of Amon and those of Aton seem still to have been struggling
for the supremacy, and Ay appeared to have been regarded as the
most likely man to bridge the gulf between the two factions. A
favourite of Akhnaton, and still tolerant of all that was connected
with the late movement, he was not averse to the cult of Amon,
and by conciliating both parties he managed to obtain the throne
for himself. His power, however, did not last for long, and as
the priests of Amon regained the confidence of the nation at the
expense of the worshippers of the Aton, so the prestige of Ay
declined. His past relationship to Akhnaton, which even as king
be carefully recorded within his cartouche, now told against him
rather than for him, and about eight years after the death of
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 had already almost as much power as the Pharaoh.
The commander-in-chief at once ascended the throne, and was
received by the populace with the utmost rejoicings. At this time
there was living at Thebes the Princess Nezemmut, the sister of
Akhnaton’s Queen Nefertiti, and hence the daughter of Dushratta,
King of Mitanni. Owing to previous inter-marriages between the
royal house of Egypt and that of Mitanni, both Nefertiti and
Nezemmut were descendants of Pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty.
Nezemmut had come to Egypt early in the reign of Akhnaton, and
later had perhaps married some Egyptian nobleman; but she was now
a widow, and had recently been appointed to the post of “Divine
Consort,”--that is to say, High Priestess--of Amon. As she was
probably the younger sister of Nefertiti, she may have been about
six years of age when Nefertiti was married to Akhnaton at the
age of eight. Hence she would have been about twenty-three at his
death, and would now be just over thirty.
To this princess, as representing both the rights of the old line
of Pharaohs and those of the god Amon, without the now condemning
close relationship to Akhnaton which characterised the other
existing royal princesses, Horemheb was at once married. The
religion of the Aton was now fast disappearing. In a tomb dating
from the third year of Horemheb’s reign, the words “Ra whose
body is Aton” occur; but this is the last mention of the Aton,
and henceforth Amon-Ra is unquestionably supreme. A certain
Pa-atonemheb, who had been one of Akhnaton’s favourites, was at
about this time appointed High Priest of Ra-Horakhti at Heliopolis,
and thus the last traces of the religion of the Aton were merged
into the Heliopolitan theology, from which that religion at the
beginning had emanated.
[Illustration: _The Temple at Luxor._]
The neglected shrines of the old gods once more echoed with
the chants of the priests throughout the whole land of Egypt.
Inscriptions tell us that Horemheb “restored the temples from
the pools of the Delta marshes to Nubia. He fashioned a hundred
images ... with all splendid and costly stones. He established for
them daily offerings every day. All the vessels of their temples
were wrought of silver and gold. He equipped them with priests
and with ritual priests, and with the choicest of the army. He
transferred to them lands and cattle, supplied with all necessary
equipment.” By these gifts to the neglected gods Horemheb was
striving to bring Egypt back to its natural condition; and with a
strong hand he was guiding the country from chaos to order, from
fantastic Utopia to the solid old Egypt of the past. He was, in
fact, the preacher of sanity, the very apostle of the Normal.
He led his armies into the Sudan, and returned with a procession
of captive chieftains roped before him. He had none of Akhnaton’s
qualms regarding human suffering, and these unfortunate prisoners
are seen to have their arms bound in the most cruel manner. Finding
the country to 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 prepared them that, but a few years after his death, the
soldiers of the reigning Pharaoh were swarming once more over the
lands which Akhnaton had lost.
4. THE PERSECUTION OF AKHNATON’S MEMORY.
The priests of Amon-Ra had now begun openly to denounce Akhnaton as
a villain and a heretic, and as they restored the name of their god
where it had been erased, so they hammered out the name and figure
of Akhnaton wherever they saw it. Presently they pulled down the
Aton temple at Karnak, and used the blocks of stone in the building
of a pylon for Amon-Ra. Soon it was felt that Akhnaton’s body
could no longer lie in state, together with that of Queen Tiy, in
the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings. The sepulchre was therefore
opened once more and the name “Akhnaton” was everywhere erased from
the inscriptions, as was his figure from the scenes upon the shrine
of Queen Tiy. The mummy was lifted from its coffin and the royal
name was cut out of the gold ribbons which passed round it, both
at the back and the front. It was then replaced in the coffin, and
from this the name was also erased.
