Book: The Treasury of Ancient Egypt

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Amenhotep III. died in about the forty-ninth year of his age, after a
total reign of thirty-six years; and Akhnaton, who still bore the name
of Amenhotep, ascended the throne. One must picture him now as an
enthusiastic boy, filled with the new thought of the age, and burning to
assert the broad doctrines which he had learned from his mother and her
friends, in defiance of the priests of Amon-Ra. He was already married
to a Syrian named Nefertiti, and certainly before he was fifteen years
of age he was the father of two daughters.

The new Pharaoh's first move, under the guidance of Tiy, was to proclaim
Aton the only true god, and to name himself high priest of that deity.
He then began to build a temple dedicated to Aton at Karnak; but it must
have been distasteful to observe how overshadowed and dwarfed was this
new temple by the mighty buildings in honour of the older gods which
stood there. Moreover, there must have been very serious opposition to
the new religion in Thebes, where Amon had ruled for so many centuries
unchallenged. In whatever direction he looked he was confronted with
some evidence of the worship of Amon-Ra: he might proclaim Aton to be
the only god, but Amon and a hundred other deities stared down at him
from every temple wall. He and his advisers, therefore, decided to
abandon Thebes altogether and to found a new capital elsewhere.

Akhnaton selected a site for the new city on the west bank of the river,
at a point now named El Amarna, about 160 miles above Cairo. Here the
hills recede from the river, forming a bay about three miles deep and
five long; and in this bay the young Pharaoh decided to build his
capital, which was named "Horizon of Aton." With feverish speed the new
buildings were erected. A palace even more beautiful than that of his
parents at Thebes was prepared for him; a splendid temple dedicated to
Aton was set up amidst a garden of rare trees and brilliant flowers;
villas for his nobles were erected, and streets were laid out. Queen
Tiy, who seems to have continued to live at Thebes, often came down to
El Amarna to visit her son; but it seems to have been at his own wish
rather than at her advice that he now took the important step which set
the seal of his religion upon his life.

Around the bay of El Amarna, on the cliffs which shut it off so
securely, the King caused landmarks to be made at intervals, and on
these he inscribed an oath which some have interpreted to mean that he
would never again leave his new city. He would remain, like the Pope in
the Vatican, for the rest of his days within the limits of this bay;
and, rather than be distracted by the cares of state and the worries of
empire, he would shut himself up with his god and would devote his life
to his religion. He was but a youth still, and, to his inexperienced
mind, this oath seemed nothing; nor in his brief life does it seem that
he broke it, though at times he must have longed to visit his domains.

The religion which this boy, who now called himself Akhnaton, "The Glory
of Aton," taught was by no means the simple worship of the sun. It was,
without question, the most enlightened religion which the world at that
time had ever known. The young priest-king called upon mankind to
worship the unknown power which is behind the sun, that power of which
the brilliant sun was the visible symbol, and which might be discerned
in the fertilising warmth of the sun's rays. Aton was originally the
actual sun's disk; but Akhnaton called his god "Heat which is in Aton,"
and thus drew the eyes of his followers towards a Force far more
intangible and distant than the dazzling orb to which they bowed down.
Akhnaton's god was the force which created the sun, the something which
penetrated to this earth in the sun's heat and caused the vegetation to
grow.

Amon-Ra and the gods of Egypt were for the most part but deified
mortals, endued with monstrous, though limited, power, and still having
around them traditions of exaggerated human deeds. Others had their
origin in natural phenomena--the wind, the Nile, the sky, and so on. All
were terrific, revengeful, and able to be moved by human emotions. But
Akhnaton's god was the intangible and yet ever-present Father of
mankind, made manifest in sunshine. The youthful High Priest called upon
his followers to search for their god not in the confusion of battle or
behind the smoke of human sacrifices, but amidst the flowers and trees,
amidst the wild duck and the fishes. He preached an enlightened
nature-study; he was perhaps the first apostle of the Simple Life. He
strove to break down conventional religion, and ceaselessly urged his
people to worship in Truth, simply, without an excess of ceremonial.
While the elder gods had been manifest in natural convulsions and in the
more awful incidents of life, Akhnaton's kindly god could be seen in the
chick which broke out of its egg, in the wind which filled the sails of
the ships, in the fish which leapt from the water. Aton was the joy
which caused the young sheep "to dance upon their feet," and the birds
to "flutter in their marshes." He was the god of the simple pleasures of
life, and Truth was the watchword of his followers.

