TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have
been placed at the end of the book.
Footnotes [79] and [82] have a translation of some heiroglyphic
words, using several accented characters. These will display,
using Unicode combining diacriticals, on this device as
ȧ (a with dot above)
ḥ and Ḥ (h and H with dot below)
a͑ and A͑ (a and A with half left circle above)
Pages 155 and 156 of the original book have a two-column side by
side comparison of “Akhnaton’s Hymn” and “Psalm CIV”. The Psalm
has been placed under the Hymn in this etext.
Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._
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TRAVELS IN THE UPPER EGYPTIAN DESERTS.
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Times of Akhnaton.’
WM. BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH AND LONDON.
[Illustration: PAVEMENT DECORATION FROM THE PALACE OF AMONHOTEP III.]
The Life and Times of
Akhnaton
The Life and Times of
Akhnaton
Pharaoh of Egypt
BY
ARTHUR E. P. WEIGALL
CHIEF INSPECTOR OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ANTIQUITIES, UPPER EGYPT
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.
“Ye ask who are those that draw us to the Kingdom if the Kingdom
is in Heaven? The fowls of the air, and all the beasts that are
under the earth or upon the earth, and the fishes of the sea, these
are they which draw you, and the Kingdom of Heaven is within you.”
--GRENFELL AND HUNT: _Oxyrhynchus Papyri_, iv. 6.
SECOND IMPRESSION
William Blackwood and Sons
Edinburgh and London
1911
_ALL RIGHTS RESERVED_
_TO_
_THEODORE M. DAVIS,_
_THE DISCOVERER OF_
_THE BONES OF AKHNATON_,
This Book is Dedicated.
CONTENTS.
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
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
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
ILLUSTRATIONS.
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
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._
“How much Akhnaton understood we cannot say, but he had certainly
bounded forward in his views and symbolism to a position which
we cannot logically improve upon at the present day.”--PETRIE:
‘History of Egypt.’
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF AKHNATON.
INTRODUCTION.
The reign of Akhnaton, for seventeen years Pharaoh of Egypt (from
B.C. 1375 to 1358), stands out as the most interesting epoch in the
long sequence of Egyptian history. We have watched the endless line
of dim Pharaohs go by, each lit momentarily by the pale lamp of our
present knowledge, and most of them have left little impression
upon the mind. They are so misty and far off, they have been
dead and gone for such thousands of years, that they have almost
entirely lost their individuality. We call out some royal name,
and in response a vague figure passes into view, stiffly moves
its arms, and passes again into the darkness. With one there comes
the muffled noise of battle; with another there is singing and
the sound of music; with yet another the wailing of the oppressed
drifts by. But at the name Akhnaton there emerges from the darkness
a figure more clear than that of any other Pharaoh, and with it
there comes the singing of birds, the laughter of children, and the
scent of many flowers. For once we may look right into the mind
of a king of Egypt and may see something of its workings; and all
that is there observed is worthy of admiration. Akhnaton has been
called “the first individual in human history”;[1] but if he is
thus the first historical figure whose personality is known to us,
he is also the first of all human founders of religious doctrines.
Akhnaton may be ranked in degree of time, and perhaps also in
degree of genius, as the world’s first idealist; and, since in all
ancient Oriental research there never has been, and probably never
will be, brought before us a subject of such intellectual interest
as this Pharaoh’s religious revolution, which marks the first point
in the study of advanced human thought, a careful consideration of
this short reign deserves to be made.
The following pages do not pretend to do more than acquaint the
reader with the subject, at a time when, owing to the recent
discovery of the Pharaoh’s bones, some interest may have been
aroused in his career. A series of volumes have lately been issued
by the Egypt Exploration Fund,[2] in which accurate copies are to
be found of the reliefs, paintings, and inscriptions upon the walls
of the tombs of some of Akhnaton’s disciples and followers. In the
year 1893 Professor Flinders Petrie excavated the site of the city
which the Pharaoh founded, and published the results of his work
in a volume entitled ‘Tell el Amarna.’[3] Recently Professor J. H.
Breasted has devoted some space to a masterly study of this period
in his ‘History of Egypt’ and ‘Ancient Records of Egypt.’[4] From
these publications the reader will be able to refer himself to the
remaining literature dealing with the subject; but he should bear
in mind that the discovery[5] of the bones of Akhnaton himself,
which have shown us how old he was when he died--namely, about
twenty-eight years of age,--have modified many of the deductions
there made. Those who have travelled in Egypt will probably have
visited the site of Akhnaton’s city, near the modern village of El
Amarna; and in the museums of Cairo, London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna,
Leiden, and elsewhere, they will perhaps have seen some of the
relics of his age.
