, if so they had a mindto be, and all were able to be moved by humanemotions. But to Akhnaton, although he hadabsolutely no precedent upon which to launchhis thoughts, God was the intangible and yetever-present Father of mankind, made manifestin sunshine. The youthful high priest calledupon his subjects to search for their God notin the confusion of battle or behind the smokeof human sacrifices, but amidst the flowers andthe trees, amidst the wild duck and the fishes.He preached an enlightened nature-study: insome respects he was, perhaps, the first apostleof the Simple Life.

He strove to break down conventional thought,and ceaselessly he urged his people to worship“in truth,” simply, without an excess of ceremonial.While the elder gods had been apparentin natural convulsions and in the moreawful incidents of life, Akhnaton’s kindly fathercould be seen in the little details of existence,in the growing poppies, in the soft wind whichfilled the sails of the ships, in the fish whichleapt from the river. Like a greater than he,Akhnaton taught his disciples to address theirmaker as their “Father which art in Heaven.”The Aton was the joy which caused the youngsheep “to dance upon their legs,” and the birds“to flutter in their marshes.” He was the godof the simple pleasures of life; and althoughAkhnaton himself was indeed a man of sorrows,plenteously acquainted with grief, happiness wasthe watchword which he gave to his followers.

Akhnaton did not permit any graven image tobe made of the Aton. The True God, said theking, had no form; and he held to this opinionthroughout his life. The symbol of the religionwas the sun’s disk, from which there extendednumerous rays, each ray ending in a hand; but[120]this symbol was not worshipped. To Christians,in the same way, the cross is the symbol oftheir creed; but the cross itself is not worshipped.Never before had man conceived aformless deity, a god who was not endowedwith the five human senses. The Hebrew patriarchsbelieved God to be capable of walkingin a garden in the cool of the evening, to havemade man in his own image, to be possessed offace, form, and hinder parts. But Akhnaton,stemming with his hand the flood of tradition,boldly proclaimed God to be a life-giving, intangibleessence: theheat which is in the sun.He was “the living Aton,”—that is to say, thepower which produced and sustained the energyand movement of the sun. Although he wasso often called “the Aton,” he was more closelydefined as “the Master of the Aton.”[46] Theflaming glory of the sun was the most practicalsymbol of the godhead, and the warm rays ofsunshine constituted the most obvious connectionbetween heaven and earth; but always Akhnatonattempted to raise the eyes of the thinkers beyondthis visible or understandable expression[121]of divinity, to strain them upwards in the effortto discern that which was “behind the veil.”In lighting on a motive power more remotethan the sun, and acting through the sun,the young Pharaoh may be said to have penetratedas far behind the eternal barrier as onemay ever hope to penetrate this side the churchyard.But though so remote, the Aton wasthe tender, loving Father of all men, ever-presentand ever-mindful of his creatures. Theredropped not a sigh from the lips of a babethat the intangible Aton did not hear; no lambbleated for its mother but the remote Atonhastened to soothe it. He was the loving“Father and Mother of all that He hadmade,” who “brought up millions by His bounty.”

The destructive qualities of the sun were neverreferred to, and that pitiless orb under whichEgypt sweats and groans for the summer monthseach year had nothing in common with the gentleFather conceived by Akhnaton. The Aton was“the Lord of Love.” He was the tender nursewho “creates the man-child in woman, andsoothes him that he may not weep”; whoselove, to use an Egyptian phrase of exquisite[122]tenderness, “makes the hands to faint.” Hisbeams were “beauteous with love” as they fellupon His people and upon His city, “very richin love.” “Thy love is great and large,” saysone of Akhnaton’s psalms. “Thou fillest thetwo lands of Egypt with Thy love;” andanother passage runs: “Thy rays encompassthe lands.... Thou bindest them with Thylove.”

Surely never in the history of the world hadman conceived a god who “so loved the world.”One may search the inscriptions in vain for anyreference to a malignant power, to vengeance,to jealousy, or to hatred. The Hebrew psalmistsaid of God, “Like as a father pitieth hischildren, even so is the Lord merciful”; andAkhnaton, many a century before those wordswere written, attributed just such a nature tothe Aton. The Aton was compassionate, wasmerciful, was gentle, was tender; He knew notanger, and there was no wrath in Him. Hisoverflowing love reached down the paths of lifefrom mankind to the beasts of the field and tothe little flowers themselves. “All flowers blow,”says one of Akhnaton’s hymns, “and that which[123]grows on the soil thrives at Thy dawning, OAton. They drink their fill [of warmth] beforeThy face. All cattle leap upon their feet; thebirds that were in the nest fly forth with joy;their wings which were closed move quickly withpraise to the living Aton.”

One stands amazed as one reads in pompousEgypt of a god who listens “when the chickencrieth in the egg-shell,” and gives him life,delighting that he should “chirp with all hismight” when he is hatched forth; who findspleasure in causing “the birds to flutter in theirmarshes, and the sheep to dance upon theirfeet.” For the first time in the history of manthe real meaning of God, as we now understandit, had been comprehended; and the idea of abeneficent Creator who, though remote, spiritual,and impersonal, could love each one of Hiscreatures, great or small, had been grasped bythis young Pharaoh. God’s unspeakable goodnessand loving-kindness were as clearly interpretedby Akhnaton as ever they have been bymortal man; and the wonder of it lies in this,that Akhnaton had absolutely nothing to basehis theories upon. He was, so far as we know,[124]the first man to whom God revealed Himself asthe passionless, all-loving essence of unqualifiedgoodness.

3. ATON WORSHIPPED AT SUNRISE AND SUNSET.

In order to prevent the more ignorant ofhis disciples from worshipping the sun itself,Akhnaton seems to have selected the sunriseand the sunset as the two hours for ceremonialadoration; for then the light, the beauty, thetenderness, of the celestial phenomenon could beappreciated, and the awful majesty of the sun wasnot in great prominence. Akhnaton attemptedto cultivate in his followers an appreciation ofthe gentle hues of daybreak and of evening;and he taught them to believe that the oft-mentioned“beauties” of the Aton were only tobe fully understood at these times. In the gladnessof sunrise and in the hush of the sunset,the emotions are most apt to be touched andmoved; for in Egypt there is always praise inthe heart in the cool opalescence of the dawn,and in the red dusk there is many and many adream.

Phrases such as the following may be gleanedfrom Akhnaton’s hymns: “Thy rising is beautifulin the horizon of heaven, O living Aton, whodispensest life; shining from the eastern horizonof heaven, Thou fillest Egypt with Thy beauty.”“Thy setting is beautiful, O living Aton, ... whoguidest ... all countries that they maymake laudations at Thy dawning and at Thysetting.” “When the Aton rises all the landis in joy; His rays produce eyes for all that Hehas created; and men say, ‘It is life to see Him,there is death in not seeing Him.’” “WhenThou settest alive,[47] O Aton, West and East givepraise to thee.” “Thou settest behind thewestern horizon; Thou settest in life and gladness,and every eye rejoices though they arein darkness after Thou settest.” “When Thouhast risen they live; when Thou settest theydie.”

The ceremonial side of the religion does notseem to have been complex. The priests, ofwhom there were very few, offered sacrifices,consisting mostly of vegetables, fruit, and flowers,to the Aton, and at these ceremonies the king[126]and his family often officiated. They then sangpsalms and offered prayers, and, with muchsweet music, gave praise to the great Father ofjoy and love. The Aton, however, was notthought to delight in these ceremonies as Hedid in more natural thanksgivings. Why shouldGod be praised in set phrases and studied poseswhen all the fair world was shouting for thejoy of Him? The young calf frisking throughthe poppy-covered meadows, the birds singingupon the trees, the clouds racing across thesky, were the true worshippers of God.

One of the recently discovered sayings ofChrist closely parallels Akhnaton’s utterances.“Ye ask,” it runs, “who are those that drawus to the kingdom if the kingdom is in heaven?The fowls of the air, and all the beasts thatare under the earth or upon the earth, and thefishes in the sea, these are they which drawyou, and the kingdom is within you.” Thecontemplation of nature was more to Akhnatonthan many ceremonies, and his thoughts weremore easily drawn upwards by the rustle ofthe leaves than by the shaking of the systrum.

4. THE GOODNESS OF ATON.

In the gardens of the City of the HorizonAkhnaton was surrounded on all sides by thejoyous beauties of nature. Here the birds sangmerrily in the laden trees, here the cool northwind rustled through the leaves, setting themdancing upon their stems, here the many-colouredblossoms nodded to their reflections inthe still lakes; and, as he watched the sunlightplaying with the blue shadows, his heartseemed to fill to repletion with gratitude toGod. “O Lord, how manifold are Thy works!”was his constant cry. “The whole land is injoy and holiday because of Thee. They shoutto the height of heaven, they receive joy andgladness when they see Thee.” How “fair ofform” was the formless Aton, how “radiant ofcolour”! “All that Thou hast made,” said theking, “leaps before Thee.” “Thou makest thebeauty of form through Thyself alone.” “Eyeshave life at sight of Thy beauty; hearts havehealth when the Aton shines.”

As the psalmist sang, “The Lord is my[128]shepherd, I shall not want,” so Akhnaton, inthe fulness of his heart, cried, “There is nopoverty for him who hath set Thee in hisheart; such an one cannot say, ‘O, that I had.’”“When Thou bringest life to men’s hearts by Thybeauty, there is indeed life.” The Aton “gavehealth to the eyes by His rays,” and, “bright,great, gleaming, high above all the earth,” hewas “the cause of plenty,”—the very “food andfatness of Egypt.” To David, several centurieslater, God seemed to be “a strong tower ofdefence”; and, thinking along the same lines,Akhnaton called the Aton his “wall of brass ofa million cubits.” The Aton was “the witnessof that which pertains to eternity,” and to thosewhose thoughts had strayed he was “the remembrancerof eternity.” He was the “Lordof Fate,” the “Lord of Fortune,” the “Masterof that which is ordained,” the “Origin ofFate,” the “Chance which gives Life”; and inso describing him Akhnaton reached a philosophicalposition which even to-day is quiteunassailable.

Unlike Jehovah, who was described as “greatabove all other gods,” the Aton was conceived[129]as being without rivals; and Akhnaton nownever mentions the word “gods.” “The livingAton beside whom there is no other,” is oneof the common phrases; and of Him again it iswritten, “Thou art alone, but infinite vitalitiesare in Thee by means of which to give life toThy creatures.”

Unlike Jehovah again, who was not infrequentlythought to be a wrathful god, surroundedby clouds and darkness, and speaking throughthe roar of the thunders, the Aton was the“Lord of Peace,” who could not tolerate battleand strife. Akhnaton was so opposed to warthat he persistently refused to offer an armed resistanceto the subsequent revolts which occurredin his Asiatic dominions. The Aton was a deityto whose tender heart human bloodshed madeno appeal. In an age of martial glory, whenthe sword and buckler, the plumed helmet andthe shirt of mail, glittered in every street andupon every highway, Akhnaton set himself inopposition to all heroics, and saw God withoutmelodrama.

Above all things the Aton loved truth. Frankness,sincerity, straightforwardness, honesty, and[130]veracity were qualities not always to be foundin the heart of an Egyptian; and Akhnaton, inantagonism to the sins of hypocrisy and deceptionwhich he saw around him, always spoke ofhimself as “living in truth.” “I have set truthin my inward parts,” says one of his followers,“and falsehood is my loathing; for I know thatthe King rejoiceth in truth.”

5. AKHNATON THE “SON OF GOD” BYTRADITIONAL RIGHT.

It may be understood how the boy longed fortruth in all things when one remembers thethousand exaggerated conventions of Egyptianlife at this time. Court etiquette had developedto a degree which rendered life to the Pharaohan endless round of unnatural poses of mind andbody. In the preaching of his doctrine of truthand simplicity Akhnaton did not fail to callupon his subjects to regard their Pharaoh notas a celestial god, as had been the custom, butas a man, though, of course, one of divine[131]origin. It was usual for the Pharaoh to keepaloof from his people: Akhnaton was to befound in their midst. The court demanded thattheir lord should drive in solitary state throughthe city: Akhnaton stood in his chariot withhis wife and children, and allowed the artistto represent him joking therein with his littledaughter. In portraying the Pharaoh the artistwas expected to draw him in some conventionalattitude of dignity: Akhnaton insisted uponbeing shown in all manner of natural attitudes—nowleaning languidly upon a staff, now nursinghis children, and now eating his dinner.Thus again one sees his objection to heroics,and his love of naturalness.

But while he strove for truth and sincerityin this manner he did not attempt to removefrom his mind the belief in which he had beenbrought up, that as Pharaoh of Egypt he washimself partly divine. Not only was he byreason of his religion the representative, andhence, in a manner of speech, the “son” ofGod, but by right of royal descent he was the“son of the Sun.” The names of the Pharaohswere always surrounded by an oval band, known[132]as a cartouche, which was the distinguishingmark of a royal name. Akhnaton wrote thename of the Aton within such an oval, thusindicating that the Pharaoh’s royal rights werealso held by, and therefore derived from, GodHimself. There was thus, as Christ later taughtHis disciples to believe, a kingdom of heavenover which God presided; and although impersonal,intangible, and incomprehensible, theAton was the very “King of kings, the onlyruler of princes.” Amon-Ra and other of theold deities had been called at various times“King of the gods.” Akhnaton, however, appliedto Aton the words “King and God.”

Akhnaton is spoken of as “the unique oneof Ra, whose beauties Aton created,” and as“the beloved son of Aton,” whom “Aton bare.”Addressing the Aton, his courtiers were wont tosay, “Thy rays are on Thy bright image, theRuler of Truth (i.e., the King), who proceededfrom eternity. Thou givest to him Thy durationand Thy years; Thou hearkenest to allthat is in his heart, because Thou lovest him.Thou makest him like the Aton, him Thy child,the King.” “Thou lookest on him, for he pro[133]ceeded [48]from Thee.” “Thou hast placed himbeside Thee for ever and ever, for he loves togaze upon Thee.... Thou hast set him theretill the swan shall turn black and the crow turnwhite, till the hills rise up to travel and thedeeps rush into the rivers.” “While heaven is,he shall be.” Some of the Pharaohs had calledthemselves “the beautiful child of Amon”; andAkhnaton, borrowing this phrase, was sometimesspoken of as “the beautiful child of theAton.”[49]

In his capacity as Pharaoh and “son of God,”Akhnaton demanded and received a very considerableamount of ceremonial homage; buthe never blinded himself to the fact thathe was primarily but a simple man. Hemost sincerely wished that his private lifeshould be a worthy example to his subjects,and he earnestly desired that it should beobserved in all its naturalness and simplicity.He did his utmost to elevate the position ofwomen and the sanctity of the family by dis[134]playingto the world the ideal conditions of hisown married life. He made a point of caressinghis wife in public, putting his arm around herneck in the sight of all men. As we have seen,one of his forms of oath was, “As my heart ishappy in the Queen and her children....”He spoke of his wife always as “Mistress ofhis happiness, ... at hearing whose voicethe King rejoices.” “Lady of grace” was she,“great of love” and “fair of face.” Everywish that she expressed, declared Akhnaton,was executed by him. Even on the most ceremoniousoccasions the queen sat beside herhusband and held his hand, while their childrenfrolicked around them; for such things pleasedthat gentle father more than the savour ofburnt-offerings. It is seldom that the Pharaohis represented in the reliefs without his family;and, in opposition to all tradition, the queenis shown upon the same scale of size and importanceas that of her husband. Akhnaton’sdevotion to his children is very marked, andhe taught his disciples to believe that Godwas the father, the mother, the nurse, andthe friend of the young. Thus, though “son[135]of God,” Akhnaton preached the beauty of thehuman family, and laid stress on the sanctityof marriage and parenthood.

6. THE CONNECTIONS OF THE ATON WORSHIPWITH OLDER RELIGIONS.

In developing his religion Akhnaton musthave come into almost daily conflict with thepriesthoods of the old gods of Egypt; and eventhe Heliopolitan Ra-Horakhti, from which hisown faith had been evolved, now fell far shortof his ideals. He does not seem, however, tohave yet imposed the worship of the Aton uponthe provinces, nor to have persecuted thevarious priesthoods. He hoped, no doubt, thathe would be able to persuade the whole countryto his views as soon as those views werethoroughly matured; and, secure in his new city,he was free to purge his religion of its faultsbefore declaring all other creeds illegal.

It is probable that the sacred bull, Mnevis,was banished from his ceremonies at an earlydate, for no tombs seem to have been made for[136]these holy creatures, and they are not referredto after the sixth year of the king’s reign. Thepriests of Heliopolis would now have hardlyrecognised their doctrines in the exalted faithof the Aton, though here and there some pointof close contact might have been observed. Onemay also detect slight resemblances to theAdonis religions of Syria, from whence the Atonhad originally come. Mention has already beenmade of the worship of Adonis. So widespreadwas that deity’s power that it very naturallyaffected many other religions. In the BiblicalPsalms one finds several echoes of this old paganworship, as for example in the lines fromPsalm xix., which read:—

Here one surely must recognise the youthfulAdonis, the bridegroom of Venus. And similarlyin the Heliopolitan worship, at the commencementof Akhnaton’s reign, the sun, Ra, is referredto in the following terms: “Thou art beautiful[137]and youthful as Aton before thy mother Hathor[Venus].”

In Akhnaton’s religion one may still catch afleeting glimpse of Adonis. One of the king’scourtiers, named May, held the office of “Overseerof the House for sending Aton to rest.”[50]Akhnaton’s queen is mentioned in the tomb ofAy under the peculiar title of “She who sendsthe Aton to rest with a sweet voice, and withher two beautiful hands bearing two systrums.”This “house” was, no doubt, the temple at whichthe vesper prayers to the Aton were said atsunset, and from the above title of the queen itwould seem that she had particular charge ofthese evening ceremonies. One cannot contemplatethe fact that it was a woman who officiatedat a ceremony which consisted of a lament [51] forthe death of the sun without seeing in it someconnection, however faint, with the story ofVenus and Adonis. The lament of Venus forthe death of Adonis—i.e., the setting of the sun[138]—wasone of the fundamental ceremonies of theMediterranean religions. Here again was a connectionwith an older religion for Akhnaton toconsider and perhaps to purge away; and onemay suppose that all such derivatives fromearlier faiths were gradually eliminated as theyoung king developed his creed. Soon not ascrap of superstition remained in the religion;and one may credit this Pharaoh of three thousandyears ago with as great a freedom from thetrammels of traditional superstition as that ofthe advanced thinker of to-day.

7. THE SPIRITUAL NEEDS OF THE SOULAFTER DEATH.

“Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thingit is for the eyes to behold the sun,” says HolyWrit in words which might have fallen fromthe lips of Akhnaton; “but though a man livemany years and rejoice in them all, yet let himremember the days of darkness, for they shallbe many.” As Akhnaton had completely revolutionisedthe beliefs of the Egyptians as to[139]the nature of God, so he altered and purgedtheir theories regarding the existence of thesoul after death. According to the old beliefs,as we have seen, the soul of a man had to passthrough awful places up to the judgment throneof Osiris, where he was weighed in the balances.If he was found wanting he was devoured by aferocious monster, but if the scales turned inhis favour he was accepted into the Elysianfields. So many were the spirits, bogies, anddemigods which he was likely to meet beforethe goal was reached that he had to know byheart a tedious string of formulæ, the correctrepetition of which, and the correct makingof the related magic, alone ensured his safepassage.

Akhnaton flung all these formulæ into thefire. Djins, bogies, spirits, monsters, demigods,demons, and Osiris himself with all his court,were swept into the blaze and reduced to ashes.Akhnaton believed that when a man died hissoul continued to exist as a kind of astral,immaterial ghost, sometimes resting in thedreamy halls of heaven, and sometimes visiting,in shadowy form, the haunts of the earthly[140]life. By some of the inscriptions one is led tosuppose that, as in the fourth article of theChristian faith, so in the teachings of Akhnaton,the body was thought to take again after deathits “flesh, bones, and all things appertaining tothe perfection of man’s nature.” But just asthere is some doubt and some vagueness in themind of Christian thinkers as to the meaningof this article, so in Akhnaton’s doctrine therewas some uncertainty as to whether the bodywas entirely spiritual or in a manner materialin its hazy existence in the Hills of the West.The disembodied soul still craved the pleasuresof earthly life and shunned its sorrows; still felthunger and thirst and enjoyed a draught of wateror a meal of solid food; still warmed itself inthe sunshine or sought coolness in the shadows.

We hear nothing of hell; for Akhnaton, in thetenderness of his heart, could not bring himselfto believe that God would allow suffering inany of His creatures, however sinful. The inscriptionsseem rather to indicate that there wasno future life for the wicked,—that they wereannihilated; though in almost every man onemay suppose that there was enough good to[141]recommend him to the mercy of a God so lovingas the Aton.

The first great wish of the deceased was thathe might each day leave the dim underworld inorder to see the light of the sun upon earth.This had been the prayer of the Egyptians fromtime immemorial, and to suit the religion ofthe Aton its wording alone was changed. Thedisciple of Akhnaton asked to be allowed “togo out from the underworld in the morning tosee Aton as he rises.” He prayed insistently,passionately, in varied language, that his spiritmight “go forth to see the sun’s rays,” that his“two eyes might be opened to see the sun,”that there might be “no failure to see it,” thatthe “vision of the sun’s fair face might never belost to him,” that he “might obtain a sight ofthe beauty of each recurring sunrise,” and that“the sun’s rays might spread over his body.”Sometimes it is the Aton whom the soul thuscraves to see; sometimes it is Ra, the sun; butalways it seems to be the actual light andwarmth of the sunshine which is so passionatelydesired. The abstract conditions of the futurelife could but be interpreted in terms of human[142]experience; and in contemplating that cold, desolatemystery of death, Akhnaton could find nobetter means of banishing the gloom than bypraying for a continuance of the blessed lightof the day. And the man who prayed that hissoul might see the sunshine but asked that hemight still know the joy of the presence ofGod, for God was the light of the world.