It may be understood how the boy longed for truth in all things when one
remembers the thousand exaggerated conventions of Egyptian life at this
time. Court etiquette had developed to a degree which rendered life to
the Pharaoh an endless round of unnatural poses of mind and body. In the
preaching of his doctrine of truth and simplicity, Akhnaton did not fail
to call upon his subjects to regard their Pharaoh not as a god but as a
man. It was usual for the Pharaoh to keep aloof from his people:
Akhnaton was to be found in their midst. The Court demanded that their
lord should drive in solitary state through the city: Akhnaton sat in
his chariot with his wife and children, and allowed the artist to
represent him joking with his little daughter, who has mischievously
poked the horses with a stick. In representing the Pharaoh, the artist
was expected to draw him in some conventional attitude of dignity:
Akhnaton insisted upon being shown in all manner of natural
attitudes--now leaning languidly upon a staff, now nursing his children,
now caressing his wife.

As has been said, one of the first artists to break away from the
ancient conventions was in the service of Queen Tiy, and was probably
under her influence. But in the radical change in the art which took
place, Akhnaton is definitely stated to have been the leader, and the
new school acknowledge that they were taught by the King. The new art is
extraordinary, and it must be owned that its merit lies rather in its
originality than in its beauty. An attempt is made to do away with the
prescribed attitudes and the strict proportions, and to portray any one
individual with his natural defects. Some of the sculptured heads,
however, which have come down to us, and notably the four "canopic"
heads found in this tomb, are of wonderful beauty, and have no trace of
traditional mannerisms, though they are highly idealised. The King's
desire for light-heartedness led him to encourage the use of bright
colours and gay decorations in the palace. Some of the ceiling and
pavement paintings are of great beauty, while the walls and pillars
inlaid with coloured stones must have given a brilliancy to the halls
unequalled in Egypt at any previous time.

The group of nobles who formed the King's Court had all sacrificed much
in coming to the new capital. Their estates around Thebes had been left,
their houses abandoned, and the tombs which were in process of being
made for them in the Theban hills had been rendered useless. The King,
therefore, showered favours upon them, and at his expense built their
houses and constructed sepulchres for them. It is on the walls of these
tombs that one obtains the main portion of one's information regarding
the teachings of this wonderful youth, who was now growing into
manhood. Here are inscribed those beautiful hymns to Aton which rank so
high in ancient literature. It is unfortunate that space does not allow
more than a few extracts from the hymns to be quoted here; but something
of their beauty may be realised from these. (Professor Breasted's
translation.)

"Thy dawning is beautiful in the horizon of heaven,
O living Aton, Beginning of life!
When thou risest in the eastern horizon of heaven
Thou fillest every land with thy beauty."

"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 wrapt up.
Every lion cometh forth from his den.
The 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 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 their herbage, all trees and plants flourish.
The birds flutter in their marshes, their wings uplifted in
adoration to thee.
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,...
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 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."

"When the chick crieth in the egg-shell,
Thou givest him breath therein to preserve him alive ...
He cometh forth from the egg, to chirp with all his might.
He runneth about upon his two feet."

"How manifold are all thy works!
They are hidden from before us."

There are several verses of this hymn which are almost identical with
Psalm civ., and those who study it closely will be forced to one of two
conclusions: either that Psalm civ. is derived from this hymn of the
young Pharaoh, or that both are derived from some early Syrian hymn to
the sun. Akhnaton may have only adapted this early psalm to local
conditions; though, on the other hand, a man capable of bringing to pass
so great a religious revolution in Egypt may well be credited with the
authorship of this splendid song. There is no evidence to show that it
was written before the King had reached manhood.