During the last few years an extraordinary series of discoveries
has been made in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes.
In 1903 the tomb of Thothmes IV., the paternal grandfather of
Akhnaton, was discovered; in 1905 the tomb of Yuaa and Tuau, the
maternal grandparents of Akhnaton, was found; in 1907 Akhnaton’s
body was discovered in the tomb of his mother, Queen Tiy; and
in 1908 the tomb of the Pharaoh Horemheb, one of the immediate
successors of Akhnaton, was brought to light. At all but the
first of these discoveries the present writer had the pleasure
of assisting; and a particular interest in the period was thus
engendered, of which the following sketch, prepared during an Upper
Egyptian summer, is an outcome. It must be understood, however,
that a volume written at such times as the exigencies of official
work allowed--partly in the shade of the rocks beside the Nile,
partly at railway-stations or in the train, partly amidst the ruins
of ancient temples, and partly in the darkened rooms of official
quarters--cannot claim the value of a treatise prepared in an
English study where books of reference are always at hand. It is
hoped, however, that no errors have been made in the statement of
the facts; and the deductions drawn therefrom are frankly open to
the reader’s criticism. There will certainly be no two opinions
as to the acknowledgment of the originality, the power, and the
idealism of the Pharaoh whose life is now to be outlined.[6]
I.
THE PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS OF AKHNATON.
1. THE ANCESTORS OF AKHNATON.
The Eighteenth Dynasty of Egyptian kings took possession of the
throne of the Pharaohs in the year 1580 B.C., over thirteen hundred
years after the buildings of the great pyramids, and some two
thousand years after the beginning of dynastic history in the
Nile Valley. The founder of the dynasty was the Pharaoh Aahmes I.
He drove out the Asiatics who had overrun the country during the
previous century, and pursued them into the heart of Syria. His
successor, Amonhotep I., penetrated as far as the territory between
the Orontes and the Euphrates; and the next king, Thothmes I., was
able to set his boundary-stone at the northern limits of Syria, and
thus could call himself the ruler of the entire east end of the
Mediterranean, the emperor of all the countries from Asia Minor to
the Sudan. Thothmes II., the succeeding Pharaoh, was occupied with
wars in his southern dominions; but his successor, the famous Queen
Hatshepsut, was able to devote the years of her reign to the arts
of peace.
She was followed by the great warrior Thothmes III., who conducted
campaign after campaign in Syria, and raised the prestige of Egypt
to a point never attained before or after that time. Every year he
returned to Thebes, his capital, laden with the spoils of Asia.
From the capture of the city of Megiddo alone he carried away 924
splendid chariots, 2238 horses, 2400 head of various kinds of
cattle, 200 shining suits of armour, including those of two kings,
quantities of gold and silver, the royal sceptre, the gorgeous tent
of one of the kings, and many minor articles. Booty of like value
was brought in from other shattered kingdoms, and the Egyptian
treasuries were full to overflowing. The temples of the gods also
received their share of the riches, and their altars groaned
under the weight of the offerings. Cyprus, Crete, and perhaps the
islands of the Ægean, sent their yearly tribute to Thebes, whose
streets, for the first time in their history, were thronged with
foreigners. Here were to be seen the long-robed Asiatics bearing
vases fresh from the hands of Tyrian craftsmen; here were chariots
mounted with gold and electrum drawn by prancing Syrian horses;
here were Phœnician merchants with their precious wares stripped
from the kingdoms of the sea; here were negroes bearing their
barbaric treasures to the palace. The Egyptian soldiers held their
heads high as they walked through these streets, for they were
feared by all the world. The talk was everywhere of conquest, and
the tales of adventure now related remained current in Egypt for
many a century. War-songs were composed, and hymns of battle were
inscribed upon the temple walls. The spirit of the age will be seen
in the following lines, in which the god Amon addresses Thothmes
III.:--
“I have come, giving thee to smite the princes of Zahi,
I have hurled them beneath thy feet among their highlands....
Thou hast trampled those who are in the districts of Punt,
I have made them see thy majesty as a circling star....
Crete and Cyprus are in terror....
Those who are in the midst of the great sea hear thy roarings;
I have made them see thy majesty as an avenger,
Rising upon the back of his slain victim....
I have made them see thy majesty as a fierce-eyed lion,
While thou makest them corpses in their valleys....”
