Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Beato.

Triumphal processions passing along this route from Luxor to Karnak would at length reach the great court before the temple of Amon, or, by turning a little to the right after passing the temple of Maut, would arrive in front of the southern facade, near the two gilded obelisks whose splendour once rejoiced the heart of the famous Hatshopsitu. Thutmosis III. was also determined on his part to spare no expense to make the temple of his god of proportions suitable to the patron of so vast an empire. Not only did he complete those portions which his predecessors had merely sketched out, but on the south side towards Ashiru he also built a long row of pylons, now half ruined, on which he engraved, according to custom, the list of nations and cities which he had subdued in Asia and Africa. To the east of the temple he rebuilt some ancient structures, the largest of which served as a halting-place for processions, and he enclosed the whole with a stone rampart. The outline of the sacred lake, on which the mystic boats were launched on the nights of festivals, was also made more symmetrical, and its margin edged with masonry.



Drawn by Boucher, from a photograph by Boato: the building near the centre of the picture is the covered walk constructed by Thutmosis III.

By these alterations the harmonious proportion between the main buildings and the facade had been destroyed, and the exterior wall was now too wide for the pylon at the entrance. Amenothes III. remedied this defect by erecting in front a fourth pylon, which was loftier, larger, and in all respects more worthy to stand before the enlarged temple. Its walls were partially covered with battle-scenes, which informed all beholders of the glory of the conqueror.*

* Portions of the military bas-reliefs which covered the exterior face of the pylon are still to be seen through the gaps in the wall at the end of the great Hall of Pillars built by Seti I. and Ramses II.

Progress had been no less marked on the left bank of the river. As long as Thebes had been merely a small provincial town, its cemeteries had covered but a moderate area, including the sandy plain and low mounds opposite Karnak and the valley of Deir el-Bahari beyond; but now that the city had more than doubled its extent, the space required for the dead was proportionately greater. The tombs of private persons began to spread towards the south, and soon reached the slopes of the Assassif, the hill of Sheikh-Abd-el-Qurnah and the district of Qurnet-Murrai—in fact, all that part which the people of the country called the "Brow" of Thebes. On the borders of the cultivated land a row of chapels and mastabas with pyramidal roofs sheltered the remains of the princes and princesses of the royal family. The Pharaohs themselves were buried either separately under their respective brick pyramids or in groups in a temple, as was the case with the first three Thutmosis and Hatshopsitu at Deir el-Bahari. Amenothes II. and Thutmosis IV. could doubtless have found room in this crowded necropolis,* although the space was becoming limited, but the pride of the Pharaohs began to rebel against this promiscuous burial side by side with their subjects. Amenothes III. sought for a site, therefore, where he would have ample room to display his magnificence, far from the vulgar crowd, and found what he desired at the farther end of the valley which opens out behind the village of Qurnah. Here, an hour's journey from the bank of the Nile, he cut for himself a magnificent rock-tomb with galleries, halls, and deep pits, the walls being decorated with representations of the Voyage of the Sun through the regions which he traverses during the twelve hours of his nocturnal course.

* The generally received opinion is that these sovereigns of the XVIIIth dynasty were buried in the Biban el-Moluk, but I have made several examinations of this valley, and cannot think that this was the case. On the contrary, the scattered notices in the fragments of papyrus preserved at Turin seem to me to indicate that Amenothes II. and Thutmosis IV. must have been buried in the neighbourhood of the Assassif or of Deir el-Bahari.

A sarcophagus of red granite received his mummy, and Ushabti's of extraordinary dimensions and admirable workmanship mounted guard around him, so as to release him from the corvee in the fields of Ialu. The chapel usually attached to such tombs is not to be found in the neighbourhood. As the road to the funeral valley was a difficult one, and as it would be unreasonable to condemn an entire priesthood to live in solitude, the king decided to separate the component parts which had hitherto been united in every tomb since the Memphite period, and to place the vault for the mummy and the passages leading to it some distance away in the mountains, while the necessary buildings for the cultus of the statue and the accommodation of the priests were transferred to the plain, and were built at the southern extremity of the lands which were at that time held by private persons. The divine character of Amenothes, ascribed to him on account of his solar origin and the co-operation of Amon-Ra at his birth, was, owing to this separation of the funerary constituents, brought into further prominence. When once the body which he had animated while on earth was removed and hidden from sight, the people soon became accustomed to think only of his Double enthroned in the recesses of the sanctuary: seeing him receive there the same honours as the gods themselves, they came naturally to regard him as a deity himself.



Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Beato. The "Vocal Statue of Memon" is that on the right-hand side of the illustration.

The arrangement of his temple differed in no way from those in which Amon, Maut, and Montu were worshipped, while it surpassed in size and splendour most of the sanctuaries dedicated to the patron gods of the chief towns of the nomes. It contained, moreover, colossal statues, objects which are never found associated with the heavenly gods. Several of these figures have been broken to pieces, and only a few scattered fragments of them remain, but two of them still maintain their positions on each side of the entrance, with their faces towards the east. They are each formed of a single block of red breccia from Syene,* and are fifty-three feet high, but the more northerly one was shattered in the earthquake which completed the ruin of Thebes in the year 27 B.C. The upper part toppled over with the shock, and was dashed to pieces on the floor of the court, while the lower half remained in its place. Soon after the disaster it began to be rumoured that sounds like those produced by the breaking of a harp-string proceeded from the pedestal at sunrise, whereupon travellers flocked to witness the miracle, and legend soon began to take possession of the giant who spoke in this marvellous way. In vain did the Egyptians of the neighbourhood declare that the statue represented the Pharaoh Amenothes; the Greeks refused to believe them, and forthwith recognised in the colossus an image of Memnon the Ethiopian, son of Tithonus and Aurora, slain by their own Achilles beneath the walls of Troy—maintaining that the music heard every morning was the clear and harmonious voice of the hero saluting his mother.

* It is often asserted that they are made of rose granite, but Jollois and Devilliers describe them as being of "a species of sandstone breccia, composed of a mass of agate flint, conglomerated together by a remarkably hard cement. This material, being very dense and of a heterogeneous composition, presents to the sculptor perhaps greater difficulties than even granite."

Towards the middle of the second century of our era, Hadrian undertook a journey to Upper Egypt, and heard the wonderful song; sixty years later, Septimus Severus restored the statue by the employment of courses of stones, which were so arranged as to form a rough representation of a human head and shoulders. His piety, however, was not rewarded as he expected, for Memnon became silent, and his oracle fell into oblivion. The temple no longer exists, and a few ridges alone mark the spot where it rose; but the two colossi remain at their post, in the same condition in which they were left by the Roman Caesar: the features are quite obliterated, and the legs and the supporting female figures on either side are scored all over with Greek and Latin inscriptions expressing the appreciation of ancient tourists. Although the statues tower high above the fields of corn and bersim which surround them, our first view of them, owing to the scale of proportion observed in their construction, so different from that to which we are accustomed, gives us the impression that they are smaller than they really are, and it is only when we stand close to one of them and notice the insignificant appearance of the crowd of sightseers clustered on its pedestal that we realize the immensity of the colossi.

The descendants of Ahmosis had by their energy won for Thebes not only the supremacy over the peoples of Egypt and of the known world, but had also secured for the Theban deities pre-eminence over all their rivals. The booty collected both in Syria and Ethiopia went to enrich the god Amon as much as it did the kings themselves; every victory brought him the tenth part of the spoil gathered on the field of battle, of the tribute levied on vassals, and of the prisoners taken as slaves. When Thutmosis IIL, after having reduced Megiddo, organised a systematic plundering of the surrounding country, it was for the benefit of Amon-Ea that he reaped the fields and sent their harvest into Egypt; if during his journeys he collected useful plants or rare animals, it was that he might dispose of them in the groves or gardens of Amon as well as in his own, and he never retained for his personal use the whole of what he won by arms, but always reserved some portion for the sacred treasury.



Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger.