The question may be asked why it was that the body was not torn to
pieces and scattered to the four winds, since the king was now
so fiercely hated. The Egyptians, however, entertained a peculiar
reverence for the bodies of their dead, and it would have been a
sacrilege to destroy the mummy even of this heretic. No thought
could be entertained of breaking up the body upon which the divine
touch of kingship had fallen: that would have been against all the
sentiments which we know the Egyptians to have held. The cutting
out of the name of the mummy was sufficient punishment: for thereby
the soul of the king was debarred from all the benefits of the
earthly prayers of his descendants, and became a nameless outcast,
wandering unrecognised and unpitied through the vast underworld.
It was the name “Akhnaton” which was hated so fiercely; and one
may perhaps suppose that the priests would have been willing to
substitute the king’s earlier name, Amonhotep, upon the mummy had
they been pressed to do so. His name and figure as Amonhotep IV. is
not damaged upon the monuments; but only the representations of him
after the adoption of the name Akhnaton have been attacked.
The tomb, polluted by the presence of the heretic, was no longer
fit for Tiy to rest in; and the body of the queen was therefore
carried elsewhere, perhaps to the sepulchre of her husband
Amonhotep III. The shrine, or outer coffin, in which her mummy had
lain was pulled to pieces, and an attempt was made to carry it out
of the tomb to its owner’s new resting-place, but this arduous
task was presently abandoned, and one portion of the shrine was
left in the passage, while the rest remained in sections in the
burial-chamber. Some of the queen’s toilet utensils which had been
buried with her were also left, probably by mistake. The body of
Akhnaton, his name taken from him, was now the sole occupant of
the tomb. The coffin in which it lay rested upon a four-legged
bier some two feet or so from the ground, and in a niche in the
wall above it stood the four canopic jars. And thus, with a curse,
the priests left their great enemy. The entrance of the tomb was
blocked with stones, and sealed with the seal of the necropolis;
and all traces of its mouth were hidden by rocks and _débris_.
The priests would not now permit the name of Akhnaton to pass
a man’s lips, and by the end of the reign of Horemheb, the
unfortunate boy was spoken of in official documents as “that
criminal.” Not forty years had passed since Akhnaton’s death, yet
the priesthood of Amon was as powerful as it had ever been at any
period of its existence. There were still living men who had been
old enough at the time of the Aton power to grasp its doctrines;
and those same eyes which had looked upon the fair City of the
Horizon might now disturb the creatures of the desert in the ruined
courts where the grave boy-Pharaoh had presided so lately. These
men joined their voices to that crowd of priests who, not daring
to allow the word Akhnaton to form itself upon their lips, poured
curses upon the excommunicated and nameless “criminal.” Through
starry space their execrations passed, searching out the wretched
ghost of the boy, and banning him, as they supposed, even in the
dim uncertainties of the Lands of Death. Over the hills of the
west, up the stairs of the moon, and down into the caverns under
the world, the poor twittering shadow was hunted and chased by the
relentless magic of the men whom he had tried to reform. There
was no place for his memory upon earth, and in the under-world
the priests denied him a stone upon which to lay his head. It
is not easy now to realise the full meaning to the Egyptians
of the excommunication of a soul: cut off from the comforts of
human prayers; hungry, forlorn, and wholly desolate; forced at
last to whine upon the outskirts of villages, to snivel upon the
dung-heaps, to rake with shadowy fingers amidst the refuse of mean
streets for fragments of decayed food with which to allay the pangs
of hunger caused by the absence of funeral-offerings. To such a
pitiful fate the priests of Amon consigned “the first individual in
history”; and as an outcast amongst outcasts, a whimpering shadow
in a place of shadows, the men of Thebes bade us leave the great
idealist, doomed to the horrors of a life which will not end, to
the misery of a death that brings no oblivion.