Queen Tiy probably did not now take any further part in a movement which
had got so far out of her hands. She was now nearly sixty years old, and
this, to one who had been a mother so early in life, was a considerable
age. It seems that she sometimes paid visits to her son at El Amarna,
but her interest lay in Thebes, where she had once held so brilliant a
Court. When at last she died, therefore, it is not surprising to find
that she was buried in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings. The tomb
which has been described above is most probably her original sepulchre,
and here her body was placed in the golden shrine made for her by
Akhnaton, surrounded by the usual funeral furniture. She thus lay no
more than a stone's throw from her parents, whose tomb was discovered
two years ago, and which was of very similar size and shape.

After her death, although preaching this gentle creed of love and simple
truth, Akhnaton waged a bitter and stern war against the priesthoods of
the old gods. It may be that the priesthoods of Amon had again attempted
to overthrow the new doctrines, or had in some manner called down the
particular wrath of the Pharaoh. He issued an order that the name of
Amon was to be erased and obliterated wherever it was found, and his
agents proceeded to hack it out on all the temple walls. The names also
of other gods were erased; and it is noticeable in this tomb that the
word _mut_, meaning "mother," was carefully spelt in hieroglyphs which
would have no similarity to those used in the word _Mut_, the
goddess-consort of Amon. The name of Amenhotep III., his own father, did
not escape the King's wrath, and the first syllables were everywhere
erased.

As the years went by Akhnaton seems to have given himself more and more
completely to his new religion. He had now so trained one of his nobles,
named Merira, in the teachings of Aton that he was able to hand over to
him the high priesthood of that god, and to turn his attention to the
many other duties which he had imposed upon himself. In rewarding
Merira, the King is related to have said, "Hang gold at his neck before
and behind, and gold on his legs, because of his hearing the teaching of
Pharaoh concerning every saying in these beautiful places." Another
official whom Akhnaton greatly advanced says: "My lord advanced me
because I have carried out his teaching, and I hear his word without
ceasing." The King's doctrines were thus beginning to take hold; but one
feels, nevertheless, that the nobles followed their King rather for the
sake of their material gains than for the spiritual comforts of the
Aton-worship. There is reason to suppose that at least one of these
nobles was degraded and banished from the city.

But while Akhnaton was preaching peace and goodwill amidst the flowers
of the temple of Aton, his generals in Asia Minor were vainly struggling
to hold together the great empire created by Thutmosis III. Akhnaton had
caused a temple of Aton to be erected at one point in Syria at least,
but in other respects he took little or no interest in the welfare of
his foreign dominions. War was not tolerated in his doctrine: it was a
sin to take away life which the good Father had given. One pictures the
hardened soldiers of the empire striving desperately to hold the nations
of Asia faithful to the Pharaoh whom they never saw. The small garrisons
were scattered far and wide over Syria, and constantly they sent
messengers to the Pharaoh asking at least for some sign that he held
them in mind.

There is no more pathetic page of ancient history than that which tells
of the fall of the Egyptian Empire. The Amorites, advancing along the
sea-coast, took city after city from the Egyptians almost without a
struggle. The chiefs of Tunip wrote an appeal for help to the King: "To
the King of Egypt, my lord,--The inhabitants of Tunip, thy servant." The
plight of the city is described and reinforcements are asked for, "And
now," it continues, "Tunip thy city weeps, and her tears are flowing,
and there is no help for us. For twenty years we have been sending to
our lord the King, the King of Egypt, but there has not come a word to
us, no, not one." The messengers of the beleaguered city must have found
the King absorbed in his religion, and must have seen only priests of
the sun where they had hoped to find the soldiers of former days. The
Egyptian governor of Jerusalem, attacked by Aramaeans, writes to the
Pharaoh, saying: "Let the King take care of his land, and ... let send
troops.... For if no troops come in this year, the whole territory of my
lord the King will perish." To this letter is added a note to the
King's secretary, which reads, "Bring these words plainly before my
lord the King: the whole land of my lord the King is going to ruin."