His successors acted in a similar manner, and in the reigns of Amenothes II., Thut-mosis IV., and Amenothes III., the patrimony of the Theban priesthood continued to increase. The Pharaohs, perpetually called upon as they were to recompense one or other of their servants, were never able to retain for long their share of the spoils of war. Gold and silver, lands, jewels, and slaves passed as quickly out of their hands as they had fallen into them, and although then fortune was continually having additions made to it in every fresh campaign, yet the increase was rarely in proportion to the trouble expended. The god, on the contrary, received what he got for all time, and gave back nothing in return: fresh accumulations of precious metals were continually being added to his store, his meadows were enriched by the addition of vineyards, and with his palm forests he combined fish-ponds full of fish; he added farms and villages to those he already possessed, and each reign saw the list of his possessions increase. He had his own labourers, his own tradespeople, his own fishermen, soldiers, and scribes, and, presiding over all these, a learned hierarchy of divines, priests, and prophets, who administered everything. This immense domain, which was a kind of State within the State, was ruled over by a single high priest, chosen by the sovereign from among the prophets. He was the irresponsible head of it, and his spiritual ambition had increased step by step with the extension of his material resources. As the human Pharaoh showed himself entitled to homage from the lords of the earth, the priests came at length to the conclusion that Amon had a right to the allegiance of the lords of heaven, and that he was the Supreme Being, in respect of whom the others were of little or no account, and as he was the only god who was everywhere victorious, he came at length to be regarded by them as the only god in existence. It was impossible that the kings could see this rapid development of sacerdotal power without anxiety, and with all their devotion to the patron of their city, solicitude for their own authority compelled them to seek elsewhere for another divinity, whose influence might in some degree counterbalance that of Amon. The only one who could vie with him at Thebes, either for the antiquity of his worship or for the rank which he occupied in the public esteem, was the Sun-lord of Heliopolis, head of the first Ennead. Thutmosis IV. owed his crown to him, and 'displayed his gratitude in clearing away the sand from the Sphinx, in which the spirit of Harmakhis was considered to dwell; and Amenothes III., although claiming to be the son of Amon himself, inherited the disposition shown by Thutmosis in favour of the Heliopolitan religions, but instead of attaching himself to the forms most venerated by theologians, he bestowed his affection on a more popular deity—Atonu, the fiery disk. He may have been influenced in his choice by private reasons. Like his predecessors, he had taken, while still very young, wives from among his own family, but neither these reasonable ties, nor his numerous diplomatic alliances with foreign princesses, were enough for him. From the very beginning of his reign he had loved a maiden who was not of the blood of the Pharaohs, Tii, the daughter of Iuia and his wife Tuia.*

* For the last thirty years Queen Tii has been the subject of many hypotheses and of much confusion. The scarabasi engraved under Amenothes III. say explicitly that she was the daughter of two personages, Iuia and Tuia, but these names are not accompanied by any of the signs which are characteristic of foreign names, and were considered Egyptian by contemporaries. Hincks was the first who seems to have believed her to be a Syrian; he compares her father's name with that of Levi, and attributes the religious revolution which followed to the influence of her foreign education. This theory has continued to predominate; some prefer a Libyan origin to the Asiatic one, and latterly there has been an attempt to recognise in Tii one of the princesses of Mitanni mentioned in the correspondence of Tel el-Amarna. As long ago as 1877, I showed that Tii was an Egyptian of middle rank, probably of Heliopolitan origin.

Connexions of this kind had been frequently formed by his ancestors, but the Egyptian women of inferior rank whom they had brought into their harems had always remained in the background, and if the sons of these concubines were ever fortunate enough to come to the throne, it was in default of heirs of pure blood. Amenothes III. married Tii, gave her for her dowry the town of Zalu in Lower Egypt, and raised her to the position of queen, in spite of her low extraction. She busied herself in the affairs of State, took precedence of the princesses of the solar family, and appeared at her husband's side in public ceremonies, and was so figured on the monuments. If, as there is reason to believe, she was born near Heliopolis, it is easy to understand how her influence may have led Amenothes to pay special honour to a Heliopolitan divinity. He had built, at an early period of his reign, a sanctuary to Atonu at Memphis, and in the Xth year he constructed for him a chapel at Thebes itself,* to the south of the last pylon of ihutmosis III., and endowed this deity with property at the expense of Anion.

* This temple seems to have been raised on the site of the building which is usually attributed to Amenothes II. and Amenothes III. The blocks bearing the name of Amenothes II. had been used previously, like most of those which bear the cartouches of Amenothes III. The temple of Atonu, which was demolished by Harmhabi or one of the Ramses, was subsequently rebuilt with the remains of earlier edifices, and dedicated to Amon.



Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph of the scarabaeus preserved at Gizeh.

He had several sons;* but the one who succeeded him, and who, like him, was named Amenothes, was the most paradoxical of all the Egyptian sovereigns of ancient times.**

* One of them, Thutmosis, was high priest of Phtah, and we possess several monuments erected by him in the temple of Memphis; another, Tutonkhamon, subsequently became king. He also had several daughters by Tii—Sitamon.

** The absence of any cartouches of Amenothes IV. or his successors in the table of Abydos prevented Champollion and Rosellini from classifying these sovereigns with any precision. Nestor L'hote tried to recognise in the first of them, whom he called Bakhen-Balchnan, a king belonging to the very ancient dynasties, perhaps the Hyksos Apakhnan, but Lepsius and Hincks showed that he must be placed between Amenothes III. and Harmhabi, that he was first called Amenothes like his father, but that he afterwards took the name of Baknaten, which is now read Khunaten or Khuniaton. His singular aspect made it difficult to decide at first whether a man or a woman was represented. Mariette, while pronouncing him to be a man, thought that he had perhaps been taken prisoner in the Sudan and mutilated, which would have explained his effeminate appearance, almost like that of an eunuch. Recent attempts have been made to prove that Amenothes IV. and Khuniaton were two distinct persons, or that Khuniaton was a queen; but they have hitherto been rejected by Egyptologists.

He made up for the inferiority of his birth on account of the plebeian origin of his mother Tii,* by his marriage with Nofrititi, a princess of the pure solar race.** Tii, long accustomed to the management of affairs, exerted her influence over him even more than she had done over her husband. Without officially assuming the rank, she certainly for several years possessed the power, of regent, and gave a definite Oriental impress to her son's religious policy. No outward changes were made at first; Amenothes, although showing his preference for Heliopolis by inscribing in his protocol the title of prophet of Harmakhis, which he may, however, have borne before his accession, maintained his residence at Thebes, as his father had done before him, continued to sacrifice to the Theban divinities, and to follow the ancient paths and the conventional practices.***

* The filiation of Amenothes IV. and Tii has given rise to more than one controversy. The Egyptian texts do not define it explicitly, and the title borne by Tii has been considered by some to prove that Amenothes IV. was her son, and by others that she was the mother of Queen Nofrititi. The Tel el-Amarna correspondence solves the question, however, as it gives a letter from Dushratta to Khuniaton, in which Tii is called "thy mother."

** Nofrititi, the wife of Amenothes IV., like all the princesses of that time, has been supposed to be of Syrian origin, and to have changed her name on her arrival in Egypt. The place which she holds beside her husband is the same as that which belongs to legitimate queens, like Nofritari, Ahmosis, and Hatshopsitu, and the example of these princesses is enough to show us what was her real position; she was most probably a daughter of one of the princesses of the solar blood, perhaps of one of the sisters of Amenothes III., and Amenothes IV. married her so as to obtain through her the rights which were wanting to him through his mother Tii.

*** The tomb of Ramses, governor of Thebes and priest of Mait, shows us in one part of it the king, still faithful to his name of Amenothes, paying homage to the god Amon, lord of Karnak, while everywhere else the worship of Atonu predominates. The cartouches on the tomb of Pari, read by Bouriant Akhopiruri, and by Scheil more correctly Nofirkhopiruri, seem to me to represent a transitional form of the protocol of Amenothes IV., and not the name of a new Pharaoh; the inscription in which they are to be found bears the date of his third year.