5. THE FINDING OF THE BODY OF AKHNATON.
Thus, sheathed in gold, the nameless body lay, while the fortunes
of Egypt rose and fell and the centuries slid by. A greater
teacher than Akhnaton arose and preached that peace which the
Pharaoh had foreshadowed, and soon all Egypt rang with the new
gospel. Then came the religion of Muhammed, and the days of the
sword returned. So the years passed, and many a wise man lived his
life and disappeared; but the first of the wise men of history lay
undiscovered in the heart of the Theban hills.
Now it happened that there was a fissure in the rocks in which the
sepulchre was cut, and during the rains of each season a certain
amount of moisture managed to penetrate into the chamber. This
gradually rotted the legs of the bier upon which Akhnaton’s body
lay, and at last there came a time when the two legs at the head
of the coffin gave way and precipitated the royal body on to the
ground. The bandages around the mummy had already fallen almost to
powder, and this jerk sent the golden vulture which was resting
upon the king’s face on to his forehead, where it lay with the tail
and claws resting over the left eye-socket of the skull. Presently
the two remaining legs of the bier collapsed, and the whole
coffin fell to the ground, the lid being partly jerked off, thus
revealing the king’s head at one end and his feet at the other,
from all of which the flesh had rotted away.
In January 1907 the excavations in the Valley of the Tombs of the
Kings which were being conducted by Mr Theodore Davis, of Newport,
Rhode Island, U.S.A., on behalf of the Egyptian Government, brought
to light the doorway of the tomb, and it was not long before an
entrance was effected. A rough stairway led down into the hillside,
bringing the excavators[85] to the mouth of the passage, which was
entirely blocked by the wall which the priests had built after they
had entered the tomb to erase Akhnaton’s name. Beyond this wall
the passage was found to be nearly choked with the _débris_ of the
three earlier walls, the first of which had been built after Queen
Tiy had been buried here, the second after Akhnaton’s agents had
entered the tomb to erase the name of Amon, and the third after
Akhnaton’s body had been laid beside that of his mother. On top
of this heap of stones lay the side of the funeral shrine of the
queen which the priests had abandoned after attempting to carry it
out with her mummy. In the burial-chamber beyond, the remaining
portions of this shrine were found. Upon these one saw the figures
of Akhnaton and his mother worshipping beneath the rays of the
Aton. The inscriptions showed the erasure of the name of Amonhotep
III., and the substitution in red ink of that king’s second name,
Nebmaara; and one observed that at a later date the name and
figures of Akhnaton had been hammered out.
At one side lay the coffin of Akhnaton, as it had fallen from the
bier. The name of Akhnaton upon the coffin had been erased, but
was still readable; and the gold ribbons from which his name had
been cut out still encircled the body, back and front. The golden
vulture lay as has been described above, and the necklace still
rested on the breast, while the whole decaying body was found to be
wrapped in sheets of gold. In a recess above this coffin stood the
canopic jars, and in another part of the tomb Queen Tiy’s toilet
utensils were found, from one of which the name of Amonhotep III.
had been erased.
The bones, when examined by Dr Elliot Smith, F.R.S., were found
to be those of a young man of not more than about twenty-eight
years of age,--that is to say, the age at which Akhnaton has been
shown in the above pages to have died. The skull was pronounced
to be that of a man who suffered from epileptic fits, and who
was probably subject to hallucinations. Curiously enough, the
idiosyncrasies of this misshapen skull are precisely those which
Lombroso has stated to be so usual in a religious reformer. The
face had crumbled away, but the lower jaw was intact; and when this
was placed in position one could see at once the great resemblance
to the well-known portraits of Akhnaton which had survived the
wreck of his city.
There could thus be no doubt that the mummy of this wonderful
Pharaoh had at last been found; but since Akhnaton had always been
thought, though without particular reason, to have been a much
older man, the identity was questioned. It was suggested that the
body was perhaps that of Smenkhkara, the successor of Akhnaton,
which by some error had managed to be placed in Akhnaton’s coffin.