It was a fierce and a splendid age--the zenith of Egypt’s great
history. The next king, Amonhotep II., carried on the conquests
with a degree of ferocity not previously apparent. He himself was
a man of great physical strength, who could draw a bow which none
of his soldiers could use. He led his armies into his restless
Asiatic dominions, and having captured seven rebellious Syrian
kings, he hung them head downwards from the prow of his galley as
he approached Thebes, and later sacrificed six of them to Amon
with his own hand. The seventh he carried up to a distant city of
the Sudan, and there hung him upon the gateway as a warning to all
rebels. Dying in the year 1420 B.C., he left the throne to his son,
Thothmes IV., the grandfather of Akhnaton, who at his accession
was about eighteen years of age.[7]
2. THE GODS OF EGYPT.
With the reign of Thothmes IV. we reach a period of history in
which the beginnings are to be observed of certain religious
movements, which become more apparent in the time of his son
Amonhotep III. and his grandson Akhnaton. We must look, therefore,
more closely at the events of this reign, and must especially
observe their religious aspect. For this reason, and also in order
that the reader may the more readily appreciate, by contrast, the
pure teachings of the Pharaoh whose life forms the subject of the
following pages, it will be necessary to glance at the nature of
the religions which now held sway. Egypt had at this time existed
as a civilised nation for over two thousand years, during the
whole of which period these religious beliefs had been developing;
and now they were so engrained in the hearts of the people that
changes, however slight, assumed revolutionary proportions,
requiring a master-mind for their initiation, and a hand of iron
for their carrying into execution. At the time of which we now
write, this mind and this hand had not yet come into existence, and
the old gods of Egypt were at the zenith of their power.
Of these gods Amon, the presiding deity of Thebes, was the most
powerful. He had been originally the tribal god of the Thebans, but
when 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 the deity of Heliopolis, a city not far from the modern
Cairo, had been the state god in earlier times, and the priests of
Amon contrived to identify the two deities under the name “Amon-Ra,
King of the Gods.” Amon had several forms. He was usually regarded
as a man of shining countenance, upon whose head two tall feathers
arose from a golden cap. Sometimes, however, he assumed the form
of a heavy-horned ram. Sometimes, again, he adopted the appearance
of a brother god, named Min, who was later identified with the
Greek Pan; and it may be mentioned in passing that the goat-form
of the Greek deity may have been derived from this Min-Amon of the
Thebans. On occasions Amon would take upon himself the likeness of
the reigning Pharaoh, choosing a moment when the monarch was away
or was asleep, and in this manner he would obtain admittance to the
queen’s bed-chamber. Amonhotep III. himself was said to be the son
of a union of this nature, though at the same time he did not deny
that his earthly father was Thothmes IV. Amon delighted in battle,
and gave willing assistance to the Pharaohs as they clubbed the
heads of their enemies or cut their throats. It is possible that,
like other of the Egyptian gods, he was but a deified chieftain
of the prehistoric period whose love of battle had never been
forgotten.
The goddess Mut, “the Mother,” was the consort of Amon, who would
sometimes come to earth to nurse the king’s son at her breast. By
Amon she had a son, Khonsu, who formed the third member of the
Theban trinity. He was the god of the Moon, and was very fair to
look upon.
Such were the Theban deities, whose influence upon the court was
necessarily great. The Heliopolitan worship of the sun had also a
very considerable degree of power at the palace. The god Ra was
believed to have reigned as Pharaoh upon earth in the dim ages of
the past, and it was thought that the successive sovereigns of
Egypt were his direct descendants, though this tradition actually
did not date from a period earlier than the Fifth Dynasty. “Son of
the Sun” was one of the proudest titles of the Pharaohs, and the
personal name of each successive monarch was held by him in the
official titulary as the representative of Ra. While on earth Ra
had had the misfortune to be bitten by a snake, and had been cured
by the goddess Isis, who had demanded in return the revealing of
the god’s magical name. This was at last told her; but for fear
that the secret would come to the ears of his subjects, Ra decided
to bring about a general massacre of mankind. The slaughter was
carried out by the goddess Hathor in her form of Sekhmet, a fierce
lion-headed woman, who delighted to wade in streams of blood; but
when only the half of mankind had been slain, Ra repented, and
brought the massacre to an end by causing the goddess to become
drunk, by means of a gruesome potion of blood and wine. Weary,
however, with the cares of state, he decided to retire into the
heavens, and there, as the sun, he daily sailed in his boat from
horizon to horizon. At dawn he was called Khepera, and had the
form of a beetle; at noon he was Ra; and at sunset he took the
name of Atum, a word derived from the Syrian Adon, “Lord,” better
known to us in its Greek translation “Adonis.” As the rising and
the setting sun--that is to say, the sun near the horizon--he was
called Ra-Horakhti, a name which the reader must bear in mind.
The goddess Isis, mentioned in the above tradition, was the consort
of Osiris, originally a Lower Egyptian deity. Like Ra, this god had
also reigned upon earth, but had been murdered by his brother Set,
his death being ultimately revenged by his son Horus, the hawk.
