With the recognition of the nature and value of the Amarna texts,
attention naturally turned to the place where they were discovered. In
1891 W. Flinders Petrie, who had already spent a decade in Egypt, began
excavating the Amarna ruins. He cleared many of the official buildings
in the center of the city, and several houses farther south. Near the
village of El Till he discovered the painted pavements of Akhenaton's
palace, and remains of the ornamental decorations of the palace itself.
To the east of the palace was the chamber in which the Foreign Office
records were kept. This was where the first Amarna Tablets were
discovered in 1887, and here Petrie uncovered twenty-two additional
fragments which comprise the collection now in the Ashmolean Museum.
From 1907 until the outbreak of World War I, a German expedition under
the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft began the systematic excavation of the
Amarna ruins. After several trial digs they undertook the excavation of
the southern end of the site (1911), progressing northward along the
ancient thoroughfare known as High Priest Street. The most impressive
discovery of these years was the studio which belonged to the sculptor
Thutmose, which contained some of the finest specimens of ancient
Egyptian art. The famed painted limestone bust of Nofretete was the work
of Thutmose. The studio also contained excellent heads of Akhenaton, and
of the young princesses who graced the royal household.
The sculptures and rock tombs, first described by Wilkinson and Lepsius,
were subjected to vandalism by peasants who found that they could make
money by chipping off sections of the inscriptions and selling them as
antiquities. Fortunately this was halted by action of the Egyptian
government, and a definitive study of the tombs was made by the Mission
Archeologique Francaise and the Egypt Exploration Fund. The results were
published in a definitive six volume work, _The Rock Tombs of El Amarna_
by N. deGaris Davies from 1903 to 1908.
Since World War I, archeological work at Amarna has been the
responsibility of the Egypt Exploration Society. T. Eric Peet and
Leonard Woolley conducted a series of campaigns beginning in 1921 during
which they continued the work of the Germans at the southern section of
the town. They excavated the pleasure palace known as Meru Aton and much
of the walled village inhabited by the ancient workmen who labored in
the rock tombs east of the city. Tomb chapels were excavated north of
the workmen's village, and a sanctuary known as the River Temple was
discovered in the village of El Hag Qandil.
During the 1923-24 campaign, F. G. Newton and F. Llewellyn Griffith
continued work in the southern sector and began excavation of the North
Palace, north of El Till. The following season, following Newton's
death, Thomas Whittemore completed work at the North Palace and adjacent
structures. From 1926 to 1929 the work was directed by Henri Frankfort
who continued excavating in the north and gave particular attention to
work in the neighborhood of the Great Temple. John D. S. Pendlebury, who
took over direction of the work in 1930, completed excavations in the
north. In a series of campaigns between 1931 and 1937, Pendlebury
directed work on the official quarters of the central city, including
the palace and the Great Temple.
Archaeological work was concluded at Amarna in 1937. The site had great
advantages, for it was the one city of Egypt which was never rebuilt.
Most of our knowledge of ancient Egypt comes from discoveries in desert
tombs, for ancient cities were usually replaced by modern cities on the
same site. Akhetaton, however, was the sacred city of a Pharaoh whom
later generations despised as a criminal; and after his death its
significance was at an end. Just because it was not rebuilt centuries
ago, today it yields an impressive picture of the times of Akhenaton.
[Illustration: Akhetaton, the city of Akhenaton.]
II
THE RESTLESS PHARAOH
Although Pharaohs of the third millenium B.C. exploited Sinai copper
mines, and Middle Kingdom rulers sent trading expeditions to Punt on the
African coast, opposite Aden, Egypt alone was considered to be a
civilized land and foreigners could be dismissed as uncouth barbarians.
Egypt lived in splendid isolation, annoyed at times by Semites who had
infiltrated the fertile Nile Valley since prehistoric times, but never
seriously involved in life beyond her borders. Her land appeared to be
particularly favored of the gods, and the Egyptian could not think of it
otherwise.
Yet the blessings of life along the Nile did not insure to Egypt a
government that could meet challenges from without and guarantee peace
and prosperity within the Nile Valley and Delta. By about 1700 B.C.,
Egypt experienced the weakening of central authority which permitted the
invading Hyksos ("rulers of foreign lands") to seize control of the
country and establish their own dynasty. The prosperous Middle Kingdom
was at an end, and the hard hand of alien rule was evident throughout
the land. It was not until 1570 B.C. that Ahmose, founder of the
Eighteenth Dynasty, succeeded in driving the Hyksos back into Asia and
establishing native control over Egypt.