He either built a temple to the Theban god, or enlarged the one which his father had constructed at Karnak, and even opened new quarries at Syene and Silsileh for providing granite and sandstone for the adornment of this monument. His devotion to the invincible Disk, however, soon began to assert itself, and rendered more and more irksome to him the religious observances which he had constrained himself to follow. There was nothing and no one to hinder him from giving free course to his inclinations, and the nobles and priests were too well trained in obedience to venture to censure anything he might do, even were it to result in putting the whole population into motion, from Elephantine to the sea-coast, to prepare for the intruded deity a dwelling which should eclipse in magnificence the splendour of the great temple. A few of those around him had become converted of their own accord to his favourite worship, but these formed a very small minority. Thebes had belonged to Amon so long that the king could never hope to bring it to regard Atonu as anything but a being of inferior rank. Each city belonged to some god, to whom was attributed its origin, its development, and its prosperity, and whom it could not forsake without renouncing its very existence. If Thebes became separated from Amon it would be Thebes no longer, and of this Amenothes was so well aware that he never attempted to induce it to renounce its patron. His residence among surroundings which he detested at length became so intolerable, that he resolved to leave the place and create a new capital elsewhere. The choice of a new abode would have presented no difficulty to him had he been able to make up his mind to relegate Atonu to the second rank of divinities; Memphis, Heracleopolis, Siut, Khmunu, and, in fact, all the towns of the valley would have deemed themselves fortunate in securing the inheritance of their rival, but not one of them would be false to its convictions or accept the degradation of its own divine founder, whether Phtah, Harshafitu, Anubis, or Thot. A newly promoted god demanded a new city; Amenothes, therefore, made selection of a broad plain extending on the right bank of the Nile, in the eastern part of the Hermopolitan nome, to which he removed with all his court about the fourth or fifth year of his reign.*

* The last date with the name of Amenothes is that of the year V., on a papyrus from the Payilm; elsewhere we find from the year VI. the name of Khuniaton, by the side of monuments with the cartouche of Amenothes; we may conclude from this that the foundation of the town dates from the year IV. or V. at the latest, when the prince, having renounced the worship of Amon, left Thebes that he might be able to celebrate freely that of Atonu.

He found here several obscure villages without any historical or religious traditions, and but thinly populated; Amenothes chose one of them, the Et-Tel of the present day, and built there a palace for himself and a temple for his god. The temple, like that of Ea at Heliopolis, was named Hait-Banbonu, the Mansion of the Obelisk. It covered an immense area, of which the sanctuary, however, occupied an inconsiderable part; it was flanked by brick storehouses, and the whole was surrounded by a thick wall. The remains show that the temple was built of white limestone, of fine quality, but that it was almost devoid of ornament, for there was no time to cover it with the usual decorations.*

* The opinion of Brugsch, that the arrangement of the various parts differed from that of other temples, and was the effect of foreign influence, has not been borne out by the excavations of Prof. Petrie, the little which he has brought to light being entirely of Egyptian character. The temple is represented on the tomb of the high priest Mariri.



The palace was built of brick; it was approached by a colossal gateway, and contained vast halls, interspersed with small apartments for the accommodation of the household, and storehouses for the necessary provisions, besides gardens which had been hastily planted with rare shrubs and sycamores. Fragments of furniture and of the roughest of the utensils contained in the different chambers are still unearthed from among the heaps of rubbish, and the cellars especially are full of potsherds and cracked jars, on which we can still see written an indication of the reign and the year when the wine they once contained was made. Altars of massive masonry rose in the midst of the courts, on which the king or one of his ministers heaped offerings and burnt incense morning, noon, and evening, in honour of the three decisive moments in the life of Atonu.*

* Naville discovered at Deir el-Bahari a similar altar, nearly intact. No other example was before known in any of the ruined towns or temples, and no one had any idea of the dimensions to which these altars, attained.

A few painted and gilded columns supported the roofs of the principal apartments in which the Pharaoh held his audiences, but elsewhere the walls and pillars were coated with cream-coloured stucco or whitewash, on which scenes of private life were depicted in colours. The pavement, like the walls, was also decorated. In one of the halls which seems to have belonged to the harem, there is still to be seen distinctly the picture of a rectangular piece of water containing fish and lotus-flowers in full bloom; the edge is adorned with water-plants and flowering shrubs, among which birds fly and calves graze and gambol; on the right and left were depicted rows of stands laden with fruit, while at each end of the room were seen the grinning faces of a gang of negro and Syrian prisoners, separated from each other by gigantic arches. The tone of colouring is bright and cheerful, and the animals are treated with great freedom and facility. The Pharaoh, had collected about him several of the best artists then to be found at Thebes, placing them under the direction of Bauki, the chief of the corporation of sculptors,* and probably others subsequently joined these from provincial studios.

* Bauki belonged to a family of artists, and his father Mani had filled before him the post of chief of the sculptors. The part played by these personages was first defined by Brugsch, with perhaps some exaggeration of their artistic merit and originality of talent.

Work for them was not lacking, for houses had to be built for all the courtiers and government officials who had been obliged to follow the king, and in a few years a large town had sprung up, which was called Khuitatonu, or the "Horizon of the Disk." It was built on a regular plan, with straight streets and open spaces, and divided into two separate quarters, interspersed with orchards and shady trellises. Workmen soon began to flock to the new city—metal-founders, glass-founders, weavers; in fine, all who followed any trade indispensable to the luxury of a capital. The king appropriated a territory for it from the ancient nome of the Hare, thus compelling the god Thot to contribute to the fortune of Atonu; he fixed its limits by means of stelae placed in the mountains, from Gebel-Tunah to Deshluit on the west, and from Sheikh-Said to El-Hauata on the eastern bank;* it was a new nome improvised for the divine parvenu.

* We know at present of fourteen of these stelae. A certain number must still remain to be discovered on both banks of the Nile.



Atonu was one of the forms of the Sun, and perhaps the most material one of all those devised by the Egyptians. He was defined as "the good god who rejoices in truth, the lord of the solar course, the lord of the disk, the lord of heaven, the lord of earth, the living disk which lights up the two worlds, the living Harmakhis who rises on the horizon bearing his name of Shu, which is disk, the eternal infuser of life." His priests exercised the same functions as those of Heliopolis, and his high priest was called "Oirimau," like the high priest of Ra in Aunu. This functionary was a certain Marirl, upon whom the king showered his favours, and he was for some time the chief authority in the State after the Pharaoh himself. Atonu was represented sometimes by the ordinary figure of Horus,* sometimes by the solar disk, but a disk whose rays were prolonged towards the earth, like so many arms ready to lay hold with their little hands of the offerings of the faithful, or to distribute to mortals the crux ansata, the symbol of life. The other gods, except Amon, were sharers with humanity in his benefits. Atonu proscribed him, and tolerated him only at Thebes; he required, moreover, that the name of Amon should be effaced wherever it occurred, but he respected Ra and Horus and Harmakhis—all, in fact, but Amon: he was content with being regarded as their king, and he strove rather to become their chief than their destroyer.**

* It was probably this form of Horus which had, in the temple at Thebes, the statue called "the red image of Atonu in Paatoml."

** Prisse d'Avennes has found at Karnak, on fragments of the temple, the names of other divinities than Atonu worshipped by Khuniatonu.

His nature, moreover, had nothing in it of the mysterious or ambiguous; he was the glorious torch which gave light to humanity, and which was seen every day to flame in the heavens without ever losing its brilliance or becoming weaker. When he hides himself "the world rests in darkness, like those dead who lie in their rock-tombs, with their heads swathed, their nostrils stuffed up, their eyes sightless, and whose whole property might be stolen from them, even that which they have under their head, without their knowing it; the lion issues from his lair, the serpent roams ready to bite, it is as obscure as in a dark room, the earth is silent whilst he who creates everything dwells in his horizon." He has hardly arisen when "Egypt becomes festal, one awakens, one rises on one's feet; when thou hast caused men to clothe themselves, they adore thee with outstretched hands, and the whole earth attends to its work, the animals betake themselves to their herbage, trees and green crops abound, birds fly to their marshy thickets with wings outstretched in adoration of thy double, the cattle skip, all the birds which were in their nests shake themselves when thou risest for them; the boats come and go, for every way is open at thy appearance, the fish of the river leap before thee as soon as thy rays descend upon the ocean." It is not without reason that all living things thus rejoice at his advent; all of them owe their existence to him, for "he creates the female germ, he gives virility to men, and furnishes life to the infant in its mother's womb; he calms and stills its weeping, he nourishes it in the maternal womb, giving forth the breathings which animate all that he creates, and when the infant escapes from the womb on the day of its birth, thou openest his mouth for speech, and thou satisfiest his necessities. When the chick is in the egg, a cackle in a stone, thou givest to it air while within to keep it alive; when thou hast caused it to be developed in the egg to the point of being able to break it, it goes forth proclaiming its existence by its cackling, and walks on its feet from the moment of its leaving the egg." Atonu presides over the universe and arranges within it the lot of human beings, both Egyptians and foreigners. The celestial Nile springs up in Hades far away in the north; he makes its current run down to earth, and spreads its waters over the fields during the inundation in order to nourish his creatures. He rules the seasons, winter and summer; he constructed the far-off sky in order to display himself therein, and to look down upon his works below. From the moment that he reveals himself there, "cities, towns, tribes, routes, rivers—all eyes are lifted to him, for he is the disk of the day upon the earth."* The sanctuary in which he is invoked contains only his divine shadow;** for he himself never leaves the firmament.