Thus Osiris, Isis, and Horus formed a trinity, which at this time
was mainly worshipped at Abydos, a city of Upper Egypt, where it
was thought that Osiris had been buried. Having thus ceased to
live upon earth, Osiris became the great King of the Underworld,
and all persons prayed to him for their future welfare after death.
Meanwhile Horus, the hawk, was the tribal god of more than one
city. At Edfu he was worshipped as the conqueror of Set; and in
this manifestation he was the husband of Hathor, the lady of
Dendereh, a city some considerable distance from Edfu. At Ombos,
however, Set was worshipped, and in the local religion there was
no trace of aught but the most friendly relations between Set and
Horus. The goddess Hathor, at the same time, had become patron of
the Western Hills, and in one of her earthly forms--namely, that of
a cow--she is often seen emerging from her cavern in the cliffs.
At Memphis the tribal god was the little dwarf Ptah, the European
Vulcan, the blacksmith, the artificer, and the potter of the gods.
In this city also, as in many other districts of Egypt, there was
a sacred bull, here called Apis, who was worshipped with divine
honours and was regarded as an aspect of Ptah. At Elephantine a
ram-headed deity named Khnum was adored, and there was a sacred
ram kept in his temple for ceremonial purposes. As Khnum had some
connection with the First Cataract of the Nile, which is situated
near Elephantine, he was regarded as of some importance throughout
Egypt. Moreover, he was supposed by some to have used the mud at
the bottom of the Nile to form the first human being, and thus he
found a place in the mythology of several districts.
A vulture, named Nekheb, was the tribal deity of the trading city
of Eileithiaspolis; a ferocious crocodile, Sebek, was the god of
a second city of the name of Ombos; an ibis, Thoth, was that of
Hermopolis; a cat, Bast, that of Bubastis; and so on--almost every
city having its tribal god. Besides these there were other more
abstract deities: Nut, the heavens, who, in the form of a woman,
spread herself across the sky; Seb, the earth; Shu, the vastness
of space; and so forth. The old gods of Egypt were indeed a
multitude. Here were those who had marched into the country at the
head of conquering tribes; here were ancient heroes and Chieftains
individually deified, or often identified with the god whom their
tribe had served; here were the elements personified; here the orbs
of heaven which man could see above him. As intercourse between
city and city became more general, one set of beliefs had been
brought into line with another, and myths had developed to explain
the discrepancies. Thus in the time of Thothmes IV. the heavens
were crowded with gods; but standing above them all, the reader
will do well to familiarise himself with the figure of Amon-Ra, the
god of Thebes, and with Ra-Horakhti, the god of Heliopolis. In the
following pages the lesser denizens of the Egyptian Olympus play
no great part, save as a routed army hurled back into the ignorant
darkness from which they came.
3. THE DEMIGODS AND SPIRITS--THE PRIESTHOODS.
The sacred bulls and rams mentioned above were relics of an ancient
animal-worship, the origin of which is lost in the obscurity of
prehistory. The Egyptians paid homage to a variety of animals, and
almost every city or district possessed its particular species to
which special protection was extended. At Hermopolis and in 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 in reverence, and several river
fish were thus treated. The snake was much feared and reverenced;
and, as a pertinent example of this superstition, it may be
mentioned that Amonhotep III., the father of Akhnaton, placed a
figure of the agathodemon serpent in a temple at Benha. The cobra
was reverenced as the symbol of Uazet, the goddess of the Delta,
and, first used as a royal emblem by the archaic kings of that
country, it became the main emblem of sovereignty in Pharaonic
times. It is unnecessary here to look more closely at this aspect
of Egyptian religion; and but a word need be said of the thousand
demons and spirits which, together with the gods and the sacred
animals, crowded the regions of the unknown. Many were the names
which the magician might call upon in the hour of his need, and
many were the awful forms which the soul of a man who had died
was liable to meet. Osiris, the great god of the dead, was served
by four such genii, and under his authority there sat no less
than forty-two terrible demons whose business it was to judge the
quavering soul. The numerous gates of the underworld were guarded
by monsters whose names alone would strike terror into the heart,
and the unfortunate soul had to repeat endless and peculiarly
tedious formulæ before admittance was granted.