But how, then, did the gold ribbons inscribed with Akhnaton’s
name manage to be placed around the body? And apart from the
extreme improbability that the mummy which was thus labelled with
Akhnaton’s name, and which lay in his coffin, should be that of any
other king but Akhnaton, one may ask in this case how it is that
the body has the well-known physical characteristics of the great
heretic if it be that of Smenkhkara, who was not related to the
king?
It has been stated that the presence of the vulture upon the body
is against the identification with Akhnaton. This has already been
shown to be capable of explanation; but it may here be noted that
if Smenkhkara would not have placed the vulture upon Akhnaton’s
body, then by the same token the mummy is not likely to be that of
Smenkhkara, and there is certainly no other prince of this period
with whom to identify the body. In conclusion, it may be added
that of all the royal mummies now known there is not one which
can be so clearly shown to belong to the Pharaoh with whom it has
been identified as this mummy can be shown to belong to Akhnaton.
The body was lying in a coffin inscribed with Akhnaton’s name; it
was bound round with ribbons inscribed with his name; it had the
physical characteristics of the portraits of Akhnaton; it had the
idiosyncrasies of a religious reformer such as he was; it was that
of a man of Akhnaton’s age as deduced from the monuments; it lay
in the tomb of Akhnaton’s mother; those who had erased the names
must have thought it to be Akhnaton’s body, unless one supposes an
utter chaos of cross-purposes in their actions; and finally, there
is nobody else who, with any degree of probability, it could be.
Thus one may say that, without the vaguest shadow of a doubt, the
body of this the most remarkable figure of early Oriental history
has been brought to light; and with this assurance we may close
this sketch of his life, which has been written partly for the
purpose of thus explaining the significance of Mr Davis’s great
discovery, and partly to introduce the general reader to one of
the most interesting characters ever known. In this brief outline
it has only been possible to touch upon the main characteristics
which the few remaining inscriptions and monuments seem to reveal;
but to the most casual reader it will be apparent that there
stands before him a personality of surprising vigour and amazing
originality, and one deserving of careful study. In an age of
superstition, and in a land where the grossest polytheism reigned
absolutely supreme, Akhnaton evolved a monotheistic religion
second only to Christianity itself in purity of tone. He was the
first human being to understand rightly the meaning of divinity.
When the world reverberated with the noise of war, he preached
the first known doctrine of peace; when the glory of martial pomp
swelled the hearts of his subjects, he deliberately turned his back
upon heroics. He was the first man to preach simplicity, honesty,
frankness, and sincerity; and he preached it from a throne. He was
the first Pharaoh to be a humanitarian; the first man in whose
heart there was no trace of barbarism. He has given us an example
three thousand years ago which might be followed at the present
day: an example of what a husband and a father should be, of what
an honest man should do, of what a poet should feel, of what a
preacher should teach, of what an artist should strive for, of what
a scientist should believe, of what a philosopher should think.
Like other great teachers he sacrificed all to his principles, and
thus his life plainly shows--alas!--the impracticability of his
doctrines; yet there can be no question that his ideals will hold
good “till the swan turns black and the crow turns white, till the
hills rise up to travel, and the deeps rush into the rivers.”
[Illustration: MAP OF AKHETATON, THE CITY OF THE HORIZON OF ATON.
(TEL EL AMARNA)
SURVEY DEP. CAIRO 1909 (151) _FROM THE CAIRO SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL._
NOTE: Of the Boundary Stelae only those lettered A, B, F, J, K, M,
N, P, Q, R, S, U, V and X, still remain. The position of these is
shown upon the Map.]
INDEX.