* These extracts are taken from the hymns of Tel el-Amarna.

** In one of the tombs at Tel el-Amarna the king is depicted leading his mother Tii to the temple of Atonu in order to see "the Shadow of Ra," and it was thought with some reason that "the Shadow of Ra" was one of the names of the temple. I think that this designation applied also to the statue or symbol of the god; the shadow of a god was attached to the statue in the same manner as the "double," and transformed it into an animated body.

His worship assumes none of the severe and gloomy forms of the Theban cults: songs resound therein, and hymns accompanied by the harp or flute; bread, cakes, vegetables, fruits, and flowers are associated with his rites, and only on very rare occasions one of those bloody sacrifices in which the other gods delight. The king made himself supreme pontiff of Atonu, and took precedence of the high priest. He himself celebrated the rites at the altar of the god, and we see him there standing erect, his hands outstretched, offering incense and invoking blessings from on high.* Like the Caliph Hakim of a later age, he formed a school to propagate his new doctrines, and preached them before his courtiers: if they wished to please him, they had to accept his teaching, and show that they had profited by it. The renunciation of the traditional religious observances of the solar house involved also the rejection of such personal names as implied an ardent devotion to the banished god; in place of Amenothes, "he to whom Amon is united," the king assumed after a time the name of Khuniatonu, "the Glory of the Disk," and all the members of his family, as well as his adherents at court, whose appellations involved the name of the same god, soon followed his example. The proscription of Amon extended to inscriptions, so that while his name or figure, wherever either could be got at, was chiselled out, the vulture, the emblem of Mut, which expressed the idea of mother, was also avoided.**

* The altar on which the king stands upright is one of those cubes of masonry of which Naville discovered such a fine example in the temple of Hatshopsitu at Deir el-Bahari.

** We find, however, some instances where the draughtsman, either from custom or design, had used the vulture to express the word mailt, "the mother," without troubling himself to think whether it answered to the name of the goddess.

The king would have nothing about him to suggest to eye or ear the remembrance of the gods or doctrines of Thebes. It would consequently have been fatal to them and their pretensions to the primacy of Egypt if the reign of the young king had continued as long as might naturally have been expected. After having been for nearly two centuries almost the national head of Africa, Amon was degraded by a single blow to the secondary rank and languishing existence in which he had lived before the expulsion of the Hyksos. He had surrendered his sceptre as king of heaven and earth, not to any of his rivals who in old times had enjoyed the highest rank, but to an individual of a lower order, a sort of demigod, while he himself had thus become merely a local deity, confined to the corner of the Said in which he had had his origin. There was not even left to him the peaceful possession of this restricted domain, for he was obliged to act as host to the enemy who had deposed him: the temple of Atonu was erected at the door of his own sanctuary, and without leaving their courts the priests of Amon could hear at the hours of worship the chants intoned by hundreds of heretics in the temple of the Disk. Amon's priests saw, moreover, the royal gifts flowing into other treasuries, and the gold of Syria and Ethiopia no longer came into their hands. Should they stifle their complaints, and bow to this insulting oppression, or should they raise a protest against the action which had condemned them to obscurity and a restricted existence? If they had given indications of resistance, they would have been obliged to submit to prompt repression, but we see no sign of this. The bulk of the people—clerical as well as lay—accepted the deposition with complacency, and the nobles hastened to offer their adherence to that which afterwards became the official confession of faith of the Lord King.* The lord of Thebes itself, a certain Ramses, bowed his head to the new cult, and the bas-reliefs of his tomb display to our eyes the proofs of his apostasy: on the right-hand side Amon is the only subject of his devotion, while on the left he declares himself an adherent of Atonu. Religious formularies, divine appellations, the representations of the costume, expression, and demeanour of the figures are at issue with each other in the scenes on the two sides of the door, and if we were to trust to appearances only, one would think that the two pictures belonged to two separate reigns, and were concerned with two individuals strangers to each other.**

* The political character of this reaction against the growing power of the high priests and the town of Amon was pointed out for the first time by Masporo in 1878. Ed. Meyer and Tiele blond with the political idea a monotheistic conception which does not seem to me to be fully justified, at least at present, by anything in the materials we possess.

** His tomb was discovered in 1878 by Villiers-Stuart.

The rupture between the past and the present was so complete, in fact, that the sovereign was obliged to change, if not his face and expression, at least the mode in which they were represented.



Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Petrie. Petrie thinks that the monument discovered by him, which is of fine plaster, is a cast of the dead king, executed possibly to enable the sculptors to make Ushabtu, "Respondents," for him.

The name and personality of an Egyptian were so closely allied that interference with one implied interference with the other. Khuniatonu could not continue to be such as he was when Amenothes, and, in fact, their respective portraits differ from each other to that degree that there is some doubt at moments as to their identity. Amenothes is hardly to be distinguished from his father: he has the same regular and somewhat heavy features, the same idealised body and conventional shape as those which we find in the orthodox Pharaohs. Khuniatonu affects a long and narrow head, conical at the top, with a retreating forehead, a large aquiline and pointed nose, a small mouth, an enormous chin projecting in front, the whole being supported by a long, thin neck.

His shoulders are narrow, with little display of muscle, but his breasts are so full, his abdomen so prominent, and his hips so large, that one would think they belonged to a woman. Etiquette required the attendants upon the king, and those who aspired to his favour, to be portrayed in the bas-reliefs of temples or tombs in all points, both as regards face and demeanour, like the king himself. Hence it is that the majority of his contemporaries, after having borne the likeness of Amenothes, came to adopt, without a break, that of Khuniatonu. The scenes at Tel el-Amarna contain, therefore, nothing but angular profiles, pointed skulls, ample breasts, flowing figures, and swelling stomachs. The outline of these is one that lends itself readily to caricature, and the artists have exaggerated the various details with the intention, it may be, of rendering the representations grotesque. There was nothing ridiculous, however, in the king, their model, and several of his statues attribute to him a languid, almost valetudinarian grace, which is by no means lacking in dignity.



Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a drawing by Petrie.



He was a good and affectionate man, and was passionately fond of his wife, Nofrititi, associating her with himself in his sovereign acts. If he set out to visit the temple, she followed him in a chariot; if he was about to reward one of his faithful subjects, she stood beside him and helped to distribute the golden necklaces. She joined him in his prayers to the Solar Disk; she ministered to him in domestic life, when, having broken away from the worries of his public duties, he sought relaxation in his harem; and their union was so tender, that we find her on one occasion, at least, seated in a coaxing attitude on her husband's knees—a unique instance of such affection among all the representations on the monuments of Egypt.



Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Insinger.

They had six daughters, whom they brought up to live with them on terms of the closest intimacy: they accompanied their father and mother everywhere, and are exhibited as playing around the throne while their parents are engaged in performing the duties of their office. The gentleness and gaiety of the king were reflected in the life of his subjects: all the scenes which they have left us consist entirely of processions, cavalcades, banquets, and entertainments. Khuniatonu was prodigal in the gifts of gold and the eulogies which he bestowed on Mariri, the chief priest: the people dance around him while he is receiving from the king the just recompense of his activity. When Huia, who came back from Syria in the XIIth year of the king's reign, brought solemnly before him the tribute he had collected, the king, borne in his jolting palanquin on the shoulders of his officers, proceeded to the temple to return thanks to his god, to the accompaniment of chants and the waving of the great fans. When the divine father Ai had married the governess of one of the king's daughters, the whole city gave itself up to enjoyment, and wine flowed freely during the wedding feast. Notwithstanding the frequent festivals, the king found time to watch jealously over the ordinary progress of government and foreign affairs. The architects, too, were not allowed to stand idle, and without taking into account the repairs of existing buildings, had plenty to do in constructing edifices in honour of Atonu in the principal towns of the Nile valley, at Memphis, Heliopolis, Hermopolis, Hermonthis, and in the Fayum. The provinces in Ethiopia remained practically in the same condition as in the time of Amenothes III.;* Kush was pacified, notwithstanding the raids which the tribes of the desert were accustomed to make from time to time, only to receive on each occasion rigorous chastisement from the king's viceroy.

* The name and the figure of Khuniatonu are met with on the gate of the temple of Soleb, and he received in his XIIth year the tributes of Kush, as well as those of Syria.