To minister to these hosts of heaven there had of necessity to be
vast numbers of priests. At Thebes the priesthood of Amon formed
an organisation of such power and wealth that the actions of the
Pharaoh had largely come to be controlled by it. The High Priest
of Amon-Ra was one of the most important personages in the land,
and his immediate subordinates, the Second, Third, and Fourth
Priests, as they were called, were usually nobles of the highest
rank. The High Priest of Amon was at this period often Grand Vizir
also, and thus combined the highest civil appointment with the
highest sacerdotal office. The priesthood of Ra at Heliopolis,
although of far less power than that of Amon, was also a body of
great importance. The High Priest was known as “the Great One of
Visions,” and he was probably less of a politician and more of
a priest than his Theban colleague. The High Priest of Ptah at
Memphis was called “the Great Master Artificer,” Ptah being the
Vulcan of Egypt. He, however, and the many other high priests of
the various gods, did not rank with the two great leaders of the
Amon and the Ra priesthoods.
4. THOTHMES IV. AND MUTEMUA.
When Thothmes IV. ascended the throne he was confronted by a very
serious political problem. The Heliopolitan priesthood at this
time was chafing against the power of Amon, and was striving to
restore the somewhat fallen prestige of its own god Ra, who in
the far past had been the supreme deity of Egypt, but had now to
play an annoying second to the Theban god. Thothmes IV., as we
shall presently be told by Akhnaton himself,[8] did not altogether
approve of the political character of the Amon priesthood, and it
may have been due to this dissatisfaction that he undertook the
repairing of the great Sphinx at Gizeh, which was in the care of
the priests of Heliopolis. The sphinx was thought to represent a
combination of the Heliopolitan gods Horakhti, Khepera, Ra, and
Atum, who have been mentioned above; and, according to a later
tradition, Thothmes IV. had obtained the throne over the heads of
his elder brothers through the mediation of the Sphinx--that is
to say, through that of the Heliopolitan priests. By them he was
called “Son of Atum and Protector of Horakhte, ... who purifies
Heliopolis and satisfies Ra,”[9] and it seems that they looked to
him to restore to them their lost power. The Pharaoh, however, was
a physical weakling, whose small amount of energy was entirely
expended upon his army, which he greatly loved, and which he led
into Syria and into the Sudan. His brief reign of somewhat over
eight years, from 1420 to 1411 B.C., marks but the indecisive
beginnings of the struggle between Amon and Ra, which culminated in
the early years of the reign of his grandson Akhnaton.
[Illustration: _Thothmes IV. slaying Asiatics._]
Some time before he came to the throne he had married a daughter
of the King of Mitanni, a North-Syrian state which acted as a
buffer between the Egyptian possessions in Syria and the hostile
lands of Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, and which it was desirable,
therefore, to placate by such a union. There is little doubt that
this princess is to be identified with the Queen Mutemua, of whom
several monuments exist, and who was the mother of Amonhotep III.,
the son and successor of Thothmes IV. A foreign element was thus
introduced into the court which much altered its character, and led
to numerous changes of a very radical nature. It may be that this
Asiatic influence induced the Pharaoh to give further encouragement
to the priest of Heliopolis. The god Atum, the aspect of Ra as the
setting sun, was, as has been said, of common origin with Aton or
Adonis, who was largely worshipped in North Syria; and the foreign
queen with her retinue may have therefore felt more sympathy with
Heliopolis than with Thebes. Moreover, it was the Asiatic tendency
to speculate in religious questions, and the doctrines of the
priests of the northern god were more flexible and more adaptable
to the thinker than was the stiff, formal creed of Amon. Thus,
the foreign thought which had now been introduced into Egypt, and
especially into the palace, may have contributed somewhat to the
dissatisfaction with the state religion which becomes apparent
during this reign.
Very little is known of the character of Thothmes IV., and
nothing which bears upon that of his grandson Akhnaton is to be
ascertained. Although of feeble health and unmanly physique, he was
a fond upholder of the martial dignity of Egypt. He delighted to
honour the memory of those Pharaohs of the past who had achieved
the greatest fame as warriors. Thus he restored the monuments of
Thothmes III., of Aahmes I., and of Senusert III.,[10] the three
greatest military leaders of Egyptian history. As a decoration for
his chariot there were scenes representing him trampling upon his
foes; and when he died many weapons of war were buried with him.
Of Queen Mutemua’s character nothing is known; and the attention
of the reader may at once be carried on to Akhnaton’s maternal
grandparents, the father and mother of Queen Tiy.