His second wish was that he might retain thefavour of the king and queen after death, andthat his soul might serve their souls in thepalaces of the dead. He asks for “readiness inthe presence of the King” to do his bidding; heprays that he may be admitted into the palace,“entering it in favour and leaving it in love”;that he may “attend the King every day”; andthat he may “receive honour in the presence ofthe King.”

For his mental contentment in the underworldhe earnestly desired that “his namemight be remembered and established on earth,”that there might be “a happy memory of himin the King’s palace,” and “a continuance of hisname in the mouths of the courtiers,” where hehoped that it “might be welcome.” “May my[143]name thrive in the tomb-chapel,” he says. “Maymy name not be to seek in my mansion. Mayit be celebrated for ever.” So, too, at the presentday the wordsIn Memoriam are goodly words;and that a man’s memory may be kept green isa thing very generally desired.

8. THE MATERIAL NEEDS OF THE SOUL.

In order that the soul might have its linkwith earth, the worshipper of the Aton prayedthat his mummy might remain “firm” anduncorrupted, that the “flesh might live uponthe bones,” and that his limbs might remain“knit together.” The Egyptians of other daysbelieved that the body itself would live againat the resurrection, this being the reason whythey attempted so carefully to preserve it; andAkhnaton does not appear to have altered thisconception of the nature of the material body. So,too, in the Christian faith it is thought that atthe last day the graves will give up their dead.

The spiritual body retained the form and theindividuality of the material body, and therefore,[144]in a somewhat vague manner, it was thoughtthat the needs of the soul would not be verydissimilar from those of the body upon earth.Christ, after His resurrection, asked for food;and the feasts of Paradise are more than allegoryto many a Christian. Likewise the follower ofAkhnaton believed that material food, or itsspiritual equivalent, would be necessary to thesoul’s welfare in the next world. “May I becalled by my name,” says he, “and come at thesummons, in order to feed upon the good thingsprovided upon the temple altar.” It would seemthat through fidelity to the Aton creed he mighthave the privilege of partaking of the offeringsmade at the great ceremonies in the temple;for, after these sacrifices had been offered, thefood, probably, was distributed to the priestsand to those attached to the tombs, who representedthe interests of the dead. Thus thedeceased prays that he may enjoy “a receptionof that which has been offered in the temple”;“a reception of offerings of the King’s giving inevery shrine”; “a drink-offering in the temple ofAton”; “food deposited on the altar everyday”; and “everything that is offered in the[145]sanctuary of Aton in the City of the Horizon ofAton.” He further asks that “wine may bepoured out” for him, and that “the children ofhis house may spill a libation for him at theentrance of his tomb.”

While life lasted God was very apparent tothose who sought Him. Wherever the sunshone, wherever the great pulse of the earthbeat beneath one, wherever the river flowed orthe garden bloomed, there was God to be found;for God was happiness, was beauty, was love.But when the cold mists of death had envelopeda man, when there was no longer any spring-timenor any opening of the blossoms, how shouldthere be contentment any more? From thedepths of his heart Akhnaton urged his followersto pray God that He might provide this happiness,though it could only be voiced in veryhuman words. It was not “sweet perfume” nor“the smell of incense” that the soul required;but how else could the pleasure of light-heartednessbe worded? They prayed that their “limbsmight be provided with pleasure every day.” Inthe stagnant air of the tomb they craved for thetouch of the “sweet breeze,” for “the breath of[146]the pleasant airs of the north wind.” They hopedin shadowy form to be able to visit the belovedscenes of their lifetime. “May I raise myself upand forget languor,” prays one. “May I leaveand enter my mansion,” says another. “May mysoul not be shut off from that which it desires.May I walk as I will in the grove that I havemade upon earth. May I drink the water atthe edge of my lake every day without ceasing.”“May water be poured out from my cistern,”cries a third; “may I receive fruit from mytrees.” Incessantly each man implores God togrant that he may cool his parched lips withwater. “A draught of water at the banks ofthe river,” is his desire; “a draught of water atthe swirl of the stream.” While he smells “thescent of the wind” blowing amidst the petalsof “a bouquet of Aton,” and while there runs “abrook of water” by his side, he need not knowthe horror of death. And thus, by receiving“everything good and sweet,” he may hope for“health and prosperity” in the hills and thevalleys of the West; for a “happy life, providedwith pleasure and joy,” for “amusement, merriment,and delight,” and for a “daily rejoicing”throughout eternity.

It may be argued that this material conceptionof the life after death is not equal in purity oftone to the faith of the Aton. But is it, then,less lofty to believe in a heaven in which thereis joy and laughter, a scent of flowers, and abreath of north wind, than in one where thestreets are paved with gold, and where thereare many mansions? By no religion in theworld is Christianity so closely approached asby the faith of Akhnaton; and if the Pharaoh’sdoctrines as to immortality are not altogetherconvincing, neither are the Christian doctrines,as they are now interpreted, altogether withoutfault. In the above pages it has been necessaryalways to compare Akhnaton’s creed withChristianity, since there is so much common tothe two religions; but it should be rememberedthat this comparison must of necessity be unfavourableto the Pharaoh’s doctrine, revealingas it does its shortcomings. Let the readerremember that Akhnaton lived some thirteenhundred years before the birth of Christ, at anage when the world was steeped in superstitionand sunk in the fogs of idolatry. Bearing thisin mind, he will not fail to see in that tenderlyloving Father whom the boy-Pharaoh worshipped[148]an early revelation of the God to whom we ofthe present day bow down; and once more hewill find how true are the words—

Since writing the above, another point in Akhnaton’steaching has become apparent, from thescenes, recently discovered by the present writer,in the tomb of Rames. There is a scene oftenrepresented upon the walls of tombs of DynastyXVIII. which seems to represent human sacrifice.The figure of a man is seen dragged to the tombupon a sledge, and Sir Gaston Maspero has pointedout that this can hardly be anything else than sucha sacrifice. This scene was shown on one of thewalls of the tomb of Rames, and evidently datedfrom a period previous to Akhnaton’s revolution.When, however, the young king had formulatedhis religion of love he could not tolerate a barbaricand cruel ceremony of this kind. We thus findthat the entire scene is here obliterated, almostcertainly by the king’s agents. The objectionto human sacrifice is closely in accord withhis objection to human suffering as recorded onpage 175.

V.
THE TENTH TO THE TWELFTH YEARSOF THE REIGN OF AKHNATON.

1. THE HYMNS OF THE ATON WORSHIPPERS.

In the tombs of rich persons who had livedand died previous to the time of Akhnaton,a large portion of the walls had been coveredwith religious inscriptions; and when at firstthe nobles of the City of the Horizon of Atonwere planning their sepulchres they must havebeen at a loss to know what to substitute forthese forbidden formulæ. Soon, however, itbecame the custom to write there short extractsfrom the hymns which were sung inthe temples of the Aton. In a few cases[150]these inscriptions supply us with a definitepsalm which, although short, seems to becomplete. In one tomb—that of Ay—however,there is a copy of a much more elaboratehymn; and it would thus seem that therewere two main psalms in use in the temples,a longer and a shorter version of the samecomposition.

It was not unusual for the Egyptians tocompose hymns in honour of their gods, anda few such have been preserved to us uponthe walls of the old temples. Like the Hebrewpsalms of later date, they are not always of avery high moral tone. They are often butchants of victory, dealing in battles, inthunders, and in tempests, and glorying inthe wrath of heaven. The longer hymn tothe Aton, which is here given in full, is quiteunlike any of these compositions, and both inpurity of tone and in beauty of style it mustrank high amongst the poems of antiquity.

[52]“Thy dawning is beautiful in the horizon of heaven,

O living Aton, Beginning of life!

When Thou risest in the eastern horizon of heaven,

[151]

Thou fillest every land with Thy beauty;

For Thou are beautiful, great, glittering, high over the earth;

Thy rays, they encompass the lands, even all Thou hast made.

Thou art Ra, and Thou hast carried them all away captive;

Thou bindest them by Thy love.

Though Thou art afar, Thy rays are on earth;

Though Thou art on high, Thy footprints are the day.

When Thou settest in the western horizon of heaven,

The world is in darkness like the dead.

Men sleep in their chambers,

Their heads are wrapped up,

Their nostrils stopped, and none seeth the other.

Stolen are all their things that are under their heads,

While they know it not.

Every lion cometh forth from his den,

All serpents, they sting.

Darkness reigns,

The world is in silence:

He that made them has gone to rest in His horizon.

Bright is the earth, when Thou risest in the horizon,

When Thou shinest as Aton by day.

The darkness is banished

When Thou sendest forth Thy rays;

The two lands [of Egypt] are in daily festivity,

Awake and standing upon their feet,

For Thou hast raised them up.

Their limbs bathed, they take their clothing,

Their arms uplifted in adoration to Thy dawning.

Then in all the world they do their work.

All cattle rest upon the herbage,

All trees and plants flourish;

The birds flutter in their marshes,

Their wings uplifted in adoration to Thee.

[152]

All the sheep dance upon their feet,

All winged things fly,

They live when Thou hast shone upon them.

The barques sail up-stream and down-stream alike.

Every highway is open because Thou hast dawned.

The fish in the river leap up before Thee,

And Thy rays are in the midst of the great sea.

Thou art He who createst the man-child in woman,

Who makest seed in man,

Who giveth life to the son in the body of his mother,

Who soothest him that he may not weep,

A nurse [even] in the womb.

Who giveth breath to animate every one that He maketh.

When he cometh forth from the body ...

On the day of his birth,

Thou openest his mouth in speech,

Thou suppliest his necessities.

When the chicken crieth in the egg-shell,

Thou givest him breath therein, to preserve him alive;

When Thou hast perfected him

That he may pierce the egg,

He cometh forth from the egg,

To chirp with all his might;

He runneth about upon his two feet,

When he hath come forth therefrom.

How manifold are all Thy works!

They are hidden from before us,

O Thou sole God, whose powers no other possesseth.

Thou didst create the earth according to Thy desire,

While Thou wast alone:

Men, all cattle large and small,

All that are upon the earth,

[153]

That go about upon their feet;

All that are on high,

That fly with their wings.

The countries of Syria and Nubia

The land of Egypt;

Thou settest every man in his place

Thou suppliest their necessities.

Every one has his possessions,

And his days are reckoned.

Their tongues are divers in speech,

Their forms likewise and their skins,

For Thou, divider, hast divided the peoples.

Thou makest the Nile in the nether world,

Thou bringest it at Thy desire, to preserve the people alive.

O Lord of them all, when feebleness is in them,

O Lord of every house, who risest for them,

O sun of day, the fear of every distant land,

Thou makest [also] their life.

Thou hast set a Nile in heaven,

That it may fall for them,

Making floods upon the mountains, like the great sea,

And watering their fields among their towns.

How excellent are Thy designs, O Lord of eternity!

The Nile in heaven is for the strangers,

And for the cattle of every land that go upon their feet;

But the Nile, it cometh from the nether world for Egypt.

Thus Thy rays nourish every garden;

When Thou risest they live, and grow by Thee.

Thou makest the seasons, in order to create all Thy works;

Winter bringeth them coolness,

And the heat [the summer bringeth].

Thou hast made the distant heaven in order to rise therein,

In order to behold all that Thou didst make,

[154]

While Thou wast alone,

Rising in Thy form as Living Aton,

Dawning, shining afar off, and returning.

Thou makest the beauty of form through Thyself alone,

Cities, towns, and settlements,

On highway or on river,

All eyes see Thee before them,

For Thou art Aton of the day over the earth.

Thou art in my heart;

There is no other that knoweth Thee,

Save Thy son Akhnaton.

Thou hast made him wise in Thy designs

And in Thy might.

The world is in Thy hand,

Even as Thou hast made them.

When Thou hast risen they live;

When Thou settest they die.

For Thou art duration, beyond mere limbs;

By Thee man liveth,

And their eyes look upon Thy beauty

Until Thou settest.

All labour is laid aside

When Thou settest in the west.

When Thou risest they are made to grow....

Since Thou didst establish the earth,

Thou hast raised them up for Thy son,

Who came forth from Thy limbs,

The King, living in truth, ...

Akhnaton, whose life is long;

[And for] the great royal wife, his beloved,

Mistress of the Two Lands, ... Nefertiti,

Living and flourishing for ever and ever.”

2. THE SIMILARITY OF AKHNATON’S HYMNTO PSALM CIV.

In reading this truly beautiful hymn onecannot fail to be struck by its similarity toPsalm civ. A parallel will show this mostclearly:—

In face of this remarkable similarity one canhardly doubt that there is a direct connectionbetween the two compositions; and it becomesnecessary to ask whether both Akhnaton’s hymnand this Hebrew psalm were derived from acommon Syrian source, or whether Psalm civ. isderived from this Pharaoh’s original poem. Bothviews are admissible; but in consideration of[157]Akhnaton’s peculiar ability and originality thereseems considerable likelihood that he is the authorin the first instance of this gem of the Psalter.

When the young Pharaoh composed this hymnhe was probably neither much more nor less thantwenty or twenty-one years of age,—a period oflife at which many of the world’s greatest poetshave written some of their fairest poems. Onesees that he believed himself to be the onlyman to whom God had revealed Himself; andthe fact that he never admits that he was inany way taught to regard God as he did, butalways speaks of himself, and is spoken of, asthe originator and teacher of the faith, indicatesthat the ideas expressed in the hymn wereentirely his own.

3. MERYRA IS MADE HIGH PRIEST OF ATON.

The religion of the Aton had now assumed shapeand symmetry, and had been firmly establishedin the new capital as the creed of the court.Akhnaton was thus able to intrust its administrationand organisation there to one of his nobles[158]who had hearkened to his teaching, and to turnhis attention to other affairs, and more especiallyto the conversion of the rest of Egypt. As headof the state a thousand matters daily claimedhis consideration, and his high principles ledhim to stray further along the by-paths ofadministration than had been the wont of thePharaohs before him. His ill-health did notpermit him to tax his brain with impunity, andyet there was never a king of Egypt before orafter him whose mind was so fruitful of thoughtsand of schemes. The young king himself expoundedto his followers the doctrines which hewished them to embrace, and one may supposethat he sat for many an hour in the halls ofhis palace, or under the trees in the gardensbeside the Nile, earnestly telling of the beautiesof the Aton to officials and nobles.

No one had accepted the king’s teaching withgreater readiness than a certain Meryra,whoseems to have early associated himself with themovement; and it was to him that Akhnatonnow handed over the office of “High Priest ofthe Aton in the City of the Horizon of Aton,”in order to free himself for the great task of[159]administering his kingdom and converting it tohis way of thinking. Unfortunately we knowvery little of the career of Meryra, but on thewalls of his tomb in the hills behind the capitalthere are a few reliefs which may here bedescribed as illustrating events in his life andin the life of Akhnaton.

One of these scenes shows us the investitureof Meryra as High Priest. The king is seenwith his wife and one of his daughters standingat a window of the gaily decoratedloggia ofthe palace. The sill of the window is massedwith bright-coloured cushions, and over thesethe royal personages lean forward to addressMeryra and the company assembled in thepillared gallery outside. The outer surface oftheloggia wall is brightly ornamented eitherwith real or painted garlands of lotus-flowers,and with the many-coloured patterns usual uponsuch buildings in ancient Egypt. Ribbons, flutteringin the breeze, hang from the delicate lotus-pillarswhich support the roof, and vie in brilliancywith the red and blue ostrich-plume fans andstandards carried by the officials.

Leaning from the window, with arm outstretched,[160]Akhnaton bids Meryra rise from hisknees, on to which he had cast himself on reachingthe royal presence. Then solemnly the kingaddresses his favoured disciple in the followingwords:—“Behold, I make thee High Priest ofthe Aton for me in the Temple of the Aton inthe City of the Horizon of Aton. I do this forlove of thee, and I say unto thee: O my servantwho hearkenest to the teaching, my heart issatisfied with everything which thou hast done.I give thee this office, and I say unto thee: thoushalt eat the food of Pharaoh, thy lord, in theTemple of Aton.”

Immediately the assembled company crowdround Meryra and lift him shoulder-high,while the new High Priest cries, “Abundantare the rewards which the Aton knows to givewhen his heart is pleased.” The king thenpresents Meryra with the insignia of his office,and with various costly gifts, which are takencharge of by the servants and attendants whostand outside the gallery. Behind these attendants,at the outskirts of the scene, one observesthe chariot which is to convey the HighPriest back to his villa; fan-bearers who shall[161]run before and behind him; women of thehousehold who shall beat upon tambourines atthe head of the procession, and who alreadydance with excitement as they see Meryrahoisted on to his friend’s shoulder; and stillother women who shall make the roadway richwith flowers.

This is no solemn and occult initiation of anascetic into the mystery of the new religion,but rather the elevation of a good fellow to apopular post of honour. There was no mysteryin the faith of the Aton. Frankness, openness,and sincerity were the dominant themes ofAkhnaton’s teaching,—a worship of God in theblessed light of the day, the singing of merrypsalms in the open courts of the temple; andthe chosen High Priest was more likely to havebeen a deep-thinking, clean-lived, honest-hearted,God-fearing, family man, than an ascetic whohad abandoned the pomps and the vanities ofthis world. The point at which Akhnaton’sreligion differs most widely from Christianityis here to be observed: the Pharaoh, while encouragingthe Simple Life, did not preach themortification of the flesh, but only the control[162]of the body. The comforts of life, the brilliancyof decoration, the charms of music, the beautiesof painting and sculpture, the pleasure of goodcompany, the tonic of a bowl of wine, were allas acceptable to him, in moderation, as to thePreacher in Ecclesiastes.

4. THE ROYAL FAMILY VISIT THE TEMPLE.

When Meryra had been installed, the kingand royal family made a formal visit to thetemple at the time of sunset, and this is likewiserepresented in the High Priest’s tomb. Forthe first time in the history of Egypt one ispermitted to see the Pharaoh as he drovethrough the streets of the capital in his chariot.No king before Akhnaton had allowed an artistto represent him in aught but celestial poses;but out of his love for truth and realityAkhnaton had dispensed with this convention,and encouraged the regarding of himself as amortal man. On this occasion we see him standingin his gorgeously decorated chariot, reinsand whip in hand, himself driving the two[163]spirited horses, the coloured ostrich plumes onwhose heads nod and toss as the superb animalsprance along. The queen, also driving her ownchariot, follows close behind; and after heragain come the princesses, heading a noblegroup of chariots belonging to the court officialsand ladies-in-waiting, these being driven bycharioteers. The shining harness, the dancingred and blue plumes of the horses, the many-colouredrobes, the feathered standards of thenobles, the fluttering ribbons, all go to makethe cavalcade a sight to bring the townspeoplerunning from their houses. A guard of soldiers,armed with spears, shields, battle-axes, bows,and clubs, races along on foot in front of theroyal party to clear the road. Here, besidesEgyptians, are bearded Asiatics from the king’sSyrian dominions, befeathered negroes from theMazoi tribes of Nubia, and Libyans from thewest, wearing the plaited side-lock of hair hangingfrom their heads.

The party is seen to be nearing the temple,and Meryra stands before the gateway ready togreet his lord. Four men kneel near him holdingaloft the coloured ostrich-plume fans, which[164]will be wafted to and fro above the king’s headwhen he has alighted from his chariot; andothers kneel, lifting their hands in reverentsalutation. Great bulls, fattened like the prizecattle of modern times, are led forth, garlandsof flowers thrown around their huge necks, andbouquets of flowers fastened between their horns.These are attended by grooms, also bearingbunches of flowers. Two groups of female musicians,clad in flowing robes, wave their arms andbeat upon tambourines.

The temple, which will be described later, isthis day garlanded with flowers, and every altaris heaped high with offerings. Now the kinghas entered the building, and a further sceneshows the royal family worshipping at the highaltar, which is piled up with offerings of jointsof meat, geese, vegetables, fruit, and flowers,surmounted by bronze bowls filled with burningoil. Akhnaton and Nefertiti stand before thealtar, each with the right arm raised in the actof sprinkling the fragrant gums of Araby uponthe flames. The upper part of the king’s bodyis bare, but from his waist depends a graceful[165]skirt of fine linen, ornamented with sash-likeribbons of a red material, which flutter abouthis bare legs. The queen’s robe covers the wholeof her body, but is so transparent that one cansee her fair form with almost the distinctnessof nudity. A red sash is bound round her waist,and the two ends fall almost to the ground.Neither of the two wears any jewels; and thesimplicity of the soft, flowing robes, with theirbright-red sashes, is extremely marked. Twolittle princesses stand behind the king and queen,each shaking from a systrum a note of praiseto God. Meryra, accompanied by an assistant,stands bowing before the king, and near by anotherpriest burns some sweet-smelling incense.Not far away there sits a group of eight blindmusicians,—fat elderly men, who clap theirhands and sing to the accompaniment of aseven-stringed harp, giving praise to the sunlightwhich they cannot see, but yet can feelas “the heat which is in Aton” penetrates intotheir bones.

In still another series of reliefs we are showna scene representing the reward of Meryra by[166]Akhnaton on some occasion when he had beenparticularly successful in collecting the yearlydues of the temple from the estates on the oppositebank of the river. The ceremony tookplace in the granary buildings at the edge ofthe water. One sees a group of boats mooredat the quay, and on the shore are several cattle-pensfilled with lowing cattle. The granariesare stored with all manner of good things, andMeryra stands triumphant in front of them asthe king addresses him.