So city after city fell, and the empire, won at such cost, was gradually
lost to the Egyptians. It is probable that Akhnaton had not realised how
serious was the situation in Asia Minor. A few of the chieftains who
were not actually in arms against him had written to him every now and
then assuring him that all was well in his dominions; and, strange to
relate, the tribute of many of the cities had been regularly paid. The
Asiatic princes, in fact, had completely fooled the Pharaoh, and had led
him to believe that the nations were loyal while they themselves
prepared for rebellion. Akhnaton, hating violence, had been only too
ready to believe that the despatches from Tunip and elsewhere were
unjustifiably pessimistic. He had hoped to bind together the many
countries under his rule, by giving them a single religion. He had hoped
that when Aton should be worshipped in all parts of his empire, and when
his simple doctrines of love, truth, and peace should be preached from
every temple throughout the length and breadth of his dominions, then
war would cease and a unity of faith would hold the lands in harmony one
with the other.

When, therefore, the tribute suddenly ceased, and the few refugees came
staggering home to tell of the perfidy of the Asiatic princes and the
fall of the empire, Akhnaton seems to have received his deathblow. He
was now not more than twenty-eight years of age; and though his
portraits show that his face was already lined with care, and that his
body was thinner than it should have been, he seems to have had plenty
of reserve strength. He was the father of several daughters, but his
queen had borne him no son to succeed him; and thus he must have felt
that his religion could not outlive him. With his empire lost, with
Thebes his enemy, and with his treasury wellnigh empty, one feels that
Akhnaton must have sunk to the very depths of despondency. His religious
revolution had ruined Egypt, and had failed: did he, one wonders, find
consolation in the sunshine and amidst the flowers?

His death followed speedily; and, resting in the splendid coffin in
which we found him, he was laid in the tomb prepared for him in the
hills behind his new capital. The throne fell to the husband of one of
his daughters, Smenkhkara, who, after an ephemeral reign, gave place to
another of the sons-in-law of Akhnaton, Tutankhaton. This king was
speedily persuaded to change his name to Tutankhamon, to abandon the
worship of Aton, and to return to Thebes. Akhnaton's city fell into
ruins, and soon the temples and palaces became the haunt of jackals and
the home of owls. The nobles returned with their new king to Thebes, and
not one remained faithful to those "teachings" to which they had once
pretended to be such earnest listeners.


[Illustration: PL. XX. The coffin of Akhnaton lying in the tomb of
Queen Tiy.]

[_Photo by R. Paul._


The fact that the body in the new tomb was that of Akhnaton, and not of
Queen Tiy, gives a new reading to the history of the burial. When
Tutankhamon returned to Thebes, Akhnaton's memory was still, it appears,
regarded with reverence, and it seems that there was no question of
leaving his body in the neighbourhood of his deserted palace, where,
until the discovery of this tomb, Egyptologists had expected to find it.
It was carried to Thebes, together with some of the funeral furniture,
and was placed in the tomb of Queen Tiy, which had been reopened for the
purpose. But after some years had passed and the priesthood of Amon-Ra
had again asserted itself, Akhnaton began to be regarded as a heretic
and as the cause of the loss of Egypt's Asiatic dominions. These
sentiments were vigorously encouraged by the priesthood, and soon
Akhnaton came to be spoken of as "that criminal," and his name was
obliterated from his monuments. It was now felt that his 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. The tomb,
polluted by the presence of the heretic, was no longer fit for Tiy, and
the body of the Queen was therefore carried elsewhere, perhaps to the
tomb of her husband Amenhotep III. The shrine in which her mummy had
lain was pulled to pieces and an attempt was made to carry it out of the
tomb; but this arduous task was presently abandoned, and one portion of
the shrine was left in the passage, where we found it. The body of
Akhnaton, his name erased, was now the sole occupant of the tomb. The
entrance was blocked with stones, and sealed with the seal of
Tutankhamon, a fragment of which was found; and it was in this condition
that it was discovered in 1907.