The sudden degradation of Amon had not brought about any coldness between the Pharaoh and his princely allies in Asia. The aged Amenothes had, towards the end of his reign, asked the hand of Dushratta's daughter in marriage, and the Mitannian king, highly flattered by the request, saw his opportunity and took advantage of it in the interest of his treasury. He discussed the amount of the dowry, demanded a considerable sum of gold, and when the affair had been finally arranged to his satisfaction, he despatched the princess to the banks of the Nile. On her arrival she found her affianced husband was dead, or, at all events, dying. Amenothes IV., however, stepped into his father's place, and inherited his bride with his crown.



Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Insinger.

The new king's relations with other foreign princes were no less friendly; the chief of the Khati (Hittites) complimented him on his accession, the King of Alasia wrote to him to express his earnest desire for a continuance of peace between the two states. Burnaburiash of Babylon had, it is true, hoped to obtain an Egyptian princess in marriage for his son, and being disappointed, had endeavoured to pick a quarrel over the value of the presents which had been sent him, together with the notice of the accession of the new sovereign. But his kingdom lay too far away to make his ill-will of much consequence, and his complaints passed unheeded. In Coele-Syria and Phoenicia the situation remained unchanged. The vassal cities were in a perpetual state of disturbance, though not more so than in the past. Aziru, son of Abdashirti, chief of the country of the Amorites, had always, even during the lifetime of Amenothes III., been the most turbulent of vassals. The smaller states of the Orontes and of the coast about Arvad had been laid waste by his repeated incursions and troubled by his intrigues. He had taken and pillaged twenty towns, among which were Simyra, Sini, Irqata, and Qodshu, and he was already threatening Byblos, Berytus, and Sidon. It was useless to complain of him, for he always managed to exculpate himself to the royal messengers. Khai, Dudu, Amenemaupit had in turn all pronounced him innocent. Pharaoh himself, after citing him to appear in Egypt to give an explanation of his conduct, had allowed himself to be won over by his fair speaking, and had dismissed him uncondemned. Other princes, who lacked his cleverness and power, tried to imitate him, and from north to south the whole of Syria could only be compared to some great arena, in which fighting was continually carried on between one tribe or town and another—Tyre against Sidon, Sidon against Byblos, Jerusalem against Lachish. All of them appealed to Khuniatonu, and endeavoured to enlist him on their side. Their despatches arrived by scores, and the perusal of them at the present day would lead us to imagine that Egypt had all but lost her supremacy. The Egyptian ministers, however, were entirely unmoved by them, and continued to refuse material support to any of the numerous rivals, except in a few rare cases, where a too prolonged indifference would have provoked an open revolt in some part of the country.

Khuniatonu died young, about the XVIIIth year of his reign.* He was buried in the depths of a ravine in the mountain-side to the east of the town, and his tomb remained unknown till within the last few years. Although one of his daughters who died before her father had been interred there, the place seems to have been entirely unprepared for the reception of the king's body. The funeral chamber and the passages are scarcely even rough-hewn, and the reception halls show a mere commencement of decoration.** The other tombs of the locality are divided into two groups, separated by the ravine reserved for the burying-place of the royal house. The noble families possessed each their own tomb on the slopes of the hillside; the common people were laid to rest in pits lower down, almost on the level of the plain. The cutting and decoration of all these tombs had been entrusted to a company of contractors, who had executed them according to two or three stereotyped plans, without any variation, except in size. Nearly all the walls are bare, or present but few inscriptions; those tombs only are completed whose occupants died before the Pharaoh.

* The length of Khuniatonu's reign was fixed by Griffith with almost absolute certainty by means of the dates written in ink on the jars of wine and preserves found in the ruins of the palace.

** The tomb has been found, as I anticipated, in the ravine which separates the northern after the southern group of burying-places. The Arabs opened it in 1891, and Grebaut has since completely excavated it. The scenes depicted in it are connected with the death and funeral of the Princess Maqitatonu.



Drawn by Boudier, after a photograph by Insinger.

The facades of the tombs are cut in the rock, and contain, for the most part, but one door, the jambs of which are covered on both sides by several lines of hieroglyphs; and it is just possible to distinguish traces of the adoration of the radiant Disk on the lintels, together with the cartouches containing the names of the king and god. The chapel is a large rectangular chamber, from one end of which opens the inclined passage leading to the coffin. The roof is sometimes supported by columns, having capitals decorated with designs of flowers or of geese hung from the abacus by their feet with their heads turned upwards.

The religious teaching at Tel el-Amarna presents no difference in the main from that which prevailed in other parts of Egypt.* The Double of Osiris was supposed to reside in the tomb, or else to take wing to heaven and embark with Atonu, as elsewhere he would embark with Ea. The same funerary furniture is needed for the deceased as in other local cults—ornaments of vitreous paste, amulets, and Ushabtiu, or "Respondents," to labour for the dead man in the fields of Ialu. Those of Khuniatonu were, like those of Amenothes III., actual statuettes in granite of admirable workmanship. The dead who reached the divine abode, retained the same rank in life that they had possessed here below, and in order to ensure the enjoyment of it, they related, or caused to be depicted in their tombs, the events of their earthly career.

* The peculiar treatment of the two extremities of the sign for the sky, which surmounts the great scene on the tomb of Ahmosis, shows that there had been no change in the ideas concerning the two horizons or the divine tree found in them: the aspirations for the soul of Mariri, the high priest of Atonu, or for that of the sculptor Bauku, are the same as those usually found, and the formula on the funerary stelae differs only in the name of the god from that on the ordinary stelae of the same kind.

A citizen of Khuitatonu would naturally represent the manners and customs of his native town, and this would account for the local colouring of the scenes in which we see him taking part.

They bear no resemblance to the traditional pictures of the buildings and gardens of Thebes with which we are familiar; we have instead the palaces, colonnades, and pylons of the rising city, its courts planted with sycomores, its treasuries, and its storehouses. The sun's disk hovers above and darts its prehensile rays over every object; its hands present the crux ansata to the nostrils of the various members of the family, they touch caressingly the queen and her daughters, they handle the offerings of bread and cakes, they extend even into the government warehouses to pilfer or to bless. Throughout all these scenes Khuniatonu and the ladies of his harem seem to be ubiquitous: here he visits one of the officers, there he repairs to the temple for the dedication of its sanctuary. His chariot, followed at a little distance by that of the princesses, makes its way peaceably through the streets. The police of the city and the soldiers of the guard, whether Egyptians or foreigners, run before him and clear a path among the crowd, the high priest Mariri stands at the gate to receive him, and the ceremony is brought to a close by a distribution of gold necklaces or rings, while the populace dance with delight before the sovereign. Meantime the slaves have cooked the repast, the dancers and musicians within their chambers have rehearsed for the evening's festival, and the inmates of the house carry on animated dialogues during their meal. The style and the technique of these wall-paintings differ in no way from those in the necropolis of the preceding period, and there can be no doubt that the artists who decorated these monuments were trained in the schools of Thebes. Their drawing is often very refined, and there is great freedom in their composition; the perspective of some of the bas-reliefs almost comes up to our own, and the movement of animated crowds is indicated with perfect accuracy. It is, however, not safe to conclude from these examples that the artists who executed them would have developed Egyptian art in a new direction, had not subsequent events caused a reaction against the worship of Atonu and his followers.



Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Petrie.

Although the tombs in which they worked differ from the generality of Egyptian burying-places, their originality does not arise from any effort, either conscious or otherwise, to break through the ordinary routine of the art of the time; it is rather the result of the extraordinary appearance of the sovereign whose features they were called on to portray, and the novelty of several of the subjects which they had to treat. That artist among them who first gave concrete form to the ideas circulated by the priests of Atonu, and drew the model cartoons, evidently possessed a master-hand, and was endowed with undeniable originality and power. No other Egyptian draughtsman ever expressed a child's grace as he did, and the portraits which he sketched of the daughters of Khuniatonu playing undressed at their mother's side, are examples of a reserved and delicate grace. But these models, when once composed and finished even to the smallest details, were entrusted for execution to workmen of mediocre powers, who were recruited not only from Thebes, but from the neighbouring cities of Hermopolis and Siut. These estimable people, with a praiseworthy patience, traced bit by bit the cartoons confided to them, omitting or adding individuals or groups according to the extent of the wall-space they had to cover, or to the number of relatives and servants whom the proprietor of the tomb desired should share in his future happiness. The style of these draughtsmen betrays the influence of the second-rate schools in which they had learned their craft, and the clumsiness of their work would often repel us, were it not that the interest of the episodes portrayed redeems it in the eyes of the Egyptologist.