5. YUAA AND TUAU.
Somewhere about the year 1470 B.C., while the great Thothmes III.
was campaigning in Syria, the child was born who was destined to
become the grandfather of the most remarkable of all the Pharaohs
of Egypt. Neither the names of the parents nor the place of birth
are known; and the reader will presently find that it is not easy
to say whether the child was an Egyptian or a foreigner. His name
is written Aau, Aay, Aai, Ayu, A-aa, Yaa, Yau, and most commonly
Yuaa; and this variety of spelling seems rather to indicate that
its pronunciation, being foreign, did not permit of a correct
rendering in Egyptian letters. He must have been some twenty years
of age when Thothmes III. died; and thus it is quite possible that
he was one of those Syrian princes whom the Pharaoh brought back
to Egypt from the courts of Asia to be educated in the Egyptian
manner. Some of these hostages who were not direct heirs to Syrian
thrones may have taken up their permanent residence on the banks
of the Nile, where it is certain that a fair number of their
countrymen were settled for business and other purposes. During the
reign of Amonhotep II., Yuaa must have passed the prime years of
his life, and at that king’s death he had probably reached about
the forty-fifth year of his age. He had married a woman called
by the common Egyptian name of Tuau, regarding whose nationality
there is, therefore, not much question. Two children were born
of the marriage, the first a boy who was named Aanen, and the
second a girl named Tiy, who later became the great queen. Tiy was
probably a little girl some two years old when Thothmes IV. came
to the throne, and as her parents both held appointments at court,
she must have presently received those first impressions of royal
luxury which influenced her childhood and her whole life.
[Illustration: _Tuau, grandmother of Akhnaton._]
At this time Yuaa held the sacerdotal office of Priest of Min, one
of the most ancient of the Egyptian gods. Min, who had many of
the characteristics of, and was later identified with, the Greek
Pan, was worshipped at three or four cities of Upper Egypt, and
throughout the Eastern Desert to the Red Sea coast. He was the god
of fecundity, fertility, generation, reproduction, and the like,
in the human, animal, and vegetable worlds. In his form of Min-Ra
he was a god of the sun, whose fertilising rays made pregnant the
whole earth. He was more noble than the Greek Pan, and represented
the pristine desires of lawful reproduction in the family, rather
than the erotic instincts for which the Greek god was famous.
Were one to compare him with any of the gods of the countries
neighbouring to Egypt, he would be found to have as much likeness
to the above-mentioned Adonis, who in North Syria was a god of
vegetation, as to any other deity. This fact offers food for some
thought, for if Yuaa was a foreigner, hailing, as may be supposed,
from Syria, there would have been no Egyptian god, except Atum,
to whose service he would have attached himself so readily as to
that of Min. Although a tribal god, Min was not essentially the
protector and upholder of Egyptian rights and Egyptian prejudices.
He was, in one form or another, universal; and he must have
appealed to the sense and the senses of Syrian and Egyptian alike.
At this time, as we have seen, the priests of Amon, whose wealth
had brought corruption in its train, were under the cloud of royal
displeasure, and the court was beginning to display a desire to
rid itself of an influence which was daily becoming less exalted.
It may be that Yuaa, upholding the doctrines of Min and of Adonis,
had some connection with this movement, for he was now a personage
of considerable importance at the palace. He may have already held
the title of Prince or Duke, by which he is called in his funeral
inscriptions; and one may suppose that he was a favourite of the
young king, Thothmes IV., and of his wife, Queen Mutemua, whose
blood was soon to 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 of twelve years of age, came to the throne,
Yuaa was a man of over fifty, and his little daughter Tiy was a
girl of marriageable age according to Egyptian ideas, being about
ten years old.[11]
[Illustration: _Chest belonging to Yuaa._]
The court at this time was more or less under the influence of
the now Queen-Regent Mutemua and her advisers, for Amonhotep III.
was still too young to be allowed to go entirely his own way,
and amongst those advisers it seems evident that Yuaa was to be
numbered. Now the boy-king had not been on the throne more than a
year, if as much, when, with feasting and ceremony, he was married
to Tiy; and Yuaa and Tuau became the proud parents-in-law of the
Pharaoh.
It is necessary to consider the significance of the marriage.
The royal pair were the merest children; and it is impossible
to suppose that the marriage was not arranged for them by their
guardians. If Amonhotep at this early age had simply fallen in love
with this girl, with whom probably he had been brought up, he, no
doubt, would have insisted on marrying her, and she would have been
placed in his _harîm_. But she became his Great Queen, was placed
on the throne beside him, and received honours which no other queen
of the most royal blood had ever received before. It is clear that
the king’s advisers would never have permitted this had Tiy been
but the pretty daughter of a noble of the court. There must have
been something in her parentage which entitled her to these honours
and caused her to be chosen deliberately as queen.