“Let the Superintendent of the Treasury ofthe Jewels take Meryra,” says Akhnaton, “andhang gold on his neck at the front, and goldon his feet, because of his obedience to theteaching of Pharaoh;” and immediately the attendantsliterally heap the gold collars andnecklaces one above the other upon the HighPriest’s neck. Scribes write down a rapid summaryof the events; the attendants and fan-bearersbow low; and Meryra is conducted backto his village with music and with dancing, whileAkhnaton returns to his palace, and, no doubt,sinks exhausted on to his cushions.

5. AKHNATON IN HIS PALACE.

The reliefs and paintings upon the tombsoften show the Pharaoh reclining thus, in alanguid manner, as though the duties of hishigh calling had sapped all the strength fromhim. Never before had a Pharaoh been representedto his subjects in such human attitudes.The privacy of the palace is penetrated in thesescenes, and we see the king, who loved to teachhis followers the beauty of family life, in themidst of his own family. One or two of theserepresentations must here be described. In oneinstance the royal family is shown inside abeautiful pavilion, the roof of which is supportedby wooden pillars painted with many coloursand having capitals carved in high relief torepresent wild geese suspended by their legs,and above them bunches of flowers: just sucha grouping as one might see in some sportinghouse of the present day. The pillars are hungwith garlands of flowers, and from the ceilingthere droop festoons of flowers and trailingbranches of vines. The roof of the pavilion on[168]the outside is edged by an endless line of gleamingcobras, probably wrought in bronze.

Inside this fair arbor stand a group of nakedgirls playing upon the harp, the lute, and thelyre, and, no doubt, singing to that accompanimentthe artless love-songs of the period.Servants are shown attending to the jars ofwine which stand at the side of the enclosure.The king is seen leaning back upon the cushionsof an arm-chair, as though tired out and sickat heart. In the fingers of his left hand heidly dandles a few flowers, while with his righthand he languidly holds out a delicate bowl inorder that the wine in it may be replenished.This is done by the queen, who is standingbefore him, all solicitous for his comfort. Shepours the wine from a vessel, causing it to passthrough a strainer before flowing into the bowl.Three little princesses stand near by: one of themladen with bouquets of flowers, another holdingout some sweetmeat upon a dish, and a thirdtalking to her father.

In another scene the king and queen are bothshown seated upon comfortable chairs, while aservant waits upon them. The king is eating[169]a roasted pigeon, holding it in his fingers; andNefertiti is represented drinking from a prettilyshaped cup. The light, transparent robes whichthey wear indicate that this is the middaymeal; but unfortunately the painting is so muchdamaged that nothing but the royal figuresremains.

6. HISTORICAL EVENTS OF THIS PERIOD OFAKHNATON’S REIGN.

There is very little historical information tobe procured for these years of the king’s reign.When he had been about ten or eleven yearsupon the throne, and was some twenty-one yearsof age, his fourth daughter, Nefernefernaton, wasborn. The queen had presented no son toAkhnaton to succeed him, but he does not seemin this emergency to have cared to turn to anysecondary wives; and, as far as we can tell, heremained all his life a monogamist, althoughthis was in direct opposition to all traditionalcustom. Steadily during these years the king’shealth seems to have grown more precarious,[170]for almost daily he must have overtaxed hisstrength. His brain was so active that he couldnot submit to be idle; and even when he reclinedamidst the flowers in his garden, hiswhole soul was straining upwards in the attemptto pierce the barrier which lay between him andthe God who had caused those flowers to bloom.The maturity of his creed at this period leadsone to suppose that he had given to it his verylife’s force; and when it is remembered thatat the same time his attention was occupied bythe administration of a kingdom which he hadtwisted out of all semblance to its former shape,the wonder is that his brain was at all able tostand the incessant strain. Rare indeed musthave been those idle moments which the artists ofthe City of the Horizon attempted to represent.

In the twelfth year of his reign, the tributeof the vassal kingdoms reached such a highvalue that a particular record was made of it,and scenes showing its reception were sculpturedin the tombs of Huya and Meryra II.[53] An inscription[171]beside the scene in the tomb of Huyareads thus:—

The king and queen are shown seated in thestate palanquin side by side; and although[172]Akhnaton holds the insignia of royalty, and isevidently very much upon his dignity, thequeen’s arm has found its way around his waist,and there lovingly rests for all the world tosee. The palanquin, probably made of woodentirely covered with gold foil, is a very imposingstructure: a large double throne, borne aloftby stout poles upon the shoulders of the courtofficials. The arm-rests are carved in the formof sphinxes, which rise above a glistening hedgeof cobras, and the throne is flanked on eitherside by the figure of a lion carved in theround. A priest walks in front of the palanquinsending up a cloud of incense from a censer,and professional mummers dance and skip inthe roadway in advance of the procession. Behindthe royal couple walk the princesses,attended by their nurses and ladies; and on allsides are arrayed courtiers, officers, soldiers, andservants.

Soon the ground marked out for the ceremonyis reached, and the king and queen betake themselvesto a gorgeous little pavilion which has beenerected for them, and here they sit togetherupon a double throne, their feet supported upon[173]hassocks. The queen sits upon Akhnaton’s left,and in the picture her figure is hidden by thatof her husband; but as her right arm is seento encircle his waist, and her left hand to holdhis left hand, one may suppose that she is recliningagainst him, with her royal head uponhis shoulder. Nefertiti was the mother of afamily of children, but was not more than abouttwenty [54] years of age; and as she is said to havebeen extremely beautiful, one may presume thatthis scene of conjugal affection was not withoutits charm. The little princesses clusterround the throne, one of them holding a younggazelle in her arms, while another strokes itshead.

In front of this pavilion the deputations fromthe vassal kingdoms pass by; and in order thatthe king may not be wearied by their ceremonioushomage, a group of professional wrestlers,boxers, and fencers is provided for his diversion;while near them some buffoons and mummersdance and tumble to the accompaniment ofcastanets and hand-clapping. The tribute of[174]Syria is brought by long-robed Asiatics, whocast themselves upon their knees before thethrone with hands uplifted in salutation. SplendidSyrian horses are led past, and behindthem chariots are wheeled or carried along.Then come groups of slaves, handcuffed, but notcruelly bound nor maltreated, as was the customunder other Pharaohs. Bows, spears, shields,daggers, elephant-tusks, and other objects, arecarried past and deposited upon the groundnear the pavilion; while beautiful vases of preciousmetal or costly stone are held aloft forthe king to admire. Wild animals are ledacross the ground by their keepers, and amongstthese a tame mountain lion must have causedsomething of a sensation. Several nude girls,selected probably for their beauty, walk past;and one may suppose that they will find subsequentemployment amongst the handmaidensin the palace.

From the “islands in the midst of the sea”come beautiful vases, some ornamented withfigures in the round. From Libya ostrich eggsand ostrich feathers are brought. The tributeof Nubia and the Sudan is carried past by[175]befeathered negroes, and consists mainly of barsand rings of gold and bags of gold-dust, procuredfrom the mines in the Eastern Desert.Shields, weapons, tusks, and skins are also tobe seen, and cattle and antelopes are led beforethe throne. As the Asiatics had startled theassembly by bringing with them a lion, sothe negroes cause a stir by leading forwarda panther of large size. Finally, male andfemale slaves, the latter carrying their babiesin baskets upon their backs, are marched pastthe pavilion; but here again these slaves arenot maltreated. It is particularly noticeablethat the groups of miserable captives which onesees in all such scenes of other periods, withtheir arms bound in agonising positions andtheir knees giving way under them, are entirelyabsent from the representations of Akhnaton’sceremonies. Human suffering was a thing hatefulto the young Pharaoh who knew so wellthe meaning of physical distress; and the torturesof the prisoners, or the beheading of somerebel, such as would have been a feature of anoccasion of this kind under Amonhotep II., oreven, perhaps, under Amonhotep III., would[176]have been as revolting to Akhnaton as it wouldbe to us.

7. QUEEN TIY VISITS THE CITY OF THEHORIZON.

Akhnaton had left Thebes, as we have seen,in about the eighth year of his reign; but hismother, Queen Tiy, seems to have been unwillingto accompany him, and to have decided toremain in her palace at the foot of the Thebanhills. It is probable that she had not encouragedher son to create the new capital, and theremoval of the court from Thebes must havebeen something of a grief to her, though nodoubt she recognised the necessity of the step.In spite of advancing years she must have sorelymissed the pomp and circumstance of the splendidcourt over which she had once presided. Upto the fourth year of her son’s reign she hadbeen dominant, and the whole known worldhad bowed the knee to her. The luxuries ofthe many kingdoms over which she held swayhad been hers to enjoy; but now, with the king[177]and the nobles gone to the City of the Horizon,and every penny which could be collected gonewith them, the old queen must have been obligedto live a quiet, retired life in a palace whichwas probably falling into rapid ruin. Her littledaughter, Baketaton, appears to have lived withher; and it may be that some of her otherdaughters were still with her, though of themwe hear nothing, and it is more probable thatthey had already died. It seems likely thatshe paid occasional state visits to her son, andpermanent accommodation was provided for herin the City of the Horizon should she at anytime desire to stay there. Her major-domo, anelderly man named Huya, appears to have livedfor part of the year at the new capital, where atomb was made for him; and it is from thereliefs on the walls of this tomb that we obtainthe knowledge of one of these state visits madeby the old queen to Akhnaton. There is no evidenceto show in what year the visit which formsthe subject of the representations was made;but as the twelfth year of Akhnaton’s reign ismentioned in this tomb, it is probable that thevisit took place somewhere about that time.

The queen must now have been between fiftyand sixty years of age,[55] and her daughterBaketaton, born just before the death of herhusband, was probably not much more thantwelve years old. Akhnaton received his motherand sister with apparent joy and festivity, andthe major-domo, Huya, was called upon toorganise many afête in their honour. Some ofthem are shown in the reliefs, where even theconventionalities of the artist have not beenable to hide from us the luxury of the scene.One sees Akhnaton, his wife Nefertiti, his motherTiy, his sister Baketaton, and his two daughtersMerytaton and Ankhsenpaaton, seated togetheron comfortable cushioned chairs, their feet restingonelaborate footstools. Akhnaton is cladin a skirt of clinging linen, but the upper partof his body seems to have been bare. On hisforehead there gleams a small golden serpent,and on his feet there are elaborate sandals; but[179]with customary simplicity he wears no jewellery.Queen Nefertiti wears a flowing robe of finelinen, and on her forehead also there is theroyal serpent. Queen Tiy wears the elaboratewig which was in vogue during the days of theoldrégime, and upon it there rests an ornamentalcrown consisting of a disk, two horns, two tallplumes, and two small serpents, probably allwrought in gold. A graceful robe of somealmost transparent material falls lightly overher figure. The little girls appear to be naked.

Around this happy family group there standgraceful tables upon which food of all kinds isheaped. Here are joints of meat, dishes of confectionery,vegetables, fruit,[56] bread, cakes ofvarious kinds, and so on. The tables aremassed with lotus-flowers, according to thecharming custom of the ancient Egyptians ofall periods. Beside the tables stand jars ofwine and other drinkables, festooned with ribbons.At the moment selected by the artist for reproduction,Akhnaton is seen placing his teeth in[180]the neatly trimmed meat adhering to a largebone which he holds in his hand. To this dayit is the custom in Egypt thus to eat with thehands. Nefertiti has a small roast duck in herhands at which she daintily nibbles. Tiy’s morselcannot now be seen, but as she places it to hermouth with one hand she presents a portion toher daughter, Baketaton, with the other. Thetwo little princesses feed by Nefertiti’s side,and appear to be sharing the meal. MeanwhileHuya hurries to and fro superintending thebanquet, carefully tasting each dish before itis presented to the royal party. Two stringbands play alternately, the one Egyptian andthe other apparently Syrian. The former consistsof four female performers, the first playingon a harp, the second and third on lutes, andthe fourth on a lyre. The main instrument inthe foreign band is a large standing lyre, aboutsix feet in height, having eight strings, andbeing played with both hands. Courtiers cladin elaborate dresses, and holding ostrich-plumestandards, are grouped around the hall in whichthe banquet takes place.

Another set of reliefs in the tomb of Huyashows us an evening entertainment in honour ofQueen Tiy. Again the same members of theroyal family are represented, but against thecool night air more clothes are worn by eachperson, and the upper part of the king’s bodyis now seen to be covered by a mantle of softlinen. The king, queen, and queen-dowager areall shown drinking from delicate bowls, probablymade of gold. This being an evening festival,little solid food appears to have been eaten,but there are three flower-decked tables piledhigh with fruit. From these the little princesses,now wearing light garments, help themselvesliberally; and the small Ankhsenpaatonstands upon the footstool of her mother’s chair,holding on to her skirts with one hand, whilewith the other she crams an apricot or somesimilar fruit into her mouth. Two string bandsmake music as before, and again the groups ofcourtiers stand about the hall; while Huyahastens to and fro directing the waiters, who,with napkins thrown over their arms, replenishthe drinking-bowls from the wine-jars. The[182]hall is lit by several flaming lamps set upontall stands, near each of which these jars havebeen placed.

8. TIY VISITS HER TEMPLE.

One more scene from this state visit is shown.Here we observe Akhnaton leading his motheraffectionately by the hand to a temple whichhad been built in her honour, as her privateplace of worship, and which was called the“Shade of the Sun.” This temple appears tohave been a building of great beauty and considerablesize. One passed through two greatswinging doors fixed between the usual two pylons,and so entered the main court, which stoodopen to the sunlight. A pillared gallery passedalong either side of this court, and between eachof the columns there stood statues of Akhnaton,Amonhotep III., and Queen Tiy. In the middleof the court rose the altar, to which one mountedby a flight of low steps. At the far end of thecourt another set of pylons and swinging doorsled into the inner chambers. Passing through[183]these doors one entered a small gallery, on eitherside of which there were again statues of thePharaoh and his mother. Beyond stood thesanctuary, closed by swinging doors; and insidethis was the second altar, flanked by statuesof the king and queen-dowager. To right andleft of the sanctuary there were small chapels;and a passage led round behind the sanctuaryto the usual shrines, where more royal statueswere to be seen.

The building seems to have been brilliantwith colours; and on this particular occasion thealtars were heaped up with offerings. Great jarsof wine, decked with garlands of flowers andribbons, stood in the shadow of the colonnades;and meat, bread, fruit, and vegetables were piledon delicate stands, ornamented with flowers.

Akhnaton and Tiy were accompanied by thelittle Princess Baketaton, Akhnaton’s sister, andher two ladies-in-waiting. Before them walkedthe queen’s major-domo, Huya, accompanied bya foreign official wearing what appears to beCretan costume.[57] Behind them walked a noblegroup of courtiers bearing ostrich-plume fans[184]and standards; and outside the temple precinctswaited a crowd of policemen, servants, charioteersand grooms in charge of the royal chariots, fan-bearers,porters, and temple attendants. Thesepeople shout and cheer loyally as the royal partyarrives. “The ruler of the Aton!” they cry.“He shall exist for ever and ever!” “She whorises in beauty!” “To him on whom the Atonrises!” “She who is patron of this temple ofAton!” The old queen must have felt as thoughshe were back once more in the days of herglory; and yet how different the simplicity ofthe religious ceremonies to those of the oldpriests of Amon-Ra. There was now but aprayer or two at the altar, a little burning ofincense, a little bowing of the head, and thenthe procession back to the palace, and the silentclosing of the holy gates.

9. THE DEATH OF QUEEN TIY.

It is possible that Queen Tiy took up herresidence at the City of the Horizon in recognitionof the lavish arrangements which her son[185]had made for her. But whether this is so ornot, it does not seem that she lived very longto enjoy such renewals of the pomps which shehad known in her younger days. Her deathappears to have taken place shortly after thesecelebrations, and, probably by her express commands,she was embalmed at Thebes and carriedfrom her palace up the winding valley to theroyal burying-ground amongst the rugged Thebanhills. Akhnaton showed his affection for her bypresenting the furniture for the tomb, and inthe inscriptions on the outer coffin one readsthat “he made it for his mother.” The queen-dowagerhad evidently expressed a wish to beburied near her father and mother, Yuaa andTuau; for the tomb, which is situated on theeast side of the valley, is within a stone’s-throwof the sepulchre where they lay. It was enteredby a steep flight of steps leading down to asloping passage, at the end of which was thelarge burial chamber, the walls of which werecarefully whitewashed. On passing into thischamber a great box-like shrine, or outer coffin,was to be found, occupying the greater part ofthe room. The door to the shrine was made of[186]costly cedar of Lebanon covered with gold, andwas fitted with an ornamental bolt. Many ofthe nails which held the woodwork togetherwere made of pure gold,—a fact which plainlyshows us the wealth of the royal treasuries atthis time. Scenes were embossed on the panelsshowing the queen standing under the rays ofthe Aton. The shrine itself was also made ofcedar, covered with gold, and on all sides werescenes of the Aton worship. Here Akhnatonwas shown with Tiy, and the life-giving rays ofthe sun streamed around their naturally drawnfigures. Inside this outer box the coffin containingthe great queen’s mummy was laid. Theusual funeral furniture was placed at the sidesof the room: gaily coloured boxes, alabastervases, faience toilet-pots, statuettes, &c. Someof the toilet utensils were made in the form oflittle figures of the grotesque god Bes, whichindicates that Akhnaton still tolerated the recognitionby other persons of some of the oldgods. In the inscriptions upon the outer coffinhe had been careful to call his father, AmonhotepIII., by his second name, Nebmaara, asoften as possible, in order to avoid the writing[187]of the word Amon, his dislike of everything todo with that god being profound. He allowedit to be written, however, here and there, as itseemed right to him that it should appear.Akhnaton’s prejudice against the old state godis also shown in another manner. Amon’s consortwas the goddess Mut “the Mother,” whosename is written in hieroglyphs by a sign representinga vulture. Now when the inscriptionmentioned the king’smother, Tiy, the wordmut,“mother,” had to be written; but in order toavoid a similarity—even in spelling—to thename of the goddess, Akhnaton had the wordwritten out phonetically, letter by letter, andthus dispensed with the use of the vulture sign.[58]Again, in the name Nebmaara, the meaning ofwhich is “Ra, Lord of Truth,” the signmaa,“truth,” represented the goddess of that name.Akhnaton’s religion was much concerned withthe quality of truth, which he regarded as oneof the greatest necessities to happiness and well-being;and the fallacy of supposing that therewas an actual deity of truth was particularly[188]apparent to him. He was, therefore, careful towrite the signmaa in letters instead of withthe hieroglyph of the goddess.

When the funeral ceremonies came to an end,when the last prayer was said and the lastcloud of incense had floated to the roof, thegolden door of the shrine was shut and bolted,the outer doorways were walled up, and anavalanche of stones, let down from the chippingsheaped near by, obliterated all traces of theentrance. Thus Akhnaton paid his last tributeto his mother and to the originator, it may be,of the schemes which he had carried into effect;and his last link with the past was severed.With the death of this good woman a restraininginfluence, as kindly as it was powerful, slippedfrom his arm, and a new and fiercer chapter ofhis short life began.

VI.
THE THIRTEENTH TO THE FIFTEENTHYEARS OF THE REIGN OF AKHNATON.

1. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RELIGIONOF ATON.

It is certainly worthy of note that Syria andNubia are thus named before Egypt, and seemto take precedence in Akhnaton’s mind. In thesame hymn the following lines occur:—

Here Akhnaton refers to the rain which fallsin Syria to water the lands of the stranger,and compares it with the river which irrigates hisown country. Thus again his thoughts are firstfor Syria and then for Egypt. This is the trueimperial spirit: in the broadness of the Pharaoh’smind his foreign possessions claim as muchattention as do his own dominions, and demandas much love. The sentiments are entirelyopposed to those of the earlier kings of thisdynasty, who ground down the land of the“miserable” foreigner and extracted therefromall its riches, without regard to aught else.

Akhnaton believed that his God was the Fatherof all mankind, and that the Syrian and theNubian were as much under His protection asthe Egyptian. This is a greater advance inethics than may be at once apparent; for theAton thus becomes the first deity who was nottribal or not national ever conceived by mortalmind. This is the Christian’s understandingof God, though not the Hebrew conception ofJehovah. This is the spirit which sends themissionary to the uttermost parts of the earth;and it was such an attitude of mind which now[191]led Akhnaton to build a temple for the Atonin the heart of Syria, and another far up inthe Sudan.[59] The site of the Syrian temple isnow lost, but the Nubian buildings were recentlydiscovered and seem to have been of considerableextent.

At the same time temples were being erectedin various parts of Egypt. At Hermonthis atemple named “Horizon of Aton in Hermonthis”was built; at Heliopolis there was a templenamed “Exaltation of Ra in Heliopolis,” andalso a palace for the king; at Hermopolis andat Memphis temples were erected; and in theFayum and the Delta “Houses” of Aton sprangup. Few real converts, however, seem to havebeen made; for the religion was far above theunderstanding of the people. In deference tothe king’s wishes the Aton was accepted, butno love was shown for the new form of worship;and, indeed, not even in the City of the Horizonitself was it understood.

A certain change was now made by Akhnatonin the name of the Aton. The words “Heatwhich is in Aton” did not seem to him to be[192]very happily chosen. They had been used inthe earliest years of the movement, and hadevidently not been coined by Akhnaton himself.The word “heat” was in spelling very reminiscentof the name of one of the old gods, and,to the uninitiate, might suggest some connection.The name of the Aton was thereforechanged to “Effulgence which comes fromAton,” the new words introducing into the spellingthe hieroglyph of Ra, the sun. The exactsignificance of the alteration is not known; butone may suppose that the new words betterconveyed the meaning which Akhnaton wished toimply. Even now it is not easy to find a phraseto express that vital energy, that first causeof life, which the king so clearly understood.