The bones of this extraordinary Pharaoh are in the Cairo Museum; but, in
deference to the sentiments of many worthy persons, they are not
exhibited. The visitor to that museum, however, may now see the
"canopic" jars, the alabaster vases, the gold vulture, the gold
necklace, the sheets of gold in which the body was wrapped, the toilet
utensils, and parts of the shrine, all of which we found in the
burial-chamber.




CHAPTER IX.

THE TOMB OF HOREMHEB.


In the last chapter a discovery was recorded which, as experience has
shown, is of considerable interest to the general reader. The romance
and the tragedy of the life of Akhnaton form a really valuable addition
to the store of good things which is our possession, and which the
archaeologist so diligently labours to increase. Curiously enough,
another discovery, that of the tomb of Horemheb, was made by the same
explorer (Mr Davis) in 1908; and as it forms the natural sequel to the
previous chapter, I may be permitted to record it here.

Akhnaton was succeeded by Smenkhkara, his son-in-law, who, after a brief
reign, gave place to Tutankhamon, during whose short life the court
returned to Thebes. A certain noble named Ay came next to the throne,
but held it for only three years. The country was now in a chaotic
condition, and was utterly upset and disorganised by the revolution of
Akhnaton, and by the vacillating policy of the three weak kings who
succeeded him, each reigning for so short a time. One cannot say to
what depths of degradation Egypt might have sunk had it not been for the
timely appearance of Horemheb, a wise and good ruler, who, though but a
soldier of not particularly exalted birth, managed to raise himself to
the vacant throne, and succeeded in so organising the country once more
that his successors, Rameses I., Sety I., and Rameses II., were able to
regain most of the lost dominions, and to place Egypt at the head of the
nations of the world.

Horemheb, "The Hawk in Festival," was born at Alabastronpolis, a city of
the 18th Province of Upper Egypt, during the reign of Amenhotep III.,
who has rightly been named "The Magnificent," and in whose reign Egypt
was at once the most powerful, the most wealthy, and the most luxurious
country in the world. There is reason to suppose that Horemheb's family
were of noble birth, and it is thought by some that an inscription which
calls King Thutmosis III. "the father of his fathers" is to be taken
literally to mean that that old warrior was his great-or
great-great-grandfather. The young noble was probably educated at the
splendid court of Amenhotep III., where the wit and intellect of the
world was congregated, and where, under the presidency of the beautiful
Queen Tiy, life slipped by in a round of revels.

As an impressionable young man, Horemheb must have watched the gradual
development of freethought in the palace, and the ever-increasing
irritation and chafing against the bonds of religious convention which
bound all Thebans to the worship of the god Amon. Judging by his future
actions, Horemheb did not himself feel any real repulsion to Amon,
though the religious rut into which the country had fallen was
sufficiently objectionable to a man of his intellect to cause him to
cast in his lot with the movement towards emancipation. In later life he
would certainly have been against the movement, for his mature judgment
led him always to be on the side of ordered habit and custom as being
less dangerous to the national welfare than a social upheaval or change.

Horemheb seems now to have held the appointment of captain or commander
in the army, and at the same time, as a "Royal Scribe," he cultivated
the art of letters, and perhaps made himself acquainted with those legal
matters which in later years he was destined to reform.

When Amenhotep III. died, the new king, Akhnaton, carried out the
revolution which had been pending for many years, and absolutely banned
the worship of Amon, with all that it involved. He built himself a new
capital at El Amarna, and there he instituted the worship of the sun, or
rather of the heat or power of the sun, under the name of Aton. In so
far as the revolution constituted a breaking away from tiresome
convention, the young Horemheb seems to have been with the King. No one
of intelligence could deny that the new religion and new philosophy
which was preached at El Amarna was more worthy of consideration on
general lines than was the narrow doctrine of the Amon priesthood; and
all thinkers must have rejoiced at the freedom from bonds which had
become intolerable. But the world was not ready, and indeed is still not
ready, for the schemes which Akhnaton propounded; and the unpractical
model-kingdom which was uncertainly developing under the hills of El
Amarna must have already been seen to contain the elements of grave
danger to the State.

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