Aahmes I., 7
Abdkhiba, governor of Jerusalem, appeal of, to Akhnaton for help,
236
Adonis, connection of, with Aton, 15, 37, 49, 136 _et seq._
Akhnaton, personality of, 2
--ancestors of, 7 _et seq._
--birth of, 42 _et seq._
--change of name from Amonhotep to, 45 note, 91 _et seq._
--marriage of, 53
--accession of, 58 _et seq._
--first years of the reign of, 62 _et seq._
--new city founded by, 88 _et seq._
--site of the city selected by, 92 _et seq._
--foundation ceremonies performed by, 94 _et seq._
--departure of, from Thebes, 105 _et seq._
--age of, 110 _et seq._
--religion of Aton formulated by, 115 _et seq._
--tenth to twelfth years of the reign of, 149 _et seq._
--similarity of the hymn of, to Psalm civ., 155 _et seq._
--representations of, in his palace, 167 _et seq._
--historical events of tenth to twelfth years of the reign of,
169 _et seq._
--thirteenth to fifteenth years of the reign of, 189 _et seq._
--name of Amon obliterated by, 193 _et seq._
--affection of, for his family, 208 _et seq._
--friends of, 213 _et seq._
--troubles of, 217 _et seq._
--last two years of the reign of, 223 _et seq._
--conscientious objections of, to warfare, 226 _et seq._
--health of, gives way, 246 _et seq._
--last days and death of, 252
--fall of the religion of, 258 _et seq._
--burial of, 258
--body of, brought to Thebes, 266
--persecution of the memory of, 272 _et seq._
--finding of the body of, 276 _et seq._
--ideals of, 283
Amon or Amon-Ra, worship of, 12
--priesthood of, 20, 45 _et seq._, 77
--break with the priesthood of, 88 _et seq._
--Akhnaton obliterates the name of, 193 _et seq._
--restoration of the worship of, 272 _et seq._
Amonhotep I., 7
Amonhotep II., 10
Amonhotep III., “the Magnificent,” 11, 13, 28, 33 _et seq._, 49, 54
--death of, 57, 111
--second name of, 186, 187, 195
Amonhotep IV.: see Akhnaton
Amonhotep-son-of-Hapu, the “wise man,” 33
Animal worship, 18 _et 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, 68 _et seq._, 101
Aswan, commemoration tablet at, 107
--statue of Amonhotep III. at, _ib._
Aton, the name, 37, 92 and note
--rise of, 45 _et seq._
--development of the religion of, 76 _et seq._
--nature of the religion of, 84 _et seq._
--founding of new city for the worship of, 88 _et seq._
--religion of, formulated, 115 _et seq._
--connections of the worship of, with older religions,
135 _et seq._
--hymns of the worshippers of, 149 _et seq._
--Meryra made high priest of, 158 _et seq._
--development of the religion of, 189 _et seq._
--great temple of, 198 _et seq._
--City of the Horizon of, 202 _et seq._
--downfall of the religion of, 264 _et 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,
230 _et 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, 143 _et seq._
“City of the Brightness of Aton,” new name of, given to Thebes, 65
City of the Horizon of Aton, founding of, 90 _et seq._
--Akhnaton’s residence at, 107
--gardens of, 127
--inscriptions on the sepulchres at, 149 _et seq._
--Queen Tiy’s visit to, 176 _et seq._
--Queen Tiy’s residence and death at, 184 _et seq._
--shrines and temples in, 196 _et seq._
--beauty of, 202 _et seq._
--Akhnaton’s tomb near, 207 _et 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, 18 _et seq._
Domestic life of Akhnaton, reliefs and paintings on tombs showing
the, 167 _et 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, 11 _et seq._
--Akhnaton orders the erasure of the names of, in inscriptions, 249
Goodness of Aton, the, 127 _et 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, 223 _et 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 and note, 84, 86, 265 note
--presence of, with the troops in Asia, 265
--accession of, to the throne, 268
--marriage of, 269
--reign of, 270 _et seq._
Horus, the hawk god, worship of, 15, 16
Huya, scenes sculptured on the tomb of, 170 _et seq._, 177, 207
Isis, worship of, 15
Karnak, temple to Horakhti Aton at, 63 _et 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, 215 _et 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, 158 _et seq._
--scenes sculptured on the tomb of, 159 _et seq._, 203
Merytaton, first daughter of Akhnaton, birth of, 83
--marriage of, 112, 211, 254
Min or Min-Ra, worship of, 12, 27
Mnevis, the sacred bull, worship of, 135
Mut, the consort of Amon, worship of, 13, 187, 260
Mutemua, wife of Thothmes IV., 23 _et 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