The date of this change is somewhat uncertain,though it is definitely to be placed between thetenth and thirteenth year of the reign, theprobability being that it took place at the endof the twelfth year, when Akhnaton was abouttwenty-three years old. The inscriptions uponthe outer coffin, or shrine, of Queen Tiy showthe older form of wording, and the change,therefore, took place after her death. Now the[193]queen did not die till the middle or end of thetwelfth year, for in the tomb of Huya eventsof that year are recorded,[60] and he still holdsthe office of steward to the queen, while aletter from Dushratta, mentioning Tiy, wasdocketed in the twelfth year. On the otherhand, the new name of the Aton occurs intombs which, by the number of Akhnaton’sdaughters represented in them, might be thoughtto have been constructed earlier than this.[61]Thus there is a slight discrepancy; but thepoint of significance is that the change occurredafter the queen’s death, and was thus concurrentwith another change which must here berecorded.

2. AKHNATON OBLITERATES THE NAME OF AMON.

Up till this time it will have been observedthat Akhnaton had behaved with great leniency[194]towards the worshippers of the older gods, andhad not even persecuted the priesthood of Amon-Ra.It now becomes apparent that this restraintwas due to his mother’s influence, for no soonerwas she dead than Akhnaton turned with thefierceness of a fanatic upon the latter institution.He issued an order that the name of Amon wasto be erased wherever it occurred, and this orderwas carried out with such amazing thoroughnessthat hardly a single occurrence of thename was overlooked. Although thousands ofinscriptions, accessible to Akhnaton’s agents, arenow known in which the name of Amonoccurs, there are but a few examples in whichthe god’s name has not been mutilated. Hisagents hammered the name out on the wallsof the temples throughout Egypt; they penetratedinto the tombs of the dead to erase itfrom the texts; they searched through theminute inscriptions upon small statuettes andfigures, obliterating the name therefrom; theymade journeys into the distant deserts to cutout the name from the rock-scribbles of travellers;they clambered over the cliffs beside theNile to erase it from the graffiti; they entered[195]private houses to rub it from small utensilswhere it chanced to be inscribed.

Akhnaton was always thorough in his undertakings,and half-measures were unknown tohim. When it came to the question of his ownfather’s name, he seems not to have hesitatedto order the obliteration of the word Amon init, though one may suppose that in most caseshe painted over it the king’s second name,Nebmaara. His agents burst their way intothe tomb of Queen Tiy and removed the nameAmonhotep from the inscriptions upon the shrine,writing Nebmaara in red ink over each erasure.Having scratched out the name even upon oneof the queen’s toilet-pots of minute size theyretired from the tomb, building up the wall atthe entrance, and continued their labours elsewhere.The king was now asked whether hisown name, Amonhotep,—which had been usedbefore he adopted the better known Akhnaton,—wasto suffer the same fate, and the answerseems to have been in the affirmative. Uponthe quarry tablet at Gebel Silsileh [62] the king’sdiscarded name is thus erased, though it was[196]not damaged in the tomb of Rames. The namesof the various nobles and officials, male andfemale, which were compounded with Amon—Amonhotep,Setamon, Amonemhat, Amonemapt,and so on—were ruthlessly destroyed; whileliving persons bearing such names were oftenobliged to change them.

In thus mutilating his father’s name Akhnatondid not in any way intend to disparage hisforbears. He was but desirous of utterly obliteratingAmon from the memory of man, inorder that the true God might the better receiveacceptance. He was proud of his descent,and, unlike most of his ancestors, he showed adesire to honour the memory of his father. Wehave seen [63] how one of his artists, Bek, representedthe figure of Amonhotep III. uponhis monument at Aswan. Huya, Queen Tiy’ssteward, was authorised by Akhnaton to showthat king upon the walls of his tomb;[64] and inthe private temple of Queen Tiy, it will be rememberedthat there were statues of Amonhotep III.[65]Likewise, the earlier kings of the[197]dynasty received unusual recognition. An officialnamed Any held the office of Steward of theHouse of Amonhotep II.;[66] and there is a representationof Akhnaton offering to Aton in “theHouse of Thothmes IV. in the City of the Horizon.”[67]Upon his boundary tablet Akhnatonrefers to Amonhotep III. and Thothmes IV. asbeing troubled by the priesthood of Amon.

It would seem from the above that there wereshrines dedicated to Akhnaton’s ancestors in theCity of the Horizon, each of which had itssteward and its officials; and it is probablethat Akhnaton arranged that a memorial shrineof the same kind should be erected for himselfagainst his death, for we read of a personagewho was “Second Priest” of the king.[68] It washis desire in this manner to show the continuityof his descent from the Pharaohs of the elderdays, and to demonstrate his real claim to thattitle “Son of the Sun” which had been heldby the sovereigns of Egypt ever since the FifthDynasty, and which was of such vital import[198]ancein the new religion. It was in this mannerthat he claimed descent from Ra, who was tohim the same with Aton; and just as the greatreligious teachers of the Hebrews made carefulnote of their genealogies in order to prove themselvesdescended from Adam, and hence in amanner from God, so Akhnaton thus demonstratedthe continuity of his line in order toshow his real right to the titles “Child of Aton”and “Son of the Sun.”

3. THE GREAT TEMPLE OF ATON.

The City of the Horizon of Aton must nowhave been a very city of temples. There werethese shrines dedicated to the king’s ancestors;there was the temple of Queen Tiy; there wasa shrine for the use of Baketaton, the king’ssister; there was the “House of putting theAton to Rest,” where Queen Nefertiti officiated;and there was the great temple of Aton, in whichprobably were included other of the buildingsnamed in the inscriptions. The great templemay here be briefly described, as the reader has[199]so far made the acquaintance only of the buildingbelonging to Queen Tiy.

The temple was entirely surrounded by ahigh wall, and in this respect was not unlikethe existing temple of Edfu, which the visitorto Egypt will assuredly have seen. Inside thearea thus enclosed there were two buildings,the one behind the other, standing clear of thewalls, thus leaving a wide ambulatory aroundthem. Upon passing through the gates of theenclosing wall there was seen before one thefaçade of the first of the two temples, while toright and left there stood a small lodge orvestry. The façade of the temple was mostimposing. Two great pylons towered up beforeone, rising from behind a pillared portico, andbetween them stood the gateway with its swingingdoors. Up the face of each pylon shot fivetall masts, piercing the blue sky above, andfrom the heads of each there fluttered a crimsonpennant. Passing through the gateway oneentered an open court, in the midst of whichstood the high altar, up to which a flight ofsteps ascended. On either side of this sun-bathedenclosure stood a series of small chapels[200]or chambers; while in front of one, in the axialline, there was another gateway leading on intothe second court, from which one passed againinto a third court. Passing through yet anothergateway, a fourth division of the temple wasreached, this being a pillared gallery or colonnadewhere one might rest for a while in thecool shadow. Then onwards through anothergateway into the fifth court, crossing which oneentered the sixth court, where stood another altarin the full sunshine. A series of some twentylittle chambers passed around the sides of thiscourt, and looking into the darkness beyond eachof their doorways one might discern the simpletables and stands with which the rooms werefurnished. A final gateway now led one intothe seventh and last court, where again therewas an altar, and again a series of chamberssurrounded the open space.

Behind this main temple, and quite separatefrom it though standing within the one enclosure,stood the lesser temple, which was probably themore sacred of the two. It was fronted by apillared portico, and before each column stooda statue of Akhnaton, beside which was a smaller[201]figure of his wife or one of his daughters.Passing through the gateway, which was sodesigned that nothing beyond could be seen, oneentered an open court in which stood the altar,and around the sides of which were small chambers.Here the temple ended, save for a few chambersof uncertain use, approached from the ambulatory.

Both buildings were gay with colours, and atfestivals there were numerous stands heaped highwith flowers and other offerings, while red ribbonsadded their notes of brilliant colour on all sides.There was nothing gloomy or sombre in thistemple of Aton; and it contrasts strikingly withthe buildings in which Amon was worshipped.There vast halls were lit by minute windows, anda dim uncertainty hovered around the worshipper.Such temples lent themselves to mystery,and amidst their gloomy shadows many a supplicant’sheart beat in terror. Dark stairways ledto subterranean passages, and these passages toblack chambers built in the thickness of thewall, from whence the hollow voice of the priestthrobbed as from mid-air upon the ears of thecrouching congregation. But in Akhnaton’s templeeach court was open to the full blaze of the sun[202]light.[69]There was, there could be, no mystery;nor could there be any terror of darkness toloosen the knees of the worshipper. Akhnaton,true scientist that he was, had no sympathy forthe occult and no interest in spiritualism. Boldlyhe looked to God as a child to its father; andhaving solved what he deemed to be the riddleof life, there was no place in his mind for aughtbut an open, fearless adoration of the Creatorof that vital energy which he saw in all things.Akhnaton was the sworn enemy of the table-turnersof his day, and the tricks of priestcraft,the stage effects of religiosity, were anathemato his pure mind.

4. THE BEAUTY OF THE CITY.

The City of the Horizon of Aton was now aplace of surpassing beauty. Eight or nine yearsof lavish expenditure in money and skill hadtransformed the fields and the wilderness into[203]as fair a city as the world had ever seen.One of the nobles who lived there, by nameMay, describes it in these words: “The mightyCity of the Horizon of Aton, great in loveliness,mistress of pleasant ceremonies, rich in possessions,the offering of the sun being in her midst.At the sight of her beauty there is rejoicing.She is lovely and beautiful: when one sees herit is like a glimpse of heaven.”

There was almost constant music in her streets,and the scent of flowers was wafted upon everybreeze. Besides the temples and public buildingsthe city was adorned with numerous palaces,each standing in fair gardens. One of thesemansions,[70] represented in the tomb of Meryra,seems to have constituted a happy combinationof comfort and simplicity, as may be seen fromits pictures. One entered a walled court, andso passed to the main entrance of the house.A portico, the roof of which was supported byfour decorative columns festooned with ribbons,sheltered the elaborate doorway from the sunshine.Passing through this doorway, from thetop of which a row of cobras gleamed down[204]upon one, a pillared hall was reached; and beyondthis the visitor entered the great dining-hall.Twelve columns supported the ceiling,which was probably painted with flights ofbirds; and under a kind of kiosk in the middleof the hall stood the dining-table and several comfortablearm-chairs, cushioned in bright colours.Beyond this hall there was a court, at the backof which were several chambers, one being abedroom, as a great cushioned bedstead clearlyshows. The owner’s womenfolk probably occupiedanother portion of the building not shownin the representations.

The palace of Ay, Akhnaton’s father-in-law,was a more pretentious building. It was enteredby a fine doorway which led into a court. Asecond door gave entrance to the large, pillareddining-hall, and through this one passed into acourt from which bedrooms and boudoirs led off.In one of these rooms two women, clad in airygarments, are seen to be dancing with oneanother, while a man plays a harp. In anotherroom a girl likewise dances to the strains of aharp, while a servant dresses the hair of one ofthe gentlemen of the household. Other rooms[205]contain lutes, harps, and lyres, as well as objectsof the toilet. A little court is now reached,where fragrant flowers grow, and tanks of water,sunk in the decorated pavement, give a sense ofcoolness to the air. Beyond this are more apartments,and finally the kitchens are reached.Throughout the house stand delicate tables uponwhich jars of wine or dishes of fruit are to beseen; and cushioned arm-chairs, with footstoolsbefore them, are ready for the weary. Servantsare seen passing to and fro bearing refreshments,or stopping to dust the floor, or againidly talking in the passages.

Akhnaton’s palace is not very clearly shownin the tomb reliefs or paintings, but portionsof it were found in the modern excavations onthe site [71]. Like all the residential buildings ofthe period, it was an airy and light structuremade of brick. The walls, ceilings, and floorswere covered with the most beautiful paintings;and delicate pillars, inlaid with coloured glassand stone, or covered with realistically paintedvines and creepers, supportedthe light roofsof its halls. Portions of the pavement are still[206]preserved, and the visitor to the site of thecity may still see the paintings there depicted.A young calf, frisking in the sunlight, gallopsthrough a field of red poppies; wild geese risefrom the marshes and beat their way throughthe reeds, disturbing the butterflies as they doso; amidst the lotus-flowers resting upon therippling water the sinuous fish are seen towander. These are but fragments of the paintingswhich once delighted the eyes of thePharaoh, or brought a sigh to the lips of hisqueen.

The art of the painter of this period excels inthe depiction of animal and plant life. Thewinding, tangled stems and leaves of vineswere carefully studied; the rapid motions ofanimals were correctly caught; and it has beensaid that in these things the artists of Akhnatonwere greater than those in any other Orientalart [72]. Sculpture in the round, too, reached apitch of excellence never before known. Thestatue of Akhnaton illustrated opposite is thework of one who may rank with Donatello, ifnot with Cellini.

It is possible that Auta, the chief sculptorof Queen Tiy,[73] is the creator of this statue, andperhaps also of the head, probably, of Akhnaton’sdaughter shown opposite next page. In the tombof Huya there is a scene representing this artistseated in his studio giving the final touches toa statue of Princess Baketaton. He sits upona low stool, palette in hand, and, as was thecustom, colours the surface of the statue. Unlikethe stiff conventional poses of earlier work,the attitude of the young girl is easy andgraceful. One hand hangs by her side: in theother she holds a pomegranate, which she isabout to raise to her lips. Auta’s assistantstands beside the figure, and near by twoapprentices work upon objects of less importance,their chisels on a table by their side.

Works such as these which Auta and hiscompanions were turning out are permanentmemorials of the reign of Akhnaton, which willcarry his name through the years until, as hewould say, “the swan turns black and the crowturns white.” There must surely come a time,and soon, when the art of Egypt will receive[208]more attention; and one may then hear Akhnaton’sname coupled with that of the Medici asthe patron, if not the teacher, of great masters.It was he who released them from convention,and bade their hands repeat what their eyessaw; and it was he who directed those eyes tothe beauties of nature around them. He, andno other, taught them to look at the world inthe spirit of life, to infuse into the cold stonesomething of the “effulgence which comes fromAton”; and, if these few treasures which havesurvived the utter wreck of the City of theHorizon have put one’s heart to a happy step,it was Akhnaton who first set the measure.

5. AKHNATON’S AFFECTION FOR HIS FAMILY.

In about the thirteenth year of the reign a fifthdaughter was born, who was named Neferneferura.This seems to have been the first daughter bornafter the changes in the religion recorded atthe beginning of this chapter [74] had taken place;and it is significant that the name of Aton, ofwhich all the previous daughters’ names had[209]been compounded, now gives place to Ra. Asixth daughter seems to have made her appearancesomewhat over a year later, some timeduring the fourteenth year of the reign. AgainRa is used in the name instead of Aton, shebeing called Setepenra. It is impossible to saywhat was the meaning of this slight change inthe theological aspect of the religion at thisperiod, but it seems evident that certain developmentsin which Ra figured were nowintroduced.

No son was yet forthcoming, and both theking and the queen must now have sufferedsix successive disappointments. It may bementioned here that the next child born tothe unfortunate couple in the following yearproved to be a seventh girl and a seventh disappointment;and in the remaining two yearsof the reign no other child was born, or atany rate was weaned, so that Akhnaton diedsonless. It is strange to picture this lofty-mindedpreacher in his home, with his six littlegirls around him, as he is shown upon themonuments. No other Pharaoh thus portrayedhimself surrounded by his family; but Akhnaton[210]seems to have never been happy unless all hischildren were with him and his wife by hisside. The charm of family life, and the sanctityof the relationship of husband and wife, parentsand children, seems to have been an importantpoint of doctrine to him. He urged his nobles,also, to give their attention to their families;and in the tomb of Panehesy, for example, onemay see representations of that personage sittingwith his wife and his three daughters aroundhim.

Akhnaton’s affection for his daughters is nowshown to us in another manner. When Amonhotep III.had asked the King of Mitanni forone of his daughters to be given in marriage toAkhnaton, the little Nefertiti was at oncedispatched, although she was not yet oldenough to cohabit with her husband. He hadno scruples about sending the child of eightyears old to a foreign country, and seems tohave packed her off without a thought. Now,however, we obtain a glimpse of Akhnaton’sactions under similar circumstances, and thedifference is marked. The King of Babylon,Burraburiash, wrote to Akhnaton in about the[211]fourteenth or fifteenth year of the reign, askingfor one of the Pharaoh’s daughters as a wife forhis son. Wishing to be on friendly terms withBabylonia, Akhnaton consented to the union,and selected probably his fourth daughter, Nefernefernaton,as the future Queen of Babylon.His eldest daughter subsequently married anoble named Smenkhkara, who succeeded to thethrone after the death of Akhnaton; and histhird daughter was later married to anothernoble named Tutankhaton, who usurped thethrone, as we shall see in the sequel. The factthat neither of these daughters was now chosento marry the Babylonian prince indicates thatthey were already betrothed to their futurehusbands, and hence this event could not havetaken place much earlier than at the datementioned above. The second daughter, Meketaton,was not selected for the reason that sheseems to have been in a precarious state ofhealth. The little princess who was chosenwas born in the tenth year of the reign, andwas now not more than five years of age.Akhnaton, unlike the King of Mitanni, did notat once send the child to her future home, but[212]arranged the marriage by proxy, and thus kepthis daughter with him for yet a few years. Thisis made evident from the fact that in a letterfrom Burraburiash to Akhnaton, the Babylonianking states that he is sending a necklaceof over a thousand stones to the “Pharaoh’sdaughter, the wife of his son,” who is thusevidently still resident in Egypt.

Besides Akhnaton’s six, and presently seven,daughters there were two other princessesprobably in residence at the palace. One ofthese, his young sister Baketaton, whom wehave seen visiting the City of the Horizon withher mother, is not again heard of, and perhapsdid not long survive the dowager-queen’s death.The other was Nezemmut, the sister of QueenNefertiti, who seems to have lived in Egyptcontinuously since the time of the founding ofthe new city, when we last saw her.[75] Herportraits are shown in the tombs of May, Panehesy,and Ay; and she is generally seen to beaccompanied by two female dwarfs, named Paraand Reneheh, who appear to have waddled[213]after her wherever she went. She was still, nodoubt, very young, and these two grotesqueattendants were entrusted with her safety aswell as her amusement.

6. AKHNATON’S FRIENDS.

The simple and homely manner in whichAkhnaton is represented by his artists, surroundedby his children, is an indication thatalthough he demanded much homage from hissubjects in his capacity as their Pharaoh, he butasked for their sympathy and affection in allother connections. As Pharaoh his person wasinapproachable and his attitude aloof, but as aman he never failed to set an example of whathe considered a man should do; and even uponhis throne, to which one might but advancewith bowed head and bended knee, he displayedhis mortal nature to all beholders by joking withhis children or paying fond attention to hiswife. So, also, many of his disciples and courtiers,who so ceremoniously approached the stepsof his throne, were in reality his good friends[214]and intimates. Akhnaton did not care a snapof the fingers for aristocratic traditions, andalthough he demanded the conventional respectof his subjects, and upheld the less tiresomerules of court etiquette, many of his closestfriends were of peasant origin, and the handswhich now held the jewelled ostrich-plume standardscould as easily grasp the pick or theplough.

May, a high official of the city, speaks of himselfin the following words: “I was a man oflow origin both on my father’s and on my mother’sside, but the King established me.... He causedme to grow ... by his bounty when I was aman of no property; ... he gave me food andprovisions every day, I who had been one thatbegged bread.” Huya, Queen Tiy’s steward,speaks of the king as selecting his officials fromthe ranks of the yeomen. Panehesy tells usthat Akhnaton is one “who maketh princes andformeth the humble,” and he adds: “When Iknew not the companionship of princes I wasmade an intimate of the King.” But if thePharaoh raised men from the ranks, he was alsocapable of degrading those who offended against[215]the standards which he had set up. Thus Mayseems to have been disgraced and turned out ofthe city.

The tomb of the police official, Mahu, whowas a favourite of the king, though probablynot of exalted origin, has provided us with somescenes relating to his official work which are ofconsiderable interest. In one series of these weare shown the capture of some foreigners, or perhapsBeduin, who may have belonged to somegang of thieves or anarchists. Mahu has beenawakened in the early hours of a winter morningby the news of the disturbance, and as he listensto the report a servant blows a small fire intoflame, since the morning air is chilly. He thensends for his chariot and drives to the scene ofthe crime, whatever it may be; and soon he haseffected the arrest of some of the culprits.These men are then conveyed to the Vizir, who,with his staff, receives Mahu with exclamationsof approval. “Examine these men, O Princes,”says the police officer, “whom the foreignershave instigated.” From these words it mightseem that the prisoners were foreign spies, or evenassassins plotting against the life of the Pharaoh.

Whether from fear of a revolt in Egypt orfrom mere custom, the City of the Horizon wasclosely defended at this time, and there is ascene in this same tomb in which Akhnaton isshown inspecting the fortifications. He drivesin his chariot with his wife and his eldestdaughter Merytaton; and although the spiritedhorses would appear to be difficult to manage,the more so because the mischievous Merytatonis poking them with a stick, Akhnaton is a sufficientlygood driver to be able to carry on a conversationwith the queen, and to address a fewwords to Mahu, who runs by the side of thechariot. In striking contrast to the custom ofother Pharaohs, Akhnaton is accompanied by anunarmed bodyguard of police as he drives roundthe defences; and in this we may perhaps seean indication of his popularity. The fortifications,it may be noted, consist of blockhousesbuilt at regular intervals, and defended by wireor rope entanglements.