Khuniatonu left no son to succeed him; two of his sons-in-law successively occupied the throne—Saakeri, who had married his eldest daughter Maritatonu, and Tutankhamon, the husband of Ankhnasaton. The first had been associated in the sovereignty by his father-in-law;* he showed himself a zealous partisan of the "Disk," and he continued to reside in the new capital during the few years of his sole reign.** The second son-in-law was a son of Amenothes III., probably by a concubine. He returned to the religion of Amon, and his wife, abjuring the creed of her father, changed her name from Ankhnasaton to that of Ankhnasamon. Her husband abandoned Khuitatonu*** at the end of two or three years, and after his departure the town fell into decadence as quickly as it had arisen. The streets were unfrequented, the palaces and temples stood empty, the tombs remained unfinished and unoccupied, and its patron god returned to his former state, and was relegated to the third or fourth rank in the Egyptian Pantheon.

* He and his wife are represented by the side of Khuniatonu, with the protocol and the attributes of royalty. Petrie assigns to this double reign those minor objects on which the king's prenomen Ankhkhopiruri is followed by the epithet beloved of Uanira, which formed part of the name of Khuniatonu.

** Petrie thinks, on the testimony of the lists of Manetho, which give twelve years to Akenkheres, daughter of Horos, that Saakeri reigned twelve years, and only two or three years as sole monarch without his father-in-law. I think these two or three years a probable maximum length of his reign, whatever may be the value we should here assign to the lists of Manetho.

*** Petrie, judging from the number of minor objects which he has found in his excavations at Tel el-Amarna, believes that he can fix the length of Tutankhamon's sojourn at Khuitatonu at six years, and that of his whole reign at nine years.

The town struggled for a short time against its adverse fate, which was no doubt retarded owing to the various industries founded in it by Khuniatonu, the manufactories of enamel and coloured glass requiring the presence of many workmen; but the latter emigrated ere long to Thebes or the neighbouring city of Hermopolis, and the "Horizon of Atonu" disappeared from the list of nomes, leaving of what might have been the capital of the Egyptian empire, merely a mound of crumbling bricks with two or three fellahin villages scattered on the eastern bank of the Nile.*

* Petrie thinks that the temples and palaces were systematically destroyed by Harmhabi, and the ruins used by him in the buildings which he erected at different places in Egypt. But there is no need for this theory: the beauty of the limestone which Khuniatonu had used sufficiently accounts for the rapid disappearance of the deserted edifices.

Thebes, whose influence and population had meanwhile never lessened, resumed her supremacy undisturbed. If, out of respect for the past, Tutankhamon continued the decoration of the temple of Atonu at Karnak, he placed in every other locality the name and figure of Amon; a little stucco spread over the parts which had been mutilated, enabled the outlines to be restored to their original purity, and the alteration was rendered invisible by a few coats of colour. Tutankhamon was succeeded by the divine father Ai, whom Khuniatonu had assigned as husband to one of his relatives named Tii, so called after the widow of Amenothes III. Ai laboured no less diligently than his predecessor to keep up the traditions which had been temporarily interrupted. He had been a faithful worshipper of the Disk, and had given orders for the construction of two funerary chapels for himself in the mountain-side above Tel el-Amarna, the paintings in which indicate a complete adherence to the faith of the reigning king. But on becoming Pharaoh, he was proportionally zealous in his submission to the gods of Thebes, and in order to mark more fully his return to the ancient belief, he chose for his royal burying-place a site close to that in which rested the body of Amenothes III.*

* The first tomb seems to have been dug before his marriage, at the time when he had no definite ambitions; the second was prepared for him and his wife Tii.

His sarcophagus, a large oblong of carved rose granite, still lies open and broken on the spot.



Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after the drawing of Prisse d'Avenues.

Figures of goddesses stand at the four angles and extend their winged arms along its sides, as if to embrace the mummy of the sovereign. Tutankhamon and Ai were obeyed from one end of Egypt to the other, from Napata to the shores of the Mediterranean. The peoples of Syria raised no disturbances during their reigns, and paid their accustomed tribute regularly;* if their rule was short, it was at least happy. It would appear, however, that after their deaths, troubles arose in the state. The lists of Manetho give two or three princes—Rathotis, Khebres, and Akherres—whose names are not found on the monuments.** It is possible that we ought not to regard them as historical personages, but merely as heroes of popular romance, of the same type as those introduced so freely into the history of the preceding dynasties by the chroniclers of the Saite and Greek periods. They were, perhaps, merely short-lived pretenders who were overthrown one by the other before either had succeeded in establishing himself on the seat of Horus. Be that as it may, the XVIIIth dynasty drew to its close amid strife and quarreling, without our being able to discover the cause of its overthrow, or the name of the last of its sovereigns.***

* Tutankhamon receives the tribute of the Kushites as well as that of the Syrians; Ai is represented at Shataui in Nubia as accompanied by Pauiru, the prince of Kush.

** Wiedemann has collected six royal names which, with much hesitation, he places about this time.

*** The list of kings who make up the XVIIIth dynasty can be established with certainty, with the exception of the order of the three last sovereigns who succeed Khuniatonu. It is here given in its authentic form, as the monuments have permitted us to reconstruct it, and in its Greek form as it is found in the lists of Manetho:



Manetho's list, as we have it, is a very ill-made extract, wherein the official kings are mixed up with the legitimate queens, as well as, at least towards the end, with persons of doubtful authenticity. Several kings, between Khuniatonu and Harmhabi, are sometimes added at the end of the list; some of these I think, belonged to previous dynasties, e.g. Teti to the VIth, Rahotpu to the XVIIth; several are heroes of romance, as Mernebphtah or Merkhopirphtah, while the names of the others are either variants from the cartouche names of known princes, or else are nicknames, such as was Sesu, Sesturi for Ramses II. Dr. Mahler believes that he can fix, within a few days, the date of the kings of whom the list is composed, from Ahmosis I. to Ai. I hold to the approximate date which I have given in vol. iv. p. 153 of this History, and I give the years 1600 to 1350 as the period of the dynasty, with a possible error of about fifty years, more or less.

Scarcely half a century had elapsed between the moment when the XVIII's dynasty reached the height of its power under Amenothes III. and that of its downfall. It is impossible to introduce with impunity changes of any kind into the constitution or working of so complicated a machine as an empire founded on conquest. When the parts of the mechanism have been once put together and set in motion, and have become accustomed to work harmoniously at a proper pace, interference with it must not be attempted except to replace such parts as are broken or worn out, by others exactly like them. To make alterations while the machine is in motion, or to introduce new combinations, however ingenious, into any part of the original plan, might produce an accident or a breakage of the gearing when perhaps it would be least expected. When the devout Khuniatonu exchanged one city and one god for another, he thought that he was merely transposing equivalents, and that the safety of the commonwealth was not concerned in the operation. Whether it was Amon or Atonu who presided over the destinies of his people, or whether Thebes or Tel el-Amarna were the centre of impulse, was, in his opinion, merely a question of internal arrangement which could not affect the economy of the whole. But events soon showed that he was mistaken in his calculations. It is probable that if, on the expulsion of the Hyksos, the earlier princes of the dynasty had attempted an alteration in the national religion, or had moved the capital to any other city they might select, the remainder of the kingdom would not have been affected by the change. But after several centuries of faithful adherence to Amon in his city of Thebes, the governing power would find it no easy matter to accomplish such a resolution. During three centuries the dynasty had become wedded to the city and to its patron deity, and the locality had become so closely associated with the dynasty, that any blow aimed at the god could not fail to destroy the dynasty with it; indeed, had the experiment of Khuniatonu been prolonged beyond a few years, it might have entailed the ruin of the whole country. All who came into contact with Egypt, or were under her rule, whether Asiatics or Africans, were quick to detect any change in her administration, and to remark a falling away from the traditional systems of the times of Thutmosis III. and Amenothes II. The successors of the heretic king had the sense to perceive at once the first symptoms of disorder, and to refrain from persevering in his errors; but however quick they were to undo his work, they could not foresee its serious consequences. His immediate followers were powerless to maintain their dynasty, and their posterity had to make way for a family who had not incurred the hatred of Amon, or rather that of his priests. If those who followed them were able by their tact and energy to set Egypt on her feet again, they were at the same time unable to restore her former prosperity or her boundless confidence in herself.



CHAPTER II—THE REACTION AGAINST EGYPT

THE XIth DYNASTY: HARMHABI—THE HITTITE EMPIRE IN SYRIA AND IN ASIA MINOR—SETI I. AND RAMSES II.—THE PEOPLE OF THE SEA: MINEPHTAH AND THE ISRAELITE EXODUS.