There are several possibilities. Tuau may have had royal blood in
her veins, and may have been, for instance, the granddaughter of
Thothmes III., to whom she bears some likeness in face. Queen Tiy
is often called “Royal Daughter” as well as “Royal Wife”; and it is
possible that this is to be taken literally. In a letter sent by
Dushratta, King of Mitanni, to Akhnaton, Tiy is called “my sister
and thy mother”; and though it is possible that the word “sister”
is here used to indicate the general cousinship of royalty, it
is more probable that some real connection is meant, for other
relationships, such as “daughter,” “wife,” and “father-in-law,”
are precisely stated in the letter. Yuaa may have been indirectly
of royal Egyptian blood, or he may have been, as we have seen,
the offspring of some Syrian royal house, such as that of Mitanni,
related by marriage with the Pharaoh; and thus Tiy may have had
some distant claim to the throne, and Dushratta would have had
reason for calling her his sister. Queen Tiy, however, has so often
been called a foreigner for reasons which have now been shown to be
quite erroneous that we must be cautious in adopting any of these
possibilities. It has been stated that her face is North-Syrian
in type,[12] and, as the portrait upon which this statement is
based is, in all features except the nose, reminiscent of Yuaa,
that noble would also resemble the people of that country; and in
this connection it must be remembered that the marriage of Tiy
and Amonhotep took place under the regency of Mutemua, herself
probably a North-Syrian princess. Be this as it may, however, the
two children, not yet in their ’teens, ruled Egypt together, and
Yuaa and Tuau stood behind the throne to advise them.
[Illustration: _Queen Tiy._]
Tuau now included amongst her titles those of “Royal Handmaid,” or
lady-in-waiting, “the favoured-one of Hathor,” “the favourite of
the King,” and “the Royal mother of the great wife of the King,” a
title which may indicate that she was of royal blood. Amongst the
titles of Yuaa one may mention those of “Master of the Horse and
Chariot-Captain of the King,” “the favourite, excellent above all
favourites,” and “the mouth and ears of the King,”--that is to say,
his agent and adviser. He was a personage of commanding presence,
whose powerful character showed itself in his face. One must
picture him now as a tall man, with a fine shock of white hair; a
great hooked nose, like that of a Syrian; full, strong lips; and
a prominent, determined jaw. He has the face of an ecclesiastic,
and there is something about his mouth which reminds one of the
late Pope, Leo XIII. One feels, in looking at his well-preserved
features, that here perhaps may be found the originator of the
great religious movement which his daughter and grandson carried
into execution.
[Illustration: _Yuaa, grandfather of Akhnaton._]
6. AMONHOTEP III. AND HIS COURT.
Besides Yuaa and Tuau and the Queen-Dowager Mutemua, there was
a certain noble, named Amonhotep-son-of-Hapu, who may have
exercised considerable influence upon the young Pharaoh. So good
and wise a man was he, that in later times he was regarded almost
as a divinity, and his sayings were treasured from generation
to generation. It may be that he furthered the cause of the
Heliopolitan priesthood against that of Amon; and it is to be
observed in this connection that, in the inscription engraved upon
his statue, he refers to the Pharaoh as the “heir of Atum” and
the “first-born son of Horakhti,” those being the Heliopolitan
gods. When, presently, a daughter was born to Tiy, who was named
Setamon, this philosopher was given the honorary post of “Steward”
to the princess; while at the same time he filled the office of
Minister of Public Works, and held various court appointments. At
this period, when religious speculation was beginning to be freely
indulged in, the influence of a “wise man” of this character
would necessarily be great; and should any of his sayings come to
light, they will perhaps be found to bear upon the subject of the
religious changes which were now taking place. A late tradition
tells us that this Amonhotep had warned the Pharaoh that if he
would see the true God he must drive from his kingdom all impure
persons; and herein one may perhaps observe some reference to the
corrupt priests of Amon, whose ejection from their offices was
daily becoming more necessary.
[Illustration: _Amonhotep-son-of-Hapu, the “wise man” of the Court
of Amonhotep III._]
At the time of which we write Egypt still remained at that height
of power to which the military skill of Thothmes III. had raised
her. The Kings of Palestine and Syria were tributaries to the
young Pharaoh; the princes of the sea-coast cities sent their
yearly impost to Thebes; Cyprus, Crete, and even the Greek islands,
were Egyptianised; Sinai and the Red Sea coast as far south as
Somaliland were included in the Pharaoh’s dominions; and the
negro tribes of the Sudan were his slaves. Egypt was indeed the
greatest state in the world, and Thebes was a metropolis at which
the ambassadors, the merchants, and the artisans from these
various countries met together. Here they could look upon buildings
undreamed of in their own lands, and could participate in luxuries
unknown even in Babylon. The wealth of Egypt was so enormous that
a foreign sovereign who wrote to the Pharaoh asking for gold
mentioned that it could not be considered as anything more valuable
than so much dust by an Egyptian. Golden vases in vast quantities
adorned the tables of the king and his nobles, and hundreds of
golden vessels of different kinds were used in the temples.