In several of the tombs there are representationsof their owners receiving rewards from theking for their diligence in their official works,or for their intelligent acceptance of his teach[217]ing.A high official named Pentu has left us ascene in which Akhnaton is shown seated in thehall of his palace, while Pentu stands before himto receive numerous golden collars at the royalhands in recognition of his services. A part ofthe palace is shown, but the scene is muchdamaged: a small pond or tank surrounded byflowers is shown in one corner of the enclosure,but the plan of the various rooms is confused,and is quite subsidiary to the representation ofthe hall where the Pharaoh receives the happyPentu. Akhnaton seems to have been a goodfriend, as he was a stern enemy; and those whoassisted him in the difficult tasks which he hadset himself were lavishly rewarded for theirpains.

7. AKHNATON’S TROUBLES.

Akhnaton’s health was so very uncertain thathe hastened to construct for himself a tombin the cliffs behind the City of the Horizon.He selected as the site of his last resting-placea gaunt and rugged valley which here cuts[218]into the hills, leading back, around tumbledrocks and up dry watercourses, to the Arabiandesert beyond. It is

Here Akhnaton elected to be buried, wherehyænas prowled and jackals wandered, and wherethe desolate cry of the night-owls echoed overthe rocks. In winter, the cold wind sweepsup this valley and howls around the rocks;in summer the sun makes of it a veritablefurnace unendurable to man. There is nothinghere to remind one of the God who watchesover him, and the tender Aton of the Pharaoh’sconception would seem to have abandoned thisplace to the spirits of evil. There are no flowerswhere Akhnaton cut his sepulchre, and no birdssing; for the king believed that his soul, caughtup into the noon of Paradise, would need nomore the delights of earth.

The tomb consisted of a passage descendinginto the hill, and leading to a rock-cut hall,the roof of which was supported by four columns.Here stood the sarcophagus of pink granite in[219]which the Pharaoh’s mummy would lie. Thewalls of this hall were covered with scenescarved in plaster,[76] representing various phasesof the Aton worship. From the passage thereled another small chamber beyond which afurther passage was cut, perhaps to lead toa second hall in which the queen should beburied; but the work was never finished.

The construction of the tomb was interruptedby the death of Akhnaton’s second daughter,Meketaton, who had barely lived to see herninth birthday. It has already been seen thatshe seems to have been ailing for some time,and her death was perhaps no surprise to herparents. Their grief, however, was none theless acute for this; and when the body of thelittle girl had been laid to rest in one of thechambers of her father’s tomb, the walls werecovered at Akhnaton’s order with scenes representingthe grief of the bereaved family.Here Queen Nefertiti is seen holding in her[220]arms her lately born seventh daughter, whosename, ending in ... t, is now lost; while thefive other little girls weep with their parentsbeside the bier of their dead sister. It is apathetic picture, and one which stirs our sympathyfor a Pharaoh who, unlike all other kingsof Egypt, could weep for the loss of a daughter.

This was not Akhnaton’s only grief. Hisdoctrines were not being accepted in Egyptas readily as he had hoped, and he was probablyable to detect a considerable amount ofinsincerity in the attitude of those around him.There was hardly a man whom he could trustto continue in the faith should he himself die;and even as he put the last touches to histemples and his palaces he was aware thathe had built his house upon the sand. Theempire which he had dreamed of, bound togetherby the ties of a common worship of Aton, wasfast fading out of sight, and the news whichreached him from Syria was disquieting in theextreme.

At this time the King of Babylon, whoseson had married Akhnaton’s daughter, seemsto have been on bad terms with his neighbour,[221]the King of Mitanni, the father of the Pharaoh’smuch-loved Queen Nefertiti; and Akhnaton camenigh to being drawn into the quarrel. TheBabylonian king had been ill for some time,and in the course of the international correspondenceNefertiti had never once sent hercondolences to him, apparently because he wasa poor friend to her father. This was muchresented, and the King of Babylon at lastsent an insulting letter to Akhnaton, in whichhe states that he is sending him the usualpresent of decorative objects which etiquetterequired of him, but that he wishes it to beunderstood that only a fraction of the giftis intended for the “mistress of his house,”i.e., Nefertiti, since she had not troubled toask after his health.

Shortly after this he wrote another letterto Akhnaton making various complaints, andstating that his messengers had been robbedin territory belonging to the Pharaoh, who musttherefore make good their losses. A third lettermakes similar complaints, and hints at futuretrouble. Meanwhile the King of Mitanni wason none too friendly terms with Akhnaton, and[222]appears to have detained the Pharaoh’s envoy,named Mani, thereby causing Akhnatonconsiderable anxiety. There was, in fact, a generaltendency to disparage the Egyptian king, whichmust have been exceedingly galling to Akhnaton,who had the power to let loose upon Asia anarmy which would silence all insult, but didnot find such a step consistent with his principles.In a letter which he wrote to one ofthe Syrian princes whose fidelity was doubtful,Akhnaton ends his despatch with the words:“I am very well, I the sun in the heavens,and my chariots and soldiers are exceedinglynumerous; and from Upper Egypt even untoLower Egypt, and from the place where thesun riseth even unto the place where he setteth,the whole country is in good cause and content.”Thus we see that Akhnaton knew his power,and wished that others should know it; andit is therefore the more surprising that, as weshall presently find, he never chose to use it.

VII.
THE LAST TWO YEARS OF THE REIGNOF AKHNATON.

1. THE HITTITE INVASION OF SYRIA.

The eastern end of the Mediterranean is boundedon the south by Egypt and the desert, on theeast by Palestine and Syria, and on the northby Asia Minor, these roughly forming the threesides of a square. The conquests of the greatwarrior-Pharaoh Thothmes III. had carried theEgyptian power as far as the north-east cornerof this formation—that is to say, to the pointwhere Syria meets Asia Minor. The island ofCyprus is in shape not unlike a hand with indexfinger extended; and this finger may be said[224]to be pointing to the limit of Egyptian conquest,somewhere in the neighbourhood of the AmanusMountains. The kingdom of Mitanni, the homeof Queen Nefertiti, was situated on the banksof the Euphrates some distance inland fromthese mountains; and as it acted as a bufferstate between the Egyptian possessions in Syriaand the unconquered lands beyond, the Pharaohshad taken care to unite themselves by marriage,as we have seen, with its rulers. Behind Mitannito the north-east, the friendly kingdoms laterknown as Assyria marked the limits of theknown world; while to the north the hostilelands of Asia Minor lay in the possession of theHittites, a warlike confederacy of peoples, perhapsthe ancestors of the modern Armenians.From these hardy warriors the greatest dangerto the Egyptian Empire in Syria was to beexpected; and the statesmen of Egypt must havecast many an anxious look towards those forbiddingmountains which loomed beyond Mitanni.A southern movement of the Hittites, indicationsof which were already very apparent, wouldbring them swarming over and around theAmanus Mountains, either along the eastern[225]and inland route through Mitanni, or along thewestern route beside the sea and over theLebanon, or again, midway between these tworoutes, past the great cities of Tunip, Kadesh,and others, which stood to block the way.

When Akhnaton ascended the throne, Seplelwas king of the Hittites, and was by way ofbeing friendly to Egypt. Some of his people,however, crossed the frontiers of Mitanni andwere repulsed by Dushratta, the king of thatcountry, who was father-in-law to Akhnaton.This caused some coldness between Seplel andthe Pharaoh; and although the former sent anembassy to the City of the Horizon, the correspondencebetween the two monarchs presentlyceased. The young idealist of Egypt seems tohave held warfare in horror; and the Hittiteswere so essentially a fighting race that Akhnatoncould have had no friendly feelings towards them.Soon we find that these Hittites, unable to overflowinto the land of Mitanni, have moved alongthe eastern route and have seized the land ofAmki, which lay on the sea-coast between theAmanus Mountains and the Lebanon. Thismovement might have been stopped by Aziru,[226]an Amorite prince who ruled the territory betweenAmki and Mitanni, and whose duty, asan Egyptian vassal, was to check the southernincursions of the Hittites. But Aziru, like hisfather Abdashirta before him, was a man asambitious as he was faithless, and his dealingsboth with the Hittites and with the Egyptiansduring the following years were unscrupulousin the extreme. It was his policy to play theone nation against the other, and to extendthe scope of his own power at the expense ofboth.

2. AKHNATON’S CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTIONSTO WARFARE.

Akhnaton’s policy in Syria, when consideredfrom the point of view of an ordinary man, wasof the weakest. Ideals cannot govern an empire,and those who would apply the doctrine of“peace and goodwill” to subject races endangerthe very principles which they would teach.While the young Pharaoh was singing hisimperial psalms to the Atom in his growing[227]capital, the princes of Syria were whistling therevolutionary ditties which presently were toring in the ears of the isolated Egyptian garrisons.Little did they care for that tenderFather of Mankind to whom Akhnaton’s thinfinger so earnestly pointed. They knew nothingof monotheism; they found no satisfaction inOne who was the gentle ruler of all men withoutdistinction of race. A true god to themwas a vanquisher of other gods, a valiant leaderin battle, a relentless avenger of insult. Thefurious Baal, the bloodthirsty Tishub, the terribleIshtar—these were the deities that a mancould love. How they scorned that God ofPeace who was called the Only One! Howthey laughed at the young Pharaoh whohad set aside the sword for the psalter, whohoped to rule his restless dominions by lovealone!

Love! One stands amazed at the recklessidealism, the beautiful folly, of this Pharaohwho, in an age of turbulence, preached areligion of peace to seething Syria. Threethousand years later mankind is still blindlystriving after these same ideals in vain. Nowadays[228]one is familiar with the doctrine: agreater than Akhnaton has preached it, andhas died for it. To-day God is known to us,and the peace of God is a thing hoped for;but at that far-off period, thirteen hundredyears before the birth of Christ, two or threecenturies before the age of David and Solomon,and many a year before the preaching of Moses,one is utterly surprised to behold the true lightshining forth for a short moment like the sunthrough a rift in the clouds, and one knowsthat it has come too soon. Mankind, even nownot ready, was then most wholly unprepared,and the price which Egypt paid for the idealsof her Pharaoh was no less than the completeloss of her dominions.

Akhnaton believed in God, and to him thatbelief meant a practical abhorrence of war.Marshalling the material available for the studyof this period of history, one can interpret theevents in Syria in only one way: Akhnatondefinitely refused to do battle, believing thata resort to arms was an offence to God.Whether fortune or misfortune, gain or loss,was to be his lot, he would hold to his[229]principles, and would not return to the oldgods of battle.

It must be remembered that at this timethe empire was the personal property of thePharaoh, as every kingdom was of its king.Nobody ever considered a possession as belongingto the nation which had laid hands upon it,but only to that nation’s king. It matteredvery little to the Syrian peoples whether theirowner was an Egyptian or a Syrian, thoughperhaps they preferred to be possessed by oneof their own race. Akhnaton was thus doinghis will with his own property. He wasrefusing to fight for his own possessions; hewas acting literally upon the Christian principleof giving the cloak to him who had stolen thecoat. Patriotism was a sentiment unknown tothe world: devotion to the king’s personalinterest was all that actuated loyalty in thesubject, and the monarch himself had but hisown interests to consider. Thus Akhnaton cannotbe accused of ruining his country by hisrefusal to go to war. He was entitled to dowhat he liked with his own personal property,and if he sacrificed his possessions to his[230]principles, the sacrifice was made upon God’shigh altar, and the loss would be felt by himalone. Such a loss, it is true, would probablybreak his heart; for he loved Syria dearly, andhe had had such great hopes of uniting theempire by the tie of a common religion. Butfor good or ill, he was determined to standaloof from the struggles upon which Syria wasnow entering.

3. THE FAITHLESSNESS OF AZIRU.

While Aziru, the Amorite, schemed on theborders of Asia Minor, a Syrian prince namedItakama suddenly set up an independent kingdomat Kadesh and joined hands with theHittites, thus cutting off the loyal city of Tunip,the friendly kingdom of Mitanni, and the territoryof the faithless Aziru from direct intercoursewith the Lebanon and Egypt’s remainingpossessions in Palestine and Syria. Three loyalvassal kings, perhaps assisted by Dushratta ofMitanni, attacked the rebels, but were repulsedby Itakama and his Hittite allies.

Aziru at once turned the situation to his ownadvantage. Hemmed in between the Hittiteson the north and this new kingdom of Kadeshon the south, he collected his armies andmarched down the Orontes to the Mediterraneancoast, capturing the cities near the mouthof that river and adding them to his possessions.Should the Hittites ask him to give an accountof these proceedings, he could reply that he was,as it were, the advance-guard of the Hittiteinvasion of Syria, and was preparing the roadfor them. Should Itakama question him, hecould say that he was, with friendly hands,linking the Hittites with Kadesh. And shouldAkhnaton call upon him for an explanation, hecould answer that he was securing the land forthe Egyptians against the Hittite advance.

No doubt Aziru preferred to keep his peacewith the Hittites the most secure, for it wasobvious that they were the rising people; butat the same time he did not yet dare to showany hostility to Egypt, whose armies might atany moment be launched across the Mediterranean.Unable to hold a position of independence,he now thought it most prudent to allow[232]the northmen to swarm southwards through hisdominions, from Amki over and around theLebanon to Kadesh, where their ally Itakamadwelt. In return for this assistance he seems tohave been allowed a free hand in the forwardingof his own interests, and we now find him turninghis attention to the sea-coast cities of Simyraand Byblos, which nestled at the western footof the Lebanon. Here, however, he received acheck, and failed to obtain a footing. He thereforemarched eastwards to the city of Niy, whichhe captured, slaying its king; and both to theHittites and to the Egyptians he seems to havepretended that he had taken this step in theirinterests.

On hearing of the fall of this city thegovernor of Tunip wrote a pathetic appeal toAkhnaton, asking for help; for he was nowquite isolated, and he knew that Aziru was afree-lance who cared not a jot for any but hisown welfare.

Several points become apparent from this letter.One sees that in the more distant cities of Syriathe significance of Akhnaton’s new religion wasnot understood. The governor of Tunip refersto the old gods of Egypt worshipped in thattown, and he knows not, or cannot be broughtto believe, that Akhnaton has become a monotheist.One sees that the memory of the terribleThothmes III. and his victorious armies was still[234]in men’s minds, and was probably one of themain causes of the long-continued peace in Syria.Akhnaton’s father, Amonhotep III., had not concernedhimself greatly with regard to his foreigndominions, and, as the people of Tunip had beenasking for assistance for twenty years, it wouldseem that the danger which now beset themwas already feared before that Pharaoh’s death.

How, one asks, could Akhnaton read such aletter as this, and yet refuse to send a relievingarmy to Syria? Byblos and Simyra were stillloyally holding out; and troops disembarked atthese ports could speedily be marched inland toTunip, could crush Hakama at Kadesh, andcould frighten Aziru into giving real assistanceto Dushratta and other loyal kings in holdingthe Hittites back behind the Amanus Mountains.But this was Akhnaton’s Gethsemane, ifone may say so with reverence; and like thatgreater Teacher who, thirteen hundred yearslater, was to preach the self-same doctrine ofpersonal sacrifice, one may suppose that thePharaoh suffered a very Agony as he realisedthat his principles were leading him to the lossof all his dearest possessions. His restless[235]generals in Egypt, eager to march into Syria,must have brought every argument to bearupon him; but the boy would not now turnback. “Put up thy sword into his place,” heseems to have said; “for all they that takethe sword shall perish with the sword.”

4. THE FIGHTING IN SYRIA BECOMES GENERAL.

At this time the King of Byblos was onenamed Ribaddi, a fine old soldier who was loyalto Egypt in his every thought and deed. Hewrote to Akhnaton urging him to send troopsto relieve the garrison of Simyra, upon whichAziru was again pressing close; for if Simyrafell, he knew that Byblos could not for longhold out. Presently we find that Zimrida, theking of the neighbouring port of Sidon, hasopened his gates to Aziru, and has marched withhim against Tyre. Abimilki, the King of Tyre,at once wrote to Akhnaton asking for assistance;but on receiving no reply he, too, appearsto have thrown in his lot with Aziru. Ribaddiwas now quite isolated at Byblos; and from[236]the beleaguered city he wrote to the Pharaoh tellinghim that “Simyra is like a bird in a snare.”Akhnaton made no reply; and in a short timeRibaddi wrote again, saying, “Simyra, yourfortress, is now in the power of the Khabiri.”

These Khabiri were the Beduin from behindPalestine, who were being used as mercenariesby Aziru, and who themselves were makingsmall conquest in the south on their ownbehalf. Thus the southern cities of Megiddo,Askalon, Gezer, and others, write to the Pharaohasking for aid against them. Exasperated, however,by Akhnaton’s inaction, Askalon and Gezer,together with the city of Lachish, threw offtheEgyptian yoke and attacked Jerusalem, which wasstill loyal to Egypt, being held by an officernamed Abdkhiba. This loyal soldier at oncesent a despatch to Akhnaton, part of whichread as follows:—

To this letter the writer added a postscriptaddressed to Akhnaton’s secretary, with whom hewas evidently acquainted. “Bring these wordsplainly before my lord the King,” runs thispathetic appeal. “The whole land of my lord,the King, is going to ruin.”

The letters sent to Akhnaton from the fewprinces who remained loyal form a collectionwhich even now moves the reader. To Akhnatonthey must have been so many sword-thrusts, andone may picture him praying passionately forstrength to set them aside. Soon it would seemthat the secretaries hardly troubled to showthem to him; and ultimately they were so effectuallypigeon-holed that they have only recentlybeen discovered. The Pharaoh permitted himselfto answer some of them, and seems to have[238]asked questions as to the state of affairs; butnever does he offer any encouragement. Lapaya,one of the princes of the south, who had evidentlyreceived a communication from Akhnatonin which his fidelity was questioned, wrote sayingthat if the Pharaoh ordered him to drive asword of bronze into his heart he would do so.It is a commentary upon the veracity of theOriental that in subsequent letters this prince isstated to have attacked Megiddo, and ultimatelyto have been slain while fighting against theEgyptian loyalists.

Addudaian, a king of some unknown city ofsouth Judea, acknowledges the receipt of a letterfrom Akhnaton in which he was asked to remainloyal; and he complains, in reply, of the loss ofvarious possessions. Dagantakala, the king ofanother city, writes imploring the Pharaoh torescue him from the Khabiri. Ninur, a queenof a part of Judea, who calls herself Akhnaton’shandmaid, entreats the Pharaoh to save her,and records the capture of one of her cities bythe Khabiri.

And so the letters run on, each telling of some[239]disaster to the Egyptian cause, and each voicingthe bitter complaint of those who were beingsacrificed to the principles of a king who hadgrasped the meaning of civilisation too soon.

5. AZIRU AND RIBADDI FIGHT TO A FINISH.

Meanwhile Ribaddi was holding Byblos valiantlyagainst Aziru’s armies, and many were thedespatches which he sent to Akhnaton askingfor assistance against Aziru. Nothing could havebeen easier than the despatch of a few hundredmen across the Mediterranean to the beleagueredport, and the number which Ribaddi asks for isabsurdly small. Akhnaton, however, would notsend a single man, but instead wrote a letterof gentle rebuke to Aziru, telling him to come tothe City of the Horizon to explain his conduct.Aziru wrote at once to one of Akhnaton’scourtiers who was his friend, telling him tospeak to the Pharaoh and to set matters right.

He explained that he could not leave Syria atthat time, for he must remain to defend Tunip[240]against the Hittites. The reader, who has seenthe letter written by the governor of Tunipasking for help against Aziru, will realise theperfidy of this Amorite, who was now, no doubt,preparing to capture Tunip for the sake of itsriches, and, having done so, would tell Akhnatonthat he had entered it to hold it against theHittites.

Akhnaton then wrote to Aziru insisting thathe should rebuild the city of Simyra, which hehad destroyed; but Aziru again replied that hewas too busy in defending Egyptian interestsagainst the inroads of the Hittites to give hisattention to this matter for at least a year. Tothis Akhnaton sent a mild reply; but Aziru,fearing that the letter might contain somematter which it would be better for him not tohear, contrived to evade the messenger, and thedespatch was brought back to Egypt. He wroteto the Pharaoh, however, saying that he wouldsee to it that the cities captured by himshould continue to pay tribute as usual toEgypt.

The tribute seems to have reached the Cityof the Horizon in correct manner until the last[241]years of the reign,[77] though probably it was muchless in quantity than had been customary. Therewas general confusion in Syria, as we have seen;but, as in the case of the struggle between Aziruand Ribaddi, where both professed their loyaltyto Egypt, so, in all the chaos, there was a make-believefidelity to the Pharaoh. The tribute wasthus paid each year by a large number of cities,and it was probably not till the seventeenthand last year of Akhnaton’s reign that thispretence of loyalty was altogether discarded.

In desperate straits at Byblos, Ribaddi madea perilous journey to the neighbouring city ofBeyrût in order to attempt to collect reinforcements.No sooner had he left, however, thanan insurrection occurred at Byblos, and Ribaddipaid for his loyalty to Egypt by losing thesupport of his own subjects. Presently Beyrûtsurrendered to Aziru, and Ribaddi was forced tofly. After many an adventure the stout old[242]king managed to regain control of Byblos, andto set about the further defence of the city.