The birth and antecedents of Harmhabi, his youth, his enthronement—The final triumph of Amon and his priests—Harmhabi infuses order into the government: his wars against the Ethiopians and Asiatics—The Khati, their civilization, religion; their political and military constitution; the extension of their empire towards the north—The countries and populations of Asia Minor; commercial routes between the Euphrates and the AEgean Sea—The treaty concluded between Harmhabi and Sapalulu.

Ramses I. and the uncertainties as to his origin—Seti I. and the campaign against Syria in the 1st year of his reign; the re-establishment of the Egyptian empire—Working of the gold-mines at Etai—The monuments constructed by Seti I. in Nubia, at Karnak, Luxor, and Abydos—The valley of the kings and tomb of Seti I. at Thebes.

Ramses II., his infancy, his association in the Government, his debut in Ethiopia: he builds a residence in the Delta—His campaign against the Khati in the 5th year of his reign—The talcing of Qodshu, the victory of Ramses II. and the truce established with Khatusaru: the poem of Pentauirit—His treaty with the Khati in the 21st year of his reign: the balance of power in Syria: the marriage of Ramses II. with a Hittite princess—Public works: the Speos at Abu-Simbel; Luxor, Karnak, the Eamesseum, the monuments in the Delta—The regency of Khamoisit and Minephtah, the legend of Sesostris, the coffin and mummy of Ramses II.

Minephtah—The kingdom of Libya, the people of the sea—The first invasion of Libya: the Egyptian victory at Piriu; the triumph of Minephtah—Seti II., Amenmeses, Siphtah-Minephtah—The foreign captives in Egypt; the Exodus of the Hebrews and their march to Sinai—An Egyptian romance of the Exodus: Amenophis, son of Pa-apis.



CHAPTER II—THE REACTION AGAINST EGYPT

The XIXth dynasty: Harmhabi—The Hittite empire in Syria and in Asia Minor—Seti I. and Ramses II.—The people of the sea: Minephtah and the Israelite Exodus.

While none of these ephemeral Pharaohs left behind them a, either legitimate or illegitimate, son there was no lack of princesses, any of which, having on her accession to the throne to choose a consort after her own heart, might thus become the founder of a new dynasty. By such a chance alliance Harmhabi, who was himself descended from Thutmosis III., was raised to the kingly office.* His mother, Mutnozmit, was of the royal line, and one of the most beautiful statues in the Gizeh Museum probably represents her. The body is mutilated, but the head is charming in its intelligent and animated expression, in its full eyes and somewhat large, but finely modelled, mouth. The material of the statue is a finegrained limestone, and its milky whiteness tends to soften the malign character of her look and smile. It is possible that Mutnozmit was the daughter of Amenothes III. by his marriage with one of his sisters: it was from her, at any rate, and not from his great-grandfather, that Harmhabi derived his indisputable claims to royalty.**

* A fragment of an inscription at Karnak calls Thutmosis III. "the father of his fathers." Champollion called him Hornemnob, Rosellini, Hor-hemheb, Hor-em-hbai, and both identified him with the Horos of Manetho, hence the custom among Egyptologists for a long time to designate him by the name Horus. Deveria was the first to show that the name corresponded with the Armais of the lists of Manetho, and, in fact, Armais is the Greek transcription of the group Harmhabi in the bilingual texts of the Ptolemaic period.

** Mutnozmit was at first considered the daughter and successor of Harmhabi, or his wife. Birch showed that the monuments did not confirm these hypotheses, and he was inclined to think that she was Harmhabi's mother. As far as I can see for the present, it is the only solution which agrees with the evidence on the principal monument which has made known her existence.

He was born, probably, in the last years of Amenothes, when Tii was the exclusive favourite of the sovereign; but it was alleged later on, when Harmhabi had emerged from obscurity, that Amon, destining him for the throne, had condescended to become his father by Mutnozmit—a customary procedure with the god when his race on earth threatened to become debased.* It was he who had rocked the newly born infant to sleep, and, while Harsiesis was strengthening his limbs with protective amulets, had spread over the child's skin the freshness and brilliance which are the peculiar privilege of the immortals. While still in the nursery, the great and the insignificant alike prostrated themselves before Harmhabi, making him liberal offerings. Every one recognised in him, even when still a lad and incapable of reflection, the carriage and complexion of a god, and Horus of Cynopolis was accustomed to follow his steps, knowing that the time of his advancement was near. After having called the attention of the Egyptians to Harmhabi, Amon was anxious, in fact, to hasten the coming of the day when he might confer upon him supreme rank, and for this purpose inclined the heart of the reigning Pharaoh towards him. Ai proclaimed him his heir over the whole land.**

* All that we know of the youth of Harmhabi is contained in the texts on a group preserved in the Turin Museum, and pointed out by Champollion, translated and published subsequently by Birch and by Brugsch. The first lines of the inscription seem to me to contain an account of the union of Amon with the queen, analogous to those at Deir el-Bahari treating of the birth of Hatshopsitu, and to those at Luxor bearing upon Amenothes III. (cf. vol. iv. pp. 342, 343; and p. 51 of the present volume), and to prove for certain that Harmhabi's mother was a princess of the royal line by right.

** The king is not named in the inscription. It cannot have been Amenothes IV., for an individual of the importance of Harmhabi, living alongside this king, would at least have had a tomb begun for him at. Tel el-Amarna. We may hesitate between Ai and Tutankhamon; but the inscription seems to say definitely that Harmhabi succeeded directly to the king under whom he had held important offices for many years, and this compels us to fix upon Ai, who, as we have said at p. 108, et seq., of the present volume, was, to all appearances, the last of the so-called heretical sovereigns.

He never gave cause for any dissatisfaction when called to court, and when he was asked questions by the monarch he replied always in fit terms, in such words as were calculated to produce serenity, and thus gained for himself a reputation as the incarnation of wisdom, all his plans and intentions appearing to have been conceived by Thot the Ibis himself. For many years he held a place of confidence with the sovereign. The nobles, from the moment he appeared at the gate of the palace, bowed their backs before him; the barbaric chiefs from the north or south stretched out their arms as soon as they approached him, and gave him the adoration they would bestow upon a god. His favourite residence was Memphis, his preference for it arising from his having possibly been born there, or from its having been assigned to him for his abode. Here he constructed for himself a magnificent tomb, the bas-reliefs of which exhibit him as already king, with the sceptre in his hand and the uraaus on his brow, while the adjoining cartouche does not as yet contain his name.*

* This part of the account is based upon, a study of a certain number of texts and representations all coming from Harmhabi's tomb at Saqqarah, and now scattered among the various museums—at Gizeh, Leyden, London, and Alexandria. Birch was the first to assign those monuments to the Pharaoh Harmhabi, supposing at the same time that he had been dethroned by Ramses I., and had lived at Memphis in an intermediate position between that of a prince and that of a private individual; this opinion was adopted by Ed. Meyer, rejected by Wiedemann and by myself. After full examination, I think the Harmhabi of the tomb at Saqqarah and the Pharaoh Harmhabi are one and the same person; Harmhabi, sufficiently high placed to warrant his wearing the uraius, but not high enough to have his name inscribed in a cartouche, must have had his tomb constructed at Saqqarah, as Ai and possibly Ramses I. had theirs built for them at Tel el-Amarna.

He was the mighty of the mighty, the great among the great, the general of generals, the messenger who ran to convey orders to the people of Asia and Ethiopia, the indispensable companion in council or on the field of battle,* at the time when Horus of Cynopolis resolved to seat him upon his eternal throne. Ai no longer occupied it. Horus took Harmhabi with him to Thebes, escorted him thither amid expressions of general joy, and led him to Amon in order that the god might bestow upon him the right to reign. The reception took place in the temple of Luxor, which served as a kind of private chapel for the descendants of Amenothes. Amon rejoiced to see Harmhabi, the heir of the two worlds; he took him with him to the royal palace, introduced him into the apartments of his august daughter, Mutnozmit; then, after she had recognised her child and had pressed him to her bosom, all the gods broke out into acclamations, and their cries ascended up to heaven.**

* The fragments of the tomb preserved at Leyden show him leading to the Pharaoh Asiatics and Ethiopians, burthened with tribute. The expressions and titles given above are borrowed from the fragments at Gizeh.