The splendour and gaiety of the court at Thebes remind one of the
tales from the Arabian Nights. One reads of banquets, of splendid
festivals on the water, of jubilee celebrations, and of hunting
parties. When the scenes depicted on the monuments are gathered
together in the mind, and the ruins which are left are there
reconstructed, a life of the most intense brilliancy is shown. This
was rather a development of the period than a condition of things
which had been derived from an earlier _régime_. The Egyptians
had always been a happy, light-hearted people; but it was the
conquests of Thothmes III. that had given them the security and
the wealth to live as luxuriously as they pleased. The tendency of
the nation was now to break away from the old, hardy traditions of
the earlier periods of Egyptian history; and virtually no other
body, except the priesthood of Amon, held them down to ancient
conventionalities. But while the king and his court made merry
and amused themselves in sumptuous fashion, that god Amon and his
representatives towered over them like some sombre bogie, holding
them to a religion which they considered to be obsolete, and
claiming its share of royal wealth.
[Illustration: CEILING DECORATION FROM THE PALACE OF AMONHOTEP III.]
About the time of his marriage Amonhotep built a palace on the
western bank of the Nile, on the edge of the desert under the
Theban hills, and here Queen Tiy held her brilliant court. The
palace was a light but roomy structure of brick and costly woods,
exquisitely decorated with paintings on stucco, and embellished
with delicate columns. Along one side ran a balcony on which were
rugs and many-coloured cushions, and here the king and queen could
sometimes be seen by their subjects. Gardens surrounded the
palace, almost at the gates of which rose the splendid hills. On
the eastern side of the building the king later constructed a huge
pleasure-lake especially for the amusement of Tiy. The mounds of
earth which were thrown up during its excavation were purposely
formed into irregular hills, and these were covered with trees and
flowers. Here the queen floated in her barge, which, in honour of
the Heliopolitan god, she called “Aton-gleams”; and as she watched
the reflections of the hills and the trees in the still water, she
may well have imagined herself in those fair lands of Syria from
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 or
Aton; and it is now that we first find the word introduced into
Egypt as a synonym of Ra-Horakhti-Khepera-Atum of Heliopolis.
Presently we find that one of the Pharaoh’s regiments of soldiers
is named after this god Aton, and here and there the word now
occurs upon the monuments. Thus, gradually, the court was bringing
a new-named deity into prominence, closely related to the gods
of Heliopolis; and it may be supposed that the priesthood of Amon
watched the development with considerable perturbation. The Pharaoh
himself does not seem to have worried very considerably with regard
to these religious matters. He was, it seems, a man addicted to
pleasure, whose interests lay as much in the hunting-field as in
the palace. He loved to boast that during the first ten years of
his reign he had slain 102 lions; but as he was a mere boy when he
first indulged in this form of sport, it is to be presumed that his
nobles assisted him handsomely in the slaughter on each occasion.
In one day he is reported to have killed fifty-six wild cattle, and
a score more fell to him a few days later; but here again one may
suppose that the glory and not the deed was his.
[Illustration: _Site of the Palace of Queen Tiy._]
In the fifth year of his reign he led an expedition into the
Sudan to chastise some tribe which had rebelled, and he records
with pride the slaughter which he had made. It is stated that
these negroes “had been haughty, and great things were in their
hearts; but the fierce-eyed lion, this prince, he slew them by the
command of Amon-Atum.” It is interesting to notice that Atum is
thus brought into equal prominence with Amon, and one may see from
this the trend of public opinion.
At this time the Vizir, a certain Ptahmes, held also the office of
High Priest of Amon; but when he died he was not succeeded in his
duties as Vizir by the new head of the Amon priesthood, as was to
be expected. The Pharaoh appointed a noble named Rames as his prime
minister, and thus separated the civil and the religious power:
a step which again shows us something of the movement which was
steadily diminishing the power of Amon.
Queen Tiy seems to have borne several daughters to the king, and
it is possible that she had also presented him with a son. But,
if this is so, he had died in early childhood, and no heir to
the throne was now living. It may have been partly due to this
fact that Amonhotep, in the tenth year of his reign, married
the Princess Kirgipa or Gilukhipa, daughter of the King of
Mitanni, and probably niece of the Dowager-Queen Mutemua.[13] The
princess came to Egypt in considerable state, bringing with her
317 ladies-in-waiting; but she seems to have been thrust into
the background by Tiy, who, even in the official record of the
marriage, is called the king’s chief wife. The marriage may have
been purely political, as was that of Thothmes IV.; and there is
certainly no record of any children born to Gilukhipa. She and
her ladies but added a further foreign element to the life of the
palace, and swelled the numbers of those who had no sympathy with
the old gods of Thebes.
[Illustration: _Coffin of Yuaa._]