Meanwhile Aziru had paid a rapid visit toEgypt, partly to justify his conduct and partly,no doubt, to ascertain the condition of affairson the Nile. With Oriental cunning he managedto satisfy Akhnaton that his intentionswere not hostile to Egypt, and so returned tothe Lebanon. Ribaddi, hearing of this, at oncesent his son to the City of the Horizon to exposeAziru’s perfidy and to plead for assistanceagainst him. At the same time he wrote toAkhnaton a pathetic account of his misfortunes.Four members of his family had been takenprisoners; his brother was constantly conspiringagainst him; old age and disease pressedheavily upon him. All his possessions had beentaken from him, all his lands devastated; hehad been reduced by famine and the privationsof a long siege to a state of utter destitution,and he could not much longer hold out. “Thegods of Byblos,” he writes, “are angry with meand sore displeased; for I have sinned againstthe gods, and therefore I do not come before mylord the King.” Was his sin, one wonders, the[243]adoption for a while of Akhnaton’s faith? Tothis communication Akhnaton seems to havemade no reply.

6. AKHNATON CONTINUES TO REFUSE TOSEND HELP.

The messengers who arrived at the City ofthe Horizon of Aton, dusty and travel-stained,to deliver the many letters asking for help,must have despaired indeed when they observedthe manner in which the news was received.Hateful to these hardy soldiers of the empirewere the fine quays at which their galleysmoored; hateful the fair villas and shadedavenues of the city; and thrice hateful therolling hymns to the Aton which came to themfrom the temple halls as they hurried to thePharaoh’s palace. The townspeople smiled attheir haste in this city of dreams; the courtofficials delayed the delivery of their letters,scoffing at the idea of urgency in the affairs ofAsia; and finally these wretched documents,written—if ever letters were so written—with[244]blood and with tears, were pigeon-holed in thecity archives and utterly forgotten save byAkhnaton himself. Instead of the brave musicof the drums and bugles of the relieving armywhich these messengers had hoped to muster,there rang in their maddened ears only theceaseless chants of the priestly ceremonies andthe pattering love-songs of private festivals.Newly come from the sweat and the labour ofthe road, their brains still racked with thehorror of war and yet burning with the vasthopes of empire, they looked with scorn atthe luxury of Egypt’s new capital, and heardwith disgust the dainty tales of the flowers.The lean, sad-eyed Pharaoh, with his crookedhead and his stooping shoulders, would speakonly of his God; and, clad in simple clothesunrelieved by a single jewel, there was nothingmartial in his appearance to give them hope.From the beleaguered cities which they had solately left there came to them the bitter cryfor succour; and it was not possible to drownthat cry in words of peace, nor in the jangle ofthe systrum or the warbling of the pipes.Who, thought the waiting messengers, could resistthat piteous call: “Thy city weeps, and[245]her tears are flowing”? Who could sit idle inthe City of the Horizon when the proud empire,won with the blood of the noblest soldiers ofthe great Thothmes, was breaking up before theireyes? What mattered all the philosophies inthe world, and all the gods in heaven, whenEgypt’s great dominions were being wrested fromher? The splendid Lebanon, the white kingdomsof the sea, Askalon and Ashdod, Tyre and Sidon,Simyra and Byblos, the hills of Jerusalem, Kadeshand the great Orontes, the fair Jordan, Tunip,Aleppo, the distant Euphrates.... What counteda creed against these? God? The truth? Theonly god was He of the Battles, who had ledEgypt into Syria; the only truth the doctrineof the sword, which had held her there for somany years.

Looking back across these thirty-two centuries,can one yet say whether the Pharaoh was in theright, or whether his soldiers were the betterminded? On the one hand there is culture,refinement, love, thought, prayer, goodwill, andpeace; on the other hand, power, might, health,hardihood, bravery, and struggle. One knowsthat Akhnaton’s theories were the more civilised,the more ideal; but is there not a pulse[246]which stirs in sympathy with those who wereholding the citadels of Asia? We can give ourapproval to the ideals of the young king, butwe cannot see his empire fall without bitterlyblaming him for the disaster. Yet in passingjudgment, in calling the boy to account for theloss of Syria, there is the consciousness thatabove our tribunal sits a judge to whom warmust assuredly be abhorrent, and in whoseeyes the struggle of the nations must utterlylack its drama. Thus, even now, Akhnatoneludes our criticism, and but raises once morethat eternal question which as yet has noanswer.

7. AKHNATON’S HEALTH GIVES WAY.

It is possible that the Pharaoh now realisedhis position, and one may suppose that he triedas best he could to pacify the turbulent princesby all the arts of diplomacy. It does not seem,however, that he yet fully appreciated the catastrophewhich was now almost inevitable—thecomplete loss of Syria. He could not bringhimself to believe that the princes of that[247]country would play him false; and he couldhave had no idea that he was being so entirelyfooled by such men as Aziru. But when atlast the tribute ceased to come in regularly, then,too late, he knew that disaster was upon him.

The thoughts which now must have held swayin his mind could not have failed to carry himdown the dark steps of depression to the verypit of despair, and one may picture him dailycast prone upon the floor before the high altarof the Aton, and nightly tossing sleepless uponhis royal bed. It seems that he had placedgreat reliance upon a certain official, namedBikhuru, who was acting as Egyptian commissionerin Palestine; but now it is probablethat he received news of that unfortunate personage’sflight, and later of his murder.[78] Thencame the report that Byblos had fallen, and oneis led to suppose that that truly noble soldierRibaddi did not survive the fall of the citywhich he had so tenaciously held. The newsof the surrender of other important Egyptianstrongholds followed rapidly, and still therecame the pathetic appeal for help from theminor posts which yet held out.

Akhnaton was now about twenty-eight yearsof age, and already the cares of the whole worldseemed to rest upon his shoulders. Lean andlank was his body; his face was thin and linedwith worry; and in his eye one might, perhaps,have seen that hunted look which comes to thosewho are dogged by disaster. It is probable thathe now suffered acutely from the distressingmalady to which he was a victim, and theremust have been times when he felt himselfupon the verge of madness. His misshapenskull came nigh to bursting with the fullthoughts of his aching brain, and the sad knowledgethat he had failed must have pressed uponhis mind like some unrelenting finger. Theinvocations to the Aton which rang in his headmade confusion with the cry of Syria. Now helistened to the voices of his choirs lauding thesweetness of life; and now, breaking in upon thechant, did he not hear the solemn voices of hisfathers calling to him from the Hills of the Westto give account of his stewardship? Could hethen find solace in trees and in flowers? Couldhe cry “Peace” when there was red tumult inhis brain?

His moods at this time must have given causefor the greatest alarm, and his behaviour was,no doubt, sufficiently erratic to render even thosenobles who had so blindly followed him mistrustfulof their leader. In a frenzy of zeal inthe adoration of the Aton, Akhnaton now gaveorders that the name of all other gods shouldsuffer the same fate as that of Amon, and shouldbe erased from every inscription throughoutthe land. This order was never fully carriedout; but one may still see in the temples ofKarnak, Medinet Habu, and elsewhere, and uponmany lesser monuments, the chisel marks whichhave partially blurred out the names of Ptah,Hathor, and other deities, and have obliteratedthe offending word “gods.”

The consternation which this action must havecaused was almost sufficient to bring about arevolution in the provinces, where the old godswere still dearly loved by the people. Theerasing of the name of Amon had been, afterall, a direct war upon a certain priesthood, anddid not very materially affect any other localitiesthan that of Thebes. But the suppression of thenumerous priesthoods of the many deities who[250]held sway throughout Egypt threw into disorderthe whole country, and struck at the heart notof one but of a hundred cities. Was the kindlyold artificer Ptah, with his hammer and hischisel, to be tumbled into empty space? Wasthe beautiful, the gracious Hathor—the Venusof the Nile—to be thrown down from her celestialseat? Was it possible to banish Khnum, thegoat-headed potter who lived in the caves of theCataract, from the life of the city of Elephantine;the mysterious jackal Wepwat from the heartsof the men of Abydos; or the ancient crocodileSebek from the ships and the fields of Ombos?Every town had its local god, and every godits priesthood; and surely the Pharaoh wasmad who attempted to make war upon theselegions of heaven. This Aton, whom the kingcalled upon them to worship, was so remote,so infinitely above their heads. Aton did not sitwith them at their hearth-side to watch thekettle boil; Aton did not play a sweet-tonedflute amongst the reeds of the river; Aton didnot bring a fairy gift to the new-born babe.Where was the sacred tree in whose branchesone might hope to see him seated?—[251]wherewas the eddy of the Nile in which heloved to bathe?—and where was the rock atwhose foot one might place, as a fond offering,a bowl of milk? The people loved their oldgods, whose simple ways, kind hearts, andquick tempers made them understandable tomortal minds. But a god who reigned alonein solitary isolation, who, more remote eventhan the Jehovah of the Hebrews, rode notupon the clouds nor moved upon the wings ofthe wind, was hardly a deity to whom theycould open their hearts. True, the sunrise andthe sunset were the visible signs of the godhead;but let the reader ask any modern Egyptianpeasant whether there is aught to stir thepulses in these two great phenomena, and hewill realise that the glory of the skies could nothave appealed particularly to the lesser subjectsof Akhnaton, who, moreover, were not permittedto bow the knee to the flaming orb itself. Whenthe Christian religion took hold of these peasants,and presented for their acceptance the sameidea of a remote though loving and considerateGod, it was only by the elevation of saints anddevils, angels and powers of darkness, almost to[252]the rank of demigods, that the faith prospered.But Akhnaton allowed no such tampering withthe primary doctrine, and St George and allthe saints would have suffered the erasure oftheir very names.

8. AKHNATON’S LAST DAYS AND DEATH.

The troubles which Akhnaton by such actionsgathered around himself, while disturbing to hisadherents, must have given some degree ofpleasure to those nobles who saw in the king’sdownfall the only hope of Egypt. Horemheb,the commander-in-chief of the inactive armies,could now begin to prepare himself against thetime when he should lead a force into Syriato restore Egyptian prestige. Tutankhaton,betrothed to Akhnaton’s third daughter, coulddream of the days when he would make himselfPharaoh, and carry the court back to gloriousThebes. Even Meryra, the High Priest ofAton, seems to have allowed his thoughts todrift away from the City of the Horizonwherein the sun of Egypt’s glory had set, for[253]it does not seem that he ever made use of thetomb there prepared for him. These last stagesof Akhnaton’s life must thus have been embitteredby a doubt of the sincerity of hisclosest friends, and by the knowledge that, inspite of all their protestations, he had failed toplant “the truth” in their hearts.

The queen had borne him no son to succeed tothe throne, and there appeared to be nobodyto whom he could impart what he felt to behis last instructions. There can be no questionthat he was still greatly loved by those whosurrounded his person, but there were few whohoped that his religion, so disastrous to Egypt,would survive him. In this extremity Akhnatonturned to a certain noble, probably not of royalblood, whose name seems to have been Smenkhkara,though some have read it Saakara.[79] Nothingis known regarding his previous career, but onemay suppose that he appeared to Akhnaton tobe the least unreliable of his followers. To himthe king imparted his instructions, revealing allthat words could draw from his teeming brain.[254]The little Princess Merytaton, now but twelveyears of age, was called from her games, andwith pomp and ceremony was married to thisSmenkhkara, thus making him the legitimateheir to the throne, Merytaton being the eldestdaughter and sole heiress of the Pharaoh.

Feeling that his days were numbered, Akhnatonthen associated Smenkhkara upon the throne withhim as co-ruler, and was thus able to familiarisethe people with their future lord. In lateryears, after Akhnaton’s death, Smenkhkara waswont to write after his name the words “belovedof Akhnaton,” as though to indicate that hisclaim to the throne was due to Akhnaton’saffection for him, as well as to the rightsderived from his wife.

But what mattered the securing of the successionto the throne when that throne hadbeen shaken to its very foundations, and nowseemed to be upon the verge of utter wreck?Akhnaton could no longer stave off the impendingcrash, and from all sides there gathered theforces which were to overwhelm him. Hisgovernment was chaotic. The plotting andscheming of the priests of Amon showed signsof coming to a successful issue. The anger of[255]the priesthoods of the other gods of Egypthung over the palace like some menacing storm-cloud.The soldiers, eager to march upon Syriaas in the days of the great Thothmes III.,chafed at their enforced idleness, and watchedwith increasing restlessness the wreck of theempire.

Now through the streets of the city therepassed the weary messengers of Asia hurryingto the palace, no longer bearing the appealsof kings and generals for support, but announcingthe fall of the last cities of Syria and theslaughter of the last left of their rulers. Thescattered remnants of the garrisons staggered backto the Nile at the heels of these messengers,pursued to the very frontiers of Egypt by thetriumphant Asiatics. From the north the Hittitespoured into Syria; from the south theKhabiri swarmed over the land. As the curtainis rung down on the turbulent scene, onecatches a glimpse of the wily Aziru, his handsstill stained with the blood of Ribaddi and ofmany another loyal prince, snatching at thiscity and trampling on that. At last he hascast aside his mask, and with the tribute whichhad been promised to Egypt he now, no doubt,[256]placates the ascending Hittites, whose suzeraintyalone he admits.

The tribute having ceased, the Egyptian treasurysoon stood empty, for the government of thecountry was too confused to permit of the propergathering of the taxes, and the working of thegold-mines could not be organised. Much hadbeen expended on the building of the City ofthe Horizon, and now the king knew not whereto turn for money. In the space of a few yearsEgypt had been reduced from a world powerto the position of a petty state, from the richestcountry known to man to the humiliating conditionof a bankrupt kingdom.

Surely one may picture Akhnaton now in hislast hours, his jaw fallen, his sunken eyes widelystaring, as the full realisation of the utter failureof all his hopes came to him. He had sacrificedSyria to his principles; but the sacrifice was ofno avail, since his doctrines had not taken rooteven in Egypt. He knew now that the religionof the Aton would not outlive him, that theknowledge of the love of God was not yet tobe made known to the world. Even at thismoment the psalms of the Aton were beating[257]upon his ears, the hymns to the God who hadforsaken him were drifting into his palace withthe scent of the flowers; and the birds which heloved were singing as merrily in the luxuriantgardens as ever they sang when they had inspireda line in the king’s great poem. Butupon him now there had fallen the blackness ofdespair, and already the darkness of comingdeath was closing around him. The misery offailure must have ground him down as beneaththe very mountains of the west themselves,and the weight of the knowledge of all thathe had lost could not be borne by his enfeebledframe.

History tells us only that, simultaneously withthe fall of his empire, Akhnaton died; and thedoctors who have examined his body report thatdeath may well have been due to some formof stroke or fit. But in the imagination thereseems to ring across the years a cry of completedespair, and one can picture the emaciated figureof this “beautiful child of the Aton” fall forwardupon the painted palace-floor and lie still amidstthe red poppies and the dainty butterflies theredepicted.

VIII.
THE FALL OF THE RELIGION OFAKHNATON.

1. THE BURIAL OF AKHNATON.

The body of Akhnaton was embalmed in thecity which he had founded; and while thesemortal parts of the great idealist were undergoingthe lengthy process of mummification, thenew Pharaoh Smenkhkara made a feeble attemptto retain the spirit of his predecessor in the newrégime. Practically nothing is known of hisbrief reign, but it is apparent from subsequentevents that he entirely failed to carry on thework of Akhnaton, and the period of hissovereignty is marked by a general tendency to[259]abandon the religion of the Aton. Smenkhkarahad dated the first year of his reign from theday of his accession as co-ruler with Akhnaton,and thus it is that there are no inscriptionsfound which record his first year, although thereare many references to his second year. Themain event must have occurred some threemonths after the commencement of his solereign, when the body of Akhnaton was carriedin solemn state through the streets of the cityand across the desert to the tomb which hadbeen made for him in the distant cliffs.

The mummy had been wrapped, as was usual,in endless strips of linen; and amongst thesethere was placed upon the royal breast a necklaceof gold, and over the face an ornament cutin flat gold foil representing a vulture with wingsoutstretched—a Pharaonic symbol of divine protection.In many burials of this dynasty avulture such as this was placed upon themummy; and representations of an exactlysimilar ornament are shown in the tombs ofSennefer and others at Thebes. It is somewhatsurprising that the body of Akhnaton,who was so averse to all old customs, should[260]thus have this royal talisman upon it; and itwould seem that some of the strict rules ofthe Aton worshipper had already been relaxedby his successor. Akhnaton had retained butthree of the ancient divine symbols, so far asone can tell from the reliefs and paintings—namely,the uræus or cobra, the sphinx, andthe hawk, which were often used as ornaments.But one may ask whether the vulture hadreally been dispensed with by him. It is truethat he banned the vulture-hieroglyph in theinscriptions, as we have already seen on theouter coffin of Queen Tiy;[80] but his reason forso doing was that by such a hieroglyph thename of the goddess Mut was called to mind,and that goddess, being the consort of Amon,was not to be tolerated. The vulture whichwas laid upon the mummy, however, had nothingto do with Mut, nor had it any likenessto the hieroglyph. It was originally a representationof the presiding genius of UpperEgypt, and corresponded to the uræus, whichprimarily represented the power of Lower Egypt.It is true, again, that it was the custom for the[261]Pharaohs to be shown in the sculptures andpaintings with this vulture hovering in protectionover their heads, and that Akhnaton seemsto have dispensed with such a symbol. Butthis was perhaps due to the fact that the diskand rays, symbolic of Aton, had taken its placeabove the royal figure. There is no reason,after all, to suppose that this form of vulture wasabsolutely banned, since the uræus and the hawkwere retained;[81] and though, as will presently beseen, it will be natural to think that it was placedon Akhnaton’s mummy at his successor’s suggestion,there is nothing to show that Akhnatonhimself did not desire it to be laid there.

Over the linen bandages on the body therewere placed ribbons of gold foil encircling themummy—probably around the shoulders, themiddle, and the knees,—joined to other ribbonsrunning the length of the body at the backand front. These ribbons were inscribed withAkhnaton’s name and titles, and thus recordedfor all time the identity of the mummy to which[262]they adhered. Money being somehow found, thebody was wrapped in sheets of pure gold, sufficientlythin to be flexible, and was placed in asplendid coffin, designed in the usual form of arecumbent figure, and inlaid in a dazzling mannerwith rare stones and coloured glass. Down thefront of this coffin ran a simple inscription, thehieroglyphs of which were also inlaid. It read:“The beautiful prince, The Chosen One of Ra, theKing of Upper and Lower Egypt, living in Truth,Lord of the Two Lands, Akhnaton, the beautifulchild of the living Aton, whose name shall livefor ever and ever.”[82] There is one curious featureabout this inscription. When Akhnaton madethe outer coffin for his mother, in or about thetwelfth year of his reign, he was particularlycareful not to use the hieroglyph representingthe goddess Maat when writing the wordmaat,“truth.” But this sign is employed now uponhis own coffin; and one can only presume,therefore, that the coffin was made after Akhnaton’sdeath, and that the new Pharaoh Smenkhkara[263]had not the same objection to therepresentation of the goddess as had hispredecessor. We may now better understandthe presence of the vulture symbol also; forit is obvious that before Akhnaton’s funeral hadtaken place his strictrégime had been relaxed.

The royal mummy was now carried to its tomband there deposited, together with such funeralfurniture and offerings as were considered necessary.The four alabaster canopic jars, alwaysconspicuous in an Egyptian burial, were herenot wanting. The stopper of each jar wasexquisitely carved to represent the head ofAkhnaton, wearing the usual male wig of theperiod, and having the royal cobra upon theforehead. From these heads one sees that theart of Akhnaton was modified immediately afterhis death, and its more pronounced characteristicswere already being toned down. Thisslackening in the rules which Akhnaton hadmade shows us how entirely dependent themovement had been upon its leader; and werealise the more clearly how strong a characterwas his. Ere even the king’s burial hadtaken place the death of his religion was assured.

2. THE COURT RETURNS TO THEBES.

Smenkhkara died, or was deposed, about ayear after Akhnaton’s death. He was succeededby another noble, Tutankhaton,[83] who, in orderto legitimise his accession, obtained in marriageAkhnaton’s second daughter Ankhsenpaaton, agirl barely twelve years old. Thus Smenkhkara’swife, Merytaton, became a dowager-queenat the age of thirteen or so, and her little sistertook her place upon the throne.

By this time the priests of Amon had begunto hold up their heads once more, and toscheme for the downfall of Aton with renewedenergy. Pressure was soon brought to bearon Tutankhaton, and he had not been upon thethrone more than a year or so when he waspersuaded to consider the abandonment of theCity of the Horizon and his return to Thebes.He did not yet turn entirely from the religionof the Aton, but attempted to take a middlecourse between the two factions, giving full[265]licence both to the worshippers of the Atonand to those of Amon. Horemheb, the commander-in-chiefof the idle army, seems to havebeen one of the leaders of the reactionary movement.He did not concern himself so muchwith the religious aspect of the question: therewas as much to be said on the one side as onthe other. But it was he who knocked atthe doors of the heart of Egypt and urgedthe nation to awake to the danger in Asia.For him there were no scruples as to warfare,and the doctrine of the sword found favourin his sight. An expedition was fitted out,and the reigning Pharaoh was persuaded tolead it. Thus we read that Horemheb was“the companion of his Lord upon the battlefieldon that day of the slaying of the Asiatics.”[84]Akhnaton had dreamed of the universal peacewhich still is a far-off wraith to mankind; but[266]Horemheb was a practical man in whom thatdream would have been but weakness whichwas such mighty strength in the dead king.

The new Pharaoh now changed his namefrom Tutankhaton to Tutankhamon, and, to thesound of martial music, returned to Thebes.The City of the Horizon was left to its fate,and it was not long before the palaces andthe villas became the home of the jackals andthe owls, while the temples were partly pulleddown to provide stone for other works. Howevermuch the reigning Pharaoh differed inviews from Akhnaton, it would not have beenpossible to leave the royal body lying in sightof this wreck of all the hopes that had beenhis. Akhnaton, moreover, was Tutankhamon’sfather-in-law, and it was only through the rightsof Akhnaton’s daughter that the Pharaoh heldthe throne. His memory was still regardedwith reverence by many of his late followers,and there could be no question of leaving hisbody in the deserted city. It was thereforecarried to Thebes in its coffin, together withthe four canopic jars, and was placed, for wantof a proper sepulchre, in the tomb of QueenTiy, which had been reopened for the purpose.

Tutankhamon showed the trend of his policyby both restoring the temple of the Aton atKarnak and at the same time repairing thedamage done by Akhnaton to the works ofAmon. The style of art which he favoured wasa modified form of Akhnaton’s method, and theinfluence of his movement is still apparent inthe new king’s work. He did not reign longenough, however, to display much originality,and after a few years he disappears, almostunnoticed, from the stage. On his death thequestion of inviting Horemheb to fill the vacantthrone must have been seriously considered, butthere was another candidate in the field. Thiswas Akhnaton’s father-in-law, Ay, who had beenone of the most important nobles in the groupof courtiers at the City of the Horizon. It washe who had sheltered Queen Nefertiti before shehad passed into Akhnaton’s palace, and it wasin his tomb that the great hymn to the Atonwas inscribed. He had been loudest in thepraises of the preacher king and of his doctrines,and he still retained the title “Father-in-law”as his most cherished designation.

Religious feeling at this time was runninghigh, for the partisans of Amon and those of[268]Aton seem still to have been struggling for thesupremacy, and Ay appeared to have been regardedas the most likely man to bridge thegulf between the two factions. A favourite ofAkhnaton, and still tolerant of all that wasconnected with the late movement, he was notaverse to the cult of Amon, and by conciliatingboth parties he managed to obtain the thronefor himself. His power, however, did not lastfor long, and as the priests of Amon regainedthe confidence of the nation at the expense ofthe worshippers of the Aton, so the prestige ofAy declined. His past relationship to Akhnaton,which even as king be carefully recorded withinhis cartouche, now told against him rather thanfor him, and about eight years after the deathof Akhnaton he disappeared like his predecessors.

3. THE REIGN OF HOREMHEB.

There was now no question who should succeed.All eyes were turned to Horemheb, who hadalready almost as much power as the Pharaoh.The commander-in-chief at once ascended the[269]throne, and was received by the populace withthe utmost rejoicings. At this time there wasliving at Thebes the Princess Nezemmut, thesister of Akhnaton’s Queen Nefertiti, and hencethe daughter of Dushratta, King of Mitanni.Owing to previous inter-marriages between theroyal house of Egypt and that of Mitanni, bothNefertiti and Nezemmut were descendants ofPharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Nezemmuthad come to Egypt early in the reign ofAkhnaton, and later had perhaps married someEgyptian nobleman; but she was now a widow,and had recently been appointed to the postof “Divine Consort,”—that is to say, HighPriestess—of Amon. As she was probably theyounger sister of Nefertiti, she may have beenabout six years of age when Nefertiti wasmarried to Akhnaton at the age of eight.Hence she would have been about twenty-threeat his death, and would now be just overthirty.

To this princess, as representing both the rightsof the old line of Pharaohs and those of the godAmon, without the now condemning close relationshipto Akhnaton which characterised the[270]other existing royal princesses, Horemheb wasat once married. The religion of the Aton wasnow fast disappearing. In a tomb dating fromthe third year of Horemheb’s reign, the words“Ra whose body is Aton” occur; but this is thelast mention of the Aton, and henceforth Amon-Rais unquestionably supreme. A certain Pa-atonemheb,who had been one of Akhnaton’sfavourites, was at about this time appointedHigh Priest of Ra-Horakhti at Heliopolis, andthus the last traces of the religion of the Atonwere merged into the Heliopolitan theology,from which that religion at the beginning hademanated.

The neglected shrines of the old gods oncemore echoed with the chants of the prieststhroughout the whole land of Egypt. Inscriptionstell us that Horemheb “restored thetemples from the pools of the Delta marshes toNubia. He fashioned a hundred images ...with all splendid and costly stones. He establishedfor them daily offerings every day. Allthe vessels of their temples were wrought ofsilver and gold. He equipped them with priestsand with ritual priests, and with the choicest of[271]the army. He transferred to them lands andcattle, supplied with all necessary equipment.”By these gifts to the neglected gods Horemhebwas striving to bring Egypt back to its naturalcondition; and with a strong hand he wasguiding the country from chaos to order, fromfantastic Utopia to the solid old Egypt of thepast. He was, in fact, the preacher of sanity,the very apostle of the Normal.

He led his armies into the Sudan, and returnedwith a procession of captive chieftains roped beforehim. He had none of Akhnaton’s qualms regardinghuman suffering, and these unfortunateprisoners are seen to have their arms bound inthe most cruel manner. Finding the countryto be lawless he drafted a number of stern laws,and with sound justice administered his kingdom.Knowing that Syria could not long remain quiet,he organised the Egyptian troops, and so preparedthem that, but a few years after his death,the soldiers of the reigning Pharaoh were swarmingonce more over the lands which Akhnatonhad lost.

4. THE PERSECUTION OF AKHNATON’S MEMORY.

The priests of Amon-Ra had now begun openlyto denounce Akhnaton as a villain and a heretic,and as they restored the name of their godwhere it had been erased, so they hammeredout the name and figure of Akhnaton whereverthey saw it. Presently they pulled down theAton temple at Karnak, and used the blocksof stone in the building of a pylon for Amon-Ra.Soon it was felt that Akhnaton’s bodycould no longer lie in state, together with thatof Queen Tiy, in the Valley of the Tombs ofthe Kings. The sepulchre was therefore openedonce more and the name “Akhnaton” was everywhereerased from the inscriptions, as was hisfigure from the scenes upon the shrine of QueenTiy. The mummy was lifted from its coffin andthe royal name was cut out of the gold ribbonswhich passed round it, both at the back andthe front. It was then replaced in the coffin,and from this the name was also erased.

The question may be asked why it was thatthe body was not torn to pieces and scattered[273]to the four winds, since the king was now sofiercely hated. The Egyptians, however, entertaineda peculiar reverence for the bodies oftheir dead, and it would have been a sacrilegeto destroy the mummy even of this heretic.No thought could be entertained of breaking upthe body upon which the divine touch of kingshiphad fallen: that would have been againstall the sentiments which we know the Egyptiansto have held. The cutting out of the nameof the mummy was sufficient punishment: forthereby the soul of the king was debarred fromall the benefits of the earthly prayers of hisdescendants, and became a nameless outcast,wandering unrecognised and unpitied throughthe vast underworld. It was the name “Akhnaton”which was hated so fiercely; and onemay perhaps suppose that the priests would havebeen willing to substitute the king’s earliername, Amonhotep, upon the mummy had theybeen pressed to do so. His name and figure asAmonhotep IV. is not damaged upon the monuments;but only the representations of himafter the adoption of the name Akhnaton havebeen attacked.

The tomb, polluted by the presence of the heretic,was no longer fit for Tiy to rest in; and the bodyof the queen was therefore carried elsewhere, perhapsto the sepulchre of her husband AmonhotepIII. The shrine, or outer coffin, in which hermummy had lain was pulled to pieces, and anattempt was made to carry it out of the tombto its owner’s new resting-place, but this arduoustask was presently abandoned, and one portionof the shrine was left in the passage, while therest remained in sections in the burial-chamber.Some of the queen’s toilet utensils which hadbeen buried with her were also left, probably bymistake. The body of Akhnaton, his name takenfrom him, was now the sole occupant of thetomb. The coffin in which it lay rested upona four-legged bier some two feet or so from theground, and in a niche in the wall above it stoodthe four canopic jars. And thus, with a curse,the priests left their great enemy. The entranceof the tomb was blocked with stones, andsealed with the seal of the necropolis; and alltraces of its mouth were hidden by rocks anddébris.

The priests would not now permit the name ofAkhnaton to pass a man’s lips, and by the end[275]of the reign of Horemheb, the unfortunate boywas spoken of in official documents as “thatcriminal.” Not forty years had passed sinceAkhnaton’s death, yet the priesthood of Amonwas as powerful as it had ever been at anyperiod of its existence. There were still livingmen who had been old enough at the time ofthe Aton power to grasp its doctrines; andthose same eyes which had looked upon the fairCity of the Horizon might now disturb thecreatures of the desert in the ruined courtswhere the grave boy-Pharaoh had presided solately. These men joined their voices to thatcrowd of priests who, not daring to allow the wordAkhnaton to form itself upon their lips, pouredcurses upon the excommunicated and nameless“criminal.” Through starry space their execrationspassed, searching out the wretched ghostof the boy, and banning him, as they supposed,even in the dim uncertainties of the Landsof Death. Over the hills of the west, up thestairs of the moon, and down into the cavernsunder the world, the poor twittering shadowwas hunted and chased by the relentless magicof the men whom he had tried to reform. Therewas no place for his memory upon earth, and in[276]the under-world the priests denied him a stoneupon which to lay his head. It is not easy nowto realise the full meaning to the Egyptians ofthe excommunication of a soul: cut off fromthe comforts of human prayers; hungry, forlorn,and wholly desolate; forced at last to whineupon the outskirts of villages, to snivel uponthe dung-heaps, to rake with shadowy fingersamidst the refuse of mean streets for fragmentsof decayed food with which to allay the pangs ofhunger caused by the absence of funeral-offerings.To such a pitiful fate the priests of Amonconsigned “the first individual in history”; andas an outcast amongst outcasts, a whimperingshadow in a place of shadows, the men of Thebesbade us leave the great idealist, doomed to thehorrors of a life which will not end, to themisery of a death that brings no oblivion.

5. THE FINDING OF THE BODY OF AKHNATON.

Thus, sheathed in gold, the nameless bodylay, while the fortunes of Egypt rose and felland the centuries slid by. A greater teacher[277]than Akhnaton arose and preached that peacewhich the Pharaoh had foreshadowed, and soonall Egypt rang with the new gospel. Thencame the religion of Muhammed, and the daysof the sword returned. So the years passed,and many a wise man lived his life and disappeared;but the first of the wise men ofhistory lay undiscovered in the heart of theTheban hills.

Now it happened that there was a fissure inthe rocks in which the sepulchre was cut, andduring the rains of each season a certain amountof moisture managed to penetrate into thechamber. This gradually rotted the legs of thebier upon which Akhnaton’s body lay, and at lastthere came a time when the two legs at the headof the coffin gave way and precipitated the royalbody on to the ground. The bandages aroundthe mummy had already fallen almost to powder,and this jerk sent the golden vulture which wasresting upon the king’s face on to his forehead,where it lay with the tail and claws resting overthe left eye-socket of the skull. Presently thetwo remaining legs of the bier collapsed, andthe whole coffin fell to the ground, the lid being[278]partly jerked off, thus revealing the king’s headat one end and his feet at the other, from all ofwhich the flesh had rotted away.

In January 1907 the excavations in the Valleyof the Tombs of the Kings which were beingconducted by Mr Theodore Davis, of Newport,Rhode Island, U.S.A., on behalf of the EgyptianGovernment, brought to light the doorway ofthe tomb, and it was not long before an entrancewas effected. A rough stairway led down intothe hillside, bringing the excavators [85] to themouth of the passage, which was entirely blockedby the wall which the priests had built after theyhad entered the tomb to erase Akhnaton’s name.Beyond this wall the passage was found to benearly choked with thedébris of the three earlierwalls, the first of which had been built afterQueen Tiy had been buried here, the secondafter Akhnaton’s agents had entered the tombto erase the name of Amon, and the third afterAkhnaton’s body had been laid beside that of hismother. On top of this heap of stones lay the[279]side of the funeral shrine of the queen which thepriests had abandoned after attempting to carryit out with her mummy. In the burial-chamberbeyond, the remaining portions of this shrinewere found. Upon these one saw the figuresof Akhnaton and his mother worshipping beneaththe rays of the Aton. The inscriptions showedthe erasure of the name of Amonhotep III., andthe substitution in red ink of that king’s secondname, Nebmaara; and one observed that at alater date the name and figures of Akhnaton hadbeen hammered out.

At one side lay the coffin of Akhnaton, as it hadfallen from the bier. The name of Akhnatonupon the coffin had been erased, but was stillreadable; and the gold ribbons from which hisname had been cut out still encircled the body,back and front. The golden vulture lay as hasbeen described above, and the necklace stillrested on the breast, while the whole decayingbody was found to be wrapped in sheets of gold.In a recess above this coffin stood the canopicjars, and in another part of the tomb Queen Tiy’stoilet utensils were found, from one of which thename of Amonhotep III. had been erased.

The bones, when examined by Dr ElliotSmith, F.R.S., were found to be those of ayoung man of not more than about twenty-eightyears of age,—that is to say, the age at whichAkhnaton has been shown in the above pagesto have died. The skull was pronounced to bethat of a man who suffered from epileptic fits,and who was probably subject to hallucinations.Curiously enough, the idiosyncrasies of this misshapenskull are precisely those which Lombrosohas stated to be so usual in a religious reformer.The face had crumbled away, but the lowerjaw was intact; and when this was placed inposition one could see at once the great resemblanceto the well-known portraits of Akhnatonwhich had survived the wreck of his city.

There could thus be no doubt that themummy of this wonderful Pharaoh had at lastbeen found; but since Akhnaton had alwaysbeen thought, though without particular reason,to have been a much older man, the identitywas questioned. It was suggested that the bodywas perhaps that of Smenkhkara, the successorof Akhnaton, which by some error had managedto be placed in Akhnaton’s coffin. But how,[281]then, did the gold ribbons inscribed withAkhnaton’s name manage to be placed aroundthe body? And apart from the extreme improbabilitythat the mummy which was thuslabelled with Akhnaton’s name, and which layin his coffin, should be that of any other kingbut Akhnaton, one may ask in this case howit is that the body has the well-known physicalcharacteristics of the great heretic if it bethat of Smenkhkara, who was not related tothe king?

It has been stated that the presence of thevulture upon the body is against the identificationwith Akhnaton. This has already beenshown to be capable of explanation; but it mayhere be noted that if Smenkhkara would nothave placed the vulture upon Akhnaton’s body,then by the same token the mummy is notlikely to be that of Smenkhkara, and thereis certainly no other prince of this period withwhom to identify the body. In conclusion, itmay be added that of all the royal mummiesnow known there is not one which can be soclearly shown to belong to the Pharaoh withwhom it has been identified as this mummy can[282]be shown to belong to Akhnaton. The bodywas lying in a coffin inscribed with Akhnaton’sname; it was bound round with ribbons inscribedwith his name; it had the physical characteristicsof the portraits of Akhnaton; it had the idiosyncrasiesof a religious reformer such as he was;it was that of a man of Akhnaton’s age as deducedfrom the monuments; it lay in the tombof Akhnaton’s mother; those who had erasedthe names must have thought it to be Akhnaton’sbody, unless one supposes an utter chaos of cross-purposesin their actions; and finally, there isnobody else who, with any degree of probability,it could be.

Thus one may say that, without the vaguestshadow of a doubt, the body of this the mostremarkable figure of early Oriental history hasbeen brought to light; and with this assurancewe may close this sketch of his life, which hasbeen written partly for the purpose of thusexplaining the significance of Mr Davis’s greatdiscovery, and partly to introduce the generalreader to one of the most interesting charactersever known. In this brief outline it has onlybeen possible to touch upon the main characteristics[283]which the few remaining inscriptionsand monuments seem to reveal; but to themost casual reader it will be apparent thatthere stands before him a personality of surprisingvigour and amazing originality, and onedeserving of careful study. In an age of superstition,and in a land where the grossest polytheismreigned absolutely supreme, Akhnatonevolved a monotheistic religion second only toChristianity itself in purity of tone. He wasthe first human being to understand rightlythe meaning of divinity. When the worldreverberated with the noise of war, he preachedthe first known doctrine of peace; when theglory of martial pomp swelled the hearts ofhis subjects, he deliberately turned his backupon heroics. He was the first man to preachsimplicity, honesty, frankness, and sincerity;and he preached it from a throne. He wasthe first Pharaoh to be a humanitarian; thefirst man in whose heart there was no trace ofbarbarism. He has given us an example threethousand years ago which might be followedat the present day: an example of what ahusband and a father should be, of what an[284]honest man should do, of what a poet shouldfeel, of what a preacher should teach, of whatan artist should strive for, of what a scientistshould believe, of what a philosopher shouldthink. Like other great teachers he sacrificedall to his principles, and thus his life plainlyshows—alas!—the impracticability of his doctrines;yet there can be no question that hisideals will hold good “till the swan turns blackand the crow turns white, till the hills rise upto travel, and the deeps rush into the rivers.”

INDEX.

Aahmes I.,7

Abdkhiba, governor of Jerusalem, appeal of, to Akhnaton for help,236

Adonis, connection of, with Aton,15,37,49,136et seq.

Akhnaton, personality of,2
—ancestors of,7et seq.
—birth of,42et seq.
—change of name from Amonhotep to,45 note,91et seq.
—marriage of,53
—accession of,58et seq.
—first years of the reign of,62et seq.
—new city founded by,88et seq.
—site of the city selected by,92et seq.
—foundation ceremonies performed by,94et seq.
—departure of, from Thebes,105et seq.
—age of,110et seq.
—religion of Aton formulated by,115et seq.
—tenth to twelfth years of the reign of,149et seq.
—similarity of the hymn of, to Psalm civ.,155et seq.
—representations of, in his palace,167et seq.
—historical events of tenth to twelfth years of the reign of,169et seq.
—thirteenth to fifteenth years of the reign of,189et seq.
—name of Amon obliterated by,193et seq.
—affection of, for his family,208et seq.
—friends of,213et seq.
—troubles of,217et seq.
—last two years of the reign of,223et seq.
—conscientious objections of, to warfare,226et seq.
—health of, gives way,246et seq.
—last days and death of,252
—fall of the religion of,258et seq.
—burial of,258
—body of, brought to Thebes,266
—persecution of the memory of,272et seq.
—finding of the body of,276et seq.
—ideals of,283

Amon or Amon-Ra, worship of,12
—priesthood of,20,45et seq.,77
—break with the priesthood of,88et seq.
—Akhnaton obliterates the name of,193et seq.
—restoration of the worship of,272et seq.

Amonhotep I.,7

Amonhotep II.,10

Amonhotep III., “the Magnificent,”11,13,28,33et seq.,49,54
—death of,57,111
—second name of,186,187,195

Amonhotep IV.: seeAkhnaton

Amonhotep-son-of-Hapu, the “wise man,”33

Animal worship,18et seq.

Ankhsenpaaton, third daughter of Akhnaton, birth of,109
—marriage of,112,264

Apis, the sacred bull, worship of,16,87

Apiy, letter to Akhnaton from,85

Art, the new style of,68et seq.,101

Aswan, commemoration tablet at,107
—statue of Amonhotep III. at,ib.

Aton, the name,37,92 andnote
—rise of,45et seq.
—development of the religion of,76et seq.
—nature of the religion of,84et seq.
—founding of new city for the worship of,88et seq.
—religion of, formulated,115et seq.
—connections of the worship of, with older religions,135et seq.
—hymns of the worshippers of,149et seq.
[286]—Meryra made high priest of,158et seq.
—development of the religion of,189et seq.
—great temple of,198et seq.
—City of the Horizon of,202et seq.
—downfall of the religion of,264et seq.

Auta, Queen Tiy’s chief sculptor,75,207

Ay, foster-parent of Queen Nefertiti,57,109
—palace of,204
—accession of, to the throne,268
—death of,ib.

Aziru, the Amorite prince, unscrupulous dealings of,226,230et seq.

Baketaton, sister of Akhnaton,178,212

Bek, art taught to, by Akhnaton,76
—sculptures of, at Aswan,107,196

Canopic jars, the, in Akhnaton’s tomb,263,279

Child-marriages, frequency of, in Egypt,112

Christianity, comparison of Akhnaton’s faith with,143et seq.

“City of the Brightness of Aton,” new name of, given to Thebes,65

City of the Horizon of Aton, founding of,90et seq.
—Akhnaton’s residence at,107
—gardens of,127
—inscriptions on the sepulchres at,149et seq.
—Queen Tiy’s visit to,176et seq.
—Queen Tiy’s residence and death at,184et seq.
—shrines and temples in,196et seq.
—beauty of,202et seq.
—Akhnaton’s tomb near,207et seq.
—abandonment of, by the court,264
—removal of Akhnaton’s body from,266
—desolate condition of,275

Delta, “House” of Aton in the,191

Demigods and Spirits, worship of,18et seq.

Domestic life of Akhnaton, reliefs and paintings on tombs showing the,167et seq.

Dushratta, King of Mitanni, marriage of Nefertiti, daughter of, to Prince Amonhotep (Akhnaton),56
—marriage of Nezemmut, daughter of, to Horemheb,269

“Effulgence which comes from Aton,” name of Aton changed to,192

Fayum, “House” of Aton in the,191

Gebel Silsileh, tablets at the quarries of,63
—the name Amonhotep erased at,195

Gods of Egypt, the,11et seq.
—Akhnaton orders the erasure of the names of, in inscriptions,249

Goodness of Aton, the,127et seq.

Hathor, worship of,16

Hatshepsut, Queen,8

Heliopolis, temple of Aton at,191

Hermonthis, temple of Aton at,191

Hermopolis, temple of Aton at,191

Hittite invasion of Syria, the,223et seq.

Horakhti Aton, erection of temple at Karnak to,63,68,89
—restoration of the temple to,267
—destruction of the temple to,272

Horemheb, tomb of,67 andnote,84,86,265 note
—presence of, with the troops in Asia,265
—accession of, to the throne,268
—marriage of,269
—reign of,270et seq.

Horus, the hawk god, worship of,15,16

Huya, scenes sculptured on the tomb of,170et seq.,177,207

Isis, worship of,15

Karnak, temple to Horakhti Aton at,63et seq.,68,89
—temples and shrines at,63,84
—restoration of the Aton temple at,267
—destruction of the Aton temple at,272

Khnum, the ram-headed deity, worship of,16

Khonsu, the god of the moon, worship of,13

Kirgipa or Gilukhipa, wife of Amonhotep III.,39,51,55

“Lord of the Breath of Sweetness,” Akhnaton’s name of,61

Mahu, scenes on the tomb of,215et seq.

Meketaton, second daughter of Akhnaton, birth of,101
—death of,219

Memphis, temple of Aton at,191

Meryra, appointment of, as high priest of Aton,158et seq.
—scenes sculptured on the tomb of,159et seq.,203

Merytaton, first daughter of Akhnaton, birth of,83
—marriage of,112,211,254

Min or Min-Ra, worship of,12,27

[287]Mnevis, the sacred bull, worship of,135

Mut, the consort of Amon, worship of,13,187,260

Mutemua, wife of Thothmes IV.,23et seq.,28

Nebmaara, second name of Amonhotep III.,186,187,195,279

Nefernefernaton fourth daughter of Akhnaton, birth of,112,169
—marriage of,112,211

Neferneferura, fifth daughter of Akhnaton, birth of,208

Nefertiti (Tadukhipa), marriage of Prince Amonhotep (Akhnaton) to,55,210
—birth of the first daughter of,83
—second daughter of,101,106
—third daughter of,109
—fourth daughter of,112,169
—fifth daughter of,208
—sixth and seventh daughters of,209

Nezemmut, sister of Queen Nefertiti,109,212
—marriage of, to Horemheb, King of Egypt,269

Nubia, imperial regard of Akhnaton for,189et seq.
—temple of Aton in,191

Osiris, god of the dead, worship of,20

Palace of Akhnaton, description of the,205et seq.

Psalm civ., similarity of Akhnaton’s hymn to,155et seq.

Ptah, the Vulcan of Egypt, worship of,16,21,85

Ra or Ra-Horakhti, the sun-god, worship of,12,14,21,45et seq.,51,58,59,64,70,86,92

Rames, Vizir of Upper Egypt, tomb of,66,68,81,84,148

Ribaddi, King of Byblos, appeals of, to Akhnaton for help,235,239,242
—death of,247

Set, the worship of,16

Setepenra, sixth daughter of Akhnaton, birth of,209

“Shade of the Sun,” the, Queen Tiy’s private temple called,182et seq.
—statues in,182,196

Smenkhkara, Akhnaton’s successor to the throne,211,253
—marriage of,254
—association of, with Akhnaton, as co-ruler,ib.
—accession of, as sole ruler,258
—death of,264

“Son of God,” Akhnaton the, by traditional right,130et seq.

“Son of the Sun,” the title of, held by the Pharaohs,14,71,74,131,197

Soul, spiritual needs of the, after death,138et seq.
—material needs of the,143et seq.
—the excommunication of a,276

Sunrise and sunset, worship of Aton at,124et seq.

Syria, imperial regard of Akhnaton for,189et seq.
—temple of Aton in,191
—Hittite invasion of,223et seq.
—Akhnaton’s policy in,226et seq.
—the fighting in, becomes general,235et seq.

Tadukhipa: seeNefertiti

Temple of Aton, description of the great,198et seq.

Tender Father of all Creation, Aton as the,118et seq.

Thebes, discoveries in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings near,4,278et seq.
—booty brought by Thothmes III. to,8
—the deities of,12et seq.
—the court at,35
—the royal palace at,36,43et seq.
—new name of “City of the Brightness of Aton” given to,65
—departure of the court from,105et seq.
—Queen Tiy’s continued residence at,176
—Queen Tiy’s tomb at,185
—return of the court to,264et seq.
—body of Akhnaton brought to,266
—finding of Akhnaton’s body at,277et seq.

Thothmes I.,8

Thothmes II.,8

Thothmes III.,8et seq.

Thothmes IV.,10et seq.,13,21et seq.,110

Tiy, Queen, birth and childhood of,26
—marriage of,29et seq.,112
—children of,39,43,54
—death of the parents of,40
—birth of Amonhotep or Akhnaton, son of,43et seq.
—the power of,49et seq.
—death of the consort of,57
—visit of, to the City of the Horizon,176et seq.
—visit of, to her temple,182et seq.
—death of,184
—tomb of,185et seq.
—Akhnaton’s body placed in the tomb of,266,282
—body of, removed,274

Tribal gods, names of,12et seq.

True God, Aton as the,115et seq.

Tuau, wife of Yuaa, Priest of the god Min,26et seq.,30,32
[288]—death and burial of,40

Tunip, letter to Akhnaton from the governor of,232

Tutankhaton, the throne usurped by,211,252,264
—marriage of,264
—name of, changed to Tutankhamon,266
—return of, to Thebes,ib.
—death of,267

Ty, foster-parent of Queen Nefertiti,57,109

Valley of the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes, the, discoveries in,4,278et seq.
—burial of Yuaa and Tuau in,40

Vulture, representation of a, used in burials,187,259et seq.,279,281

Wady Hammamât, inscriptions near the quarries of,76,113

Warfare, Akhnaton’s conscientious scruples to,226et seq.

Worship of Aton at sunrise and sunset,124et seq.

Yuaa, Priest of the god Min, birth of,25
—marriage of Tiy, the daughter of, to Amonhotep III.,29
—personality of,32
—death and burial of,40

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Breasted: A History of Egypt.

[2] N. de G. Davies: The Rock Tombs of El Amarna. 5 vols.

[3] Now out of print.

[4] Published by the Chicago University, 1906.

[5] As will be recorded at the end of this volume, the body ofAkhnaton was discovered by Mr Theodore M. Davis at Thebesearly in 1907; but at the time of writing (1908) the results havenot been published in book form, though various articles haveappeared.

[6] The writer has to thank the editors of ‘The Quarterly Review,’‘Blackwood’s Magazine,’ and ‘The Century Magazine,’ for permittinghim to embody in this volume certain portions of articlescontributed by him to the pages of those journals.

[7]Page 110.

[8]Page 100.

[9] The sphinx tablet.

[10] Of Thothmes III. at Karnak, of Aahmes I. at Abydos, and ofSenusert III. at Amada.

[11] These ages are discussed onpages 111 and178 (note).

[12] Petrie, History, ii. p. 183. The portrait upon which he basesthis statement, however, may be that of Akhnaton (fig. 115, p.182). The mouth and chin are extremely like those of Yuaa, asseen in his mummy; but again they both have a close resemblanceto the head of Amonhotep III. (idem, fig. 120, p. 188). Of course,such evidence is extremely frail, and must not be too much reliedupon.

[13] Breasted, Records, ii. 865, note h.

[14] He took the name Akhnaton in about the sixth year of hisreign.

[15] His statue is at Turin. See also Erman, ‘Life in AncientEgypt,’ p. 297.

[16]Page 39.

[17] Recently discovered by the present writer whilst repairing thistomb.

[18] His mummy is that of a man of not more than fifty.

[19] The wise man Amonhotep-son-of-Hapu was steward of PrincessSetamon’s estate, but this may have been previous to her mentionin her grandparents’ tomb.

[20]Page 111.

[21]Page 56.

[22] It is usual for Egyptian girls to become mothers at about theage of thirteen, though sometimes earlier. They often continue tobear children at intervals of about two years, over a period of thirtyyears or so. Fifteen children is thus the usual number of a family,but half these generally die in babyhood.

[23] Maspero.

[24] Scarabs of the early period are sometimes inscribedNeb-nef-nezem,which has this meaning.

[25] The date of this work is not exactly known, but as it was certainlyfinished before the king founded his new city, it must havebeen commenced immediately upon his accession.

[26] The wordbenben, “shrine,” has the hieroglyph of an obelisk atthe end of it, which has led to some mistranslations. Perhaps thetemple was built somewhat on the plan of that at Abusêr, where anobelisk stood in an open court.

[27] It is possible that “found” is a mistranslation.

[28] Thus corresponding to the Silsileh quarry tablet, where Amonis worshipped.

[29] This tomb of Horemheb seems to have been begun and finishedin the early years of Akhnaton’s reign, to have been left alone duringthe remainder of the reign, and to have received the additionof doorposts (seenote on p. 265) after the death of Akhnaton.Fragments of the tomb are now divided between Leiden, Bologna,Vienna, Alexandria, and Cairo; and it would seem that all exceptthose in the Cairo museum (the doorposts) are from the earlierperiod. The titles on the Cairo fragments are far more elaboratethan those on the others. See Breasted, Records, iii. 1 ff.

[30] We know from the “Palermo stone” that the kingdom ofLower Egypt was much more ancient than that of Upper Egypt.

[31] In later times the name of Tiy and the Pharaoh’s second namewere erased, but the name Amonhotep was not damaged. Thefacsimile copy here given was made on the spot by the present writerin correction of a previous copy made by Golénischeff. It is publishedin his ‘Travels in the Upper Egyptian Deserts’ (Blackwood).

[32] Meaning the god.

[33] Griffith: Kahun Papyri. Text, p. 91.

[34] Is there a distant connection between Mnevis and the Minoanbull of Crete? Seep. 183.

[35] The god is sometimes called “Aton” simply, and sometimesPa Aton, “the Aton”; just as we speak of “Christ” or “theChrist,” and of “Lord” or “the Lord,” this latter being the actualmeaning of “Aton.”

[36] The translation here given is based upon that published byDavies in Amarna V.; but the year cannot be the fourth, as therestated as probable, since in the above-mentioned letter dated in year5 the king is still called Amonhotep, whereas in this inscription heis called Akhnaton.

[37] The day is not certain; perhaps it is day 4.

[38] For the sake of brevity it is often called “the City of theHorizon,” simply, in this volume.

[39] Mediterranean people.

[40] This has reference to the rays which come from the Aton.

[41] This seems to have been a temple.

[42] The second name of Amonhotep III., Akhnaton’s father.

[43] The second name of Thothmes IV., Akhnaton’s grandfather.

[44] Theater corresponds to the Greekschoinos, and thekhe is theschoenium of 100 cubits, 40khe making oneater.

[45] Seenote on p. 178.

[46] Davies, Amarna, I. 45.

[47] The idea is that the Aton does not die as dies the sunlight.

[48] Probably by royal descent is meant.

[49] In Egyptian this title readsPa shera nefer en pa Aton. In thetomb of a certain Amonhotep, at El Assasîf, temp. Amonhotep III.,the deceased Amonhotep I. is calledPa shera nefer en Amon.

[50] So Prof. Breasted translates the Egyptiansehetep, though itwould be possible to give it other interpretations.

[51] Cf. such expressions as “When thou settest they die,” andothers used in Akhnaton’s hymns.

[52] Professor Breasted’s translation.

[53] In the tomb of Huya the scene is dated in the twelfth year, ashere recorded, and there are four daughters shown, which is thenumber one is led by other evidence to suppose were then alive.The scene in the tomb of Meryra II. has precisely the same date,but six daughters are shown, and there is evidence to show that thatnumber is not to be looked for previous to the fifteenth year of thereign, the first daughter being born in about the fifth year, thesecond in the seventh, the third in the ninth, the fourth in theeleventh, the fifth in the thirteenth, and the sixth in the fifteenthyear, in all probability. Thus the scene in Meryra II. may perhapsrepresent no particular reception of the tribute of any one year, butthe artist may have had in mind the great tribute of the twelfthyear while representing the occurrence in the fifteenth or sixteenthyear, at which date his work was taking place. Or again the date inthis latter tomb may be a misreading or miswriting. The scene describedabove is that represented in the tomb of Meryra, as it ismore elaborate than the other; but the inscription is that found inthe tomb of Huya.

[54] Her first child, it will be remembered, was born when she wasabout thirteen.

[55] It is probable, as has been stated onp. 111, that she was marriedto Amonhotep III. in about her tenth year, and was thus aboutforty-six when he died. She could not have been much more,for her daughter Baketaton must have been born but a year or sobefore Amonhotep’s death, and it is improbable that she wouldbear children after forty-five, if as late as that.

[56] It is to be noticed that there are pomegranates amongst thefruit, which indicates that the visit was made during the summer,as do the light costumes also.

[57] Davies: Amarna, iii. 8, note 1.

[58] This is to be observed also in some other inscriptions of theperiod.

[59] Breasted: History of Egypt, p. 364.

[60]Page 177.

[61] It is usual to date the tombs roughly by the number of daughtersshown, presuming that the artist represented all the children livingat the time. But though this gives us the lowest possible year, itdoes not always give us the highest, for daughters are obviouslysometimes omitted when the available space was cramped.

[62]Page 63.

[63]Page 107.

[64] Davies: El Amarna, iii., Pl. xviii.

[65]Page 182.

[66] Davies: El Amarna.

[67] Wilkinson: Modern Egypt, ii. 69.

[68] Davies: El Amarna.

[69] It is probable that there was some likeness between Akhnaton’stemples and those dedicated to the sun in early days, as, for examplethat at Abusêr.

[70] Perhaps this is a part of the royal palace.

[71] Petrie: El Amarna.

[72] Petrie: History of Egypt, ii. 219.

[73]Page 75.

[74]Page 192.

[75] She probably married some Egyptian noble, and her futurecareer is recorded onp. 269.

[76] The plaster has now fallen off, and little of the original decorationremains. The tomb is seldom visited by tourists, being sevenmiles back from the river; but it is in charge of the Governmentcustodian.

[77] The reception of the tribute recorded in the tomb of Meryra II.(seepage 170), although dated in the twelfth year of the reign, mayrepresent a later event, since six daughters are shown in the scene;and it is not likely that the sixth daughter was born before thefifteenth year. Perhaps the date is a misreading or miswriting,influenced by that given in the tomb of Huya.

[78] Breasted: History, p. 388.

[79] It is doubtful whether the second sign ismenkh orȧa͑, theybeing somewhat alike.

[80]Page 187.

[81] The scarab, another symbol from older times, seems to havebeen retained, for a gold heart-scarab is said to have been foundin Akhnaton’s tomb.—Petrie: History of Egypt, ii. 220.

[82]In Egyptian: Ḥeq nefer, Ra͑ setept, Seten bati, A͑nkh em Mȧa͑t,Neb taui, Akhnaton, Pa sherȧ nefer en Pa Aton a͑nkh, enti ȧuf a͑nkhuren ḥeḥ zet. This was all that was written upon the coffin.

[83] Probably he is to be identified with Tutu, a well-known nobleof this period—the wordsankhaton, “Living in Aton,” being addedto make the name more majestic.

[84] Seenote on page 67. This inscription is found on the doorpostsof the tomb of Horemheb, which, by the greatly increased titles, wereset up some time after the rest of the tomb was finished, and thusprobably in the reign of Tutankhaton. A fragment of gold-leaf hasrecently been found showing this king in his chariot charging Asiaticenemies. The present writer recently found part of a shrine of hisin the desert on the road to the gold mines. See ‘Travels in theUpper Egyptian Deserts’ (Blackwood).

[85] The present writer assisted at the opening of this tomb. A fullaccount of the find will be published by Mr Davis, and thereforeonly a brief description, already published with Mr Davis’s permissionin article form, must be given here.

	PAGE
INTRODUCTION	1

I.
THE PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS OF AKHNATON.

1. THE ANCESTORS OF AKHNATON	7
2. THE GODS OF EGYPT	11
3. THE DEMIGODS AND SPIRITS—THE PRIESTHOODS	18
4. THOTHMES IV. AND MUTEMUA	21
5. YUAA AND TUAU	25
6. AMONHOTEP III. AND HIS COURT	33

II.
THE BIRTH AND EARLY YEARS OF AKHNATON.

1. THE BIRTH OF AKHNATON	42
2. THE RISE OF ATON	45
3. THE POWER OF QUEEN TIY	49
4. AKHNATON’S MARRIAGE	53
5. THE ACCESSION OF AKHNATON	58
6. THE FIRST YEARS OF AKHNATON’S REIGN	62
7. THE NEW ART	68
8. THE NEW RELIGION DEVELOPS	76
9. THE NATURE OF THE NEW RELIGION	84
[viii]
III.
AKHNATON FOUNDS A NEW CITY.

1. THE BREAK WITH THE PRIESTHOOD OF AMON-RA	88
2. AKHNATON SELECTS THE SITE OF HIS CITY	92
3. THE FIRST FOUNDATION INSCRIPTION	94
4. THE SECOND FOUNDATION INSCRIPTION	101
5. THE DEPARTURE FROM THEBES	105
6. THE AGE OF AKHNATON	110

IV.
AKHNATON FORMULATES THE RELIGION OF ATON.

1. ATON THE TRUE GOD	115
2. ATON THE TENDER FATHER OF ALL CREATION	118
3. ATON WORSHIPPED AT SUNRISE AND SUNSET	124
4. THE GOODNESS OF ATON	127
5. AKHNATON THE “SON OF GOD” BY TRADITIONAL RIGHT	130
6. THE CONNECTIONS OF THE ATON WORSHIP WITH OLDER RELIGIONS	135
7. THE SPIRITUAL NEEDS OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH	138
8. THE MATERIAL NEEDS OF THE SOUL	143

V.
THE TENTH TO THE TWELFTH YEARS OF THE REIGN OF AKHNATON.

1. THE HYMNS OF THE ATON WORSHIPPERS	149
2. THE SIMILARITY OF AKHNATON’S HYMN TO PSALM CIV.	155
3. MERYRA IS MADE HIGH PRIEST OF ATON	157
4. THE ROYAL FAMILY VISIT THE TEMPLE	162
5. AKHNATON IN HIS PALACE	167
6. HISTORICAL EVENTS OF THIS PERIOD OF AKHNATON’S REIGN	169
7. QUEEN TIY VISITS THE CITY OF THE HORIZON	176
8. TIY VISITS HER TEMPLE	182
9. THE DEATH OF QUEEN TIY	184
[ix]
VI.
THE THIRTEENTH TO THE FIFTEENTH YEARS OF THE REIGN OF AKHNATON.

1. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RELIGION OF ATON	189
2. AKHNATON OBLITERATES THE NAME OF AMON	193
3. THE GREAT TEMPLE OF ATON	198
4. THE BEAUTY OF THE CITY	202
5. AKHNATON’S AFFECTION FOR HIS FAMILY	208
6. AKHNATON’S FRIENDS	213
7. AKHNATON’S TROUBLES	217

VII.
THE LAST TWO YEARS OF THE REIGN OF AKHNATON.

1. THE HITTITE INVASION OF SYRIA	223
2. AKHNATON’S CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTIONS TO WARFARE	226
3. THE FAITHLESSNESS OF AZIRU	230
4. THE FIGHTING IN SYRIA BECOMES GENERAL	235
5. AZIRU AND RIBADDI FIGHT TO A FINISH	239
6. AKHNATON CONTINUES TO REFUSE TO SEND HELP	243
7. AKHNATON’S HEALTH GIVES WAY	246
8. AKHNATON’S LAST DAYS AND DEATH	252

VIII.
THE FALL OF THE RELIGION OF AKHNATON.

1. THE BURIAL OF AKHNATON	258
2. THE COURT RETURNS TO THEBES	264
3. THE REIGN OF HOREMHEB	268
4. THE PERSECUTION OF AKHNATON’S MEMORY	272
5. THE FINDING OF THE BODY OF AKHNATON	276

INDEX	285

	PAGE
PAVEMENT DECORATION FROM THE PALACE OF AMONHOTEP III. (coloured)	Frontispiece
CEILING DECORATION FROM THE PALACE OF AMONHOTEP III. (coloured)	36
THOTHMES IV. SLAYING ASIATICS	22
TUAU, GRANDMOTHER OF AKHNATON	26
CHEST BELONGING TO YUAA	28
QUEEN TIY	30
YUAA, GRANDFATHER OF AKHNATON	32
AMONHOTEP-SON-OF-HAPU, THE “WISE MAN” OF THE COURT OF AMONHOTEP III.	34
SITE OF THE PALACE OF QUEEN TIY	38
COFFIN OF YUAA	40
AMONHOTEP III.	54
AKHNATON	58
THE ART OF AKHNATON COMPARED WITH ARCHAIC ART	72
THE ARTIST AUTA	76
AKHNATON AND NEFERTITI WITH THEIR THREE DAUGHTERS	108
THE HEAD OF THE MUMMY OF THOTHMES IV., THE GRANDFATHER OF AKHNATON	110
AKHNATON DRIVING WITH HIS WIFE AND DAUGHTER	130
AKHNATON AND HIS WIFE AND CHILDREN	134
[xii] AN EXAMPLE OF THE FRIENDLY RELATIONS BETWEEN SYRIA
AND EGYPT	190
CARVED WOODEN CHAIR, THE DESIGNS PARTLY COVERED WITH GOLD-LEAF	202
AKHNATON. (From a Statuette in the Louvre)	206
HEAD OF AKHNATON’S DAUGHTER	208
LETTER FROM RIBADDI TO THE KING OF EGYPT, REPORTING THE PROGRESS OF THE REBELLION UNDER AZIRU. (British Museum, No. 29,801)	234
DEATH MASK OF AKHNATON	258
THE TEMPLE AT LUXOR	270

MAP OF AKHETATON, THE CITY OF THE HORIZON OF ATON (TEL EL AMARNA)	At end.