** Owing to a gap, the text cannot be accurately translated at this point. The reading can be made out that Amon "betook himself to the palace, placing the prince before him, as far as the sanctuary of his (Amon's) daughter, the very august...; she poured water on his hands, she embraced the beauties (of the prince), she placed herself before him." It will be seen that the name of the daughter of Amon is wanting, and Birch thought that a terrestrial princess whom Harmhabi had married was in question, Miifcnozmit, according to Brugsch. If the reference is not to a goddess, who along with Amon took part in the ceremonies, but to Mutnozmit, we must come to the conclusion that she, as heir and queen by birth, must have ceded her rights by some ritual to her son before he could be crowned.

"Behold, Amon arrives with his son before him, at the palace, in order to put upon his head the diadem, and to prolong the length of his life! We install him, therefore, in his office, we give to him the insignia of Ea, we pray Amon for him whom he has brought as our protector: may he as king have the festivals of Ea and the years of Horus; may he accomplish his good pleasure in Thebes, in Heliopolis, in Memphis, and may he add to the veneration with which these cities are invested." And they immediately decided that the new Pharaoh should be called Horus-sturdy-bull, mighty in wise projects, lord of the Vulture and of the very marvellous Urseus in Thebes, the conquering Horus who takes pleasure in the truth, and who maintains the two lands, the lord of the south and north, Sozir Khopiruri chosen of Ea, the offspring of the Sun, Harmhabi Miamun, giver of life. The cortege came afterwards to the palace, the king walking before Amon: there the god embraced his son, placed the diadems upon his head, delivered to him the rule of the whole world, over foreign populations as well as those of Egypt, inasmuch as he possessed this power as the sovereign of the universe.

This is the customary subject of the records of enthronement. Pharaoh is the son of a god, chosen by his father, from among all those who might have a claim to it, to occupy for a time the throne of Horus; and as he became king only by a divine decree, he had publicly to express, at the moment of his elevation, his debt of gratitude to, and his boundless respect for, the deity, who had made him what he was. In this case, however, the protocol embodied something more than the traditional formality, and its hackneyed phrases borrowed a special meaning from the circumstances of the moment. Amon, who had been insulted and proscribed by Khuniatonu, had not fully recovered his prestige under the rule of the immediate successors of his enemy.



Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken by Beato.

They had restored to him his privileges and his worship, they had become reconciled to him, and avowed themselves his faithful ones, but all this was as much an act of political necessity as a matter of religion: they still continued to tolerate, if not to favour, the rival doctrinal system, and the temple of the hateful Disk still dishonoured by its vicinity the sanctuary of Karnak. Harmhabi, on the other hand, was devoted to Amon, who had moulded him in embryo, and had trained him from his birth to worship none but him. Harmhabi's triumph marked the end of the evil days, and inaugurated a new era, in which Amon saw himself again master of Thebes and of the world. Immediately after his enthronement Harmhabi rivalled the first Amen-othes in his zeal for the interests of his divine father: he overturned the obelisks of Atonu and the building before which they stood; then, that no trace of them might remain, he worked up the stones into the masonry of two pylons, which he set up upon the site, to the south of the gates of Thutmosis III. They remained concealed in the new fabric for centuries, but in the year 27 B.C. a great earthquake brought them abruptly to light. We find everywhere among the ruins, at the foot of the dislocated gates, or at the bases of the headless colossal figures, heaps of blocks detached from the structure, on which can be made out remnants of prayers addressed to the Disk, scenes of worship, and cartouches of Amenofches IV., Ai, and Tutankhamon. The work begun by Harmhabi at Thebes was continued with unabated zeal through the length of the whole river-valley. "He restored the sanctuaries from the marshes of Athu even to Nubia; he repaired their sculptures so that they were better than before, not to speak of the fine things he did in them, rejoicing the eyes of Ra. That which he had found injured he put into its original condition, erecting a hundred statues, carefully formed of valuable stone, for every one which was lacking. He inspected the ruined towns of the gods in the land, and made them such as they had been in the time of the first Ennead, and he allotted to them estates and offerings for every day, as well as a set of sacred vessels entirely of gold and silver; he settled priests in them, bookmen, carefully chosen soldiers, and assigned to them fields, cattle, all the necessary material to make prayers to Ra every morning." These measures were inspired by consideration for the ancient deities; but he added to them others, which tended to secure the welfare of the people and the stability of the government. Up to this time the officials and the Egyptian soldiers had displayed a tendency to oppress the fellahin, without taking into consideration the injury to the treasury occasioned by their rapacity. Constant supervision was the only means of restraining them, for even the best-served Pharaohs, Thutmosis, and Amenothes III. themselves, were obliged to have frequent recourse to the rigour of the law to keep the scandalous depredations of the officials within bounds.*

* Harmhabi refers to the edicts of Thutmosis III.

The religious disputes of the preceding years, in enfeebling the authority of the central power, had given a free hand to these oppressors. The scribes and tax-collectors were accustomed to exact contributions for the public service from the ships, whether laden or not, of those who were in a small way of business, and once they had laid their hands upon them, they did not readily let them go. The poor fellow falling into their clutches lost his cargo, and he was at his wits' end to know how to deliver at the royal storehouses the various wares with which he calculated to pay his taxes. No sooner had the Court arrived at some place than the servants scoured the neighbourhood, confiscating the land produce, and seizing upon slaves, under pretence that they were acting for the king, while they had only their personal ends in view. Soldiers appropriated all the hides of animals with the object, doubtless, of making from them leather jackets and helmets, or of duplicating their shields, with the result that when the treasury made its claim for leather, none was to be found. It was hardly possible, moreover, to bring the culprits to justice, for the chief men of the towns and villages, the prophets, and all those who ought to have looked after the interests of the taxpayer, took money from the criminals for protecting them from justice, and compelled the innocent victims also to purchase their protection. Harmhabi, who was continually looking for opportunities to put down injustice and to punish deceit, at length decided to pro-mulgate a very severe edict against the magistrates and the double-dealing officials: any of them who was found to have neglected his duty was to have his nose cut off, and was to be sent into perpetual exile to Zalu, on the eastern frontier. His commands, faithfully carried out, soon produced a salutary effect, and as he would on no account relax the severity of the sentence, exactions were no longer heard of, to the advantage of the revenue of the State. On the last day of each month the gates of his palace were open to every one.



Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Prisse d'Avennes.

Any one on giving his name to the guard could enter the court of honour, where he would find food in abundance to satisfy his hunger while he was awaiting an audience. The king all the while was seated in the sight of all at the tribune, whence he would throw among his faithful friends necklaces and bracelets of gold: he inquired into complaints one after another, heard every case, announced his judgments in brief words, and dismissed his subjects, who went away proud and happy at having had their affairs dealt with by the sovereign himself.*

* All these details are taken from a stele discovered in 1882. The text is so mutilated that it is impossible to give a literal rendering of it in all its parts, but the sense is sufficiently clear to warrant our rilling up the whole with considerable certainty.

The portraits of Harmhabi which have come down to us give us the impression of a character at once energetic and agreeable. The most beautiful of these is little more than a fragment broken off a black granite statue. Its mournful expression is not pleasing to the spectator, and at the first view alienates his sympathy. The face, which is still youthful, breathes an air of melancholy, an expression which is somewhat rare among the Pharaohs of the best period: the thin and straight nose is well set on the face, the elongated eyes have somewhat heavy lids; the large, fleshy lips, slightly contracted at the corners of the mouth, are cut with a sharpness that gives them singular vigour, and the firm and finely modelled chin loses little of its form from the false beard depending from it. Every detail is treated with such freedom that one would think the sculptor must have had some soft material to work upon, rather than a rock almost hard enough to defy the chisel; the command over it is so complete that the difficulty of the work is forgotten in the perfection of the result. The dreamy expression of his face, however, did not prevent Harmhabi from displaying beyond Egypt, as within it, singular activity.



Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a Autograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.

Although Egypt had never given up its claims to dominion over the whole river-valley, as far as the plains of Sennar, yet since the time of Amenothes III. no sovereign had condescended, it would I appear, to conduct in person the expeditions directed against the tribes of! the Upper Nile. Harmhabi was anxious to revive the custom which imposed upon the Pharaohs the obligation to make their first essay in arms in Ethiopia, as Horus, son of Isis, had done of yore, and he seized the pretext of the occurrence of certain raids there to lead a body of troops himself into the heart of the negro country.



Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Insinger.

He had just ordered at this time the construction of the two southern pylons at Karnak, and there was great activity in the quarries of Silsileh. A commemorative chapel also was in course of excavation here in the sandstone rock, and he had dedicated it to his father, Amon-Ba of Thebes, coupling with him the local divinities, Hapi the Nile, and Sobku the patron of Ombos. The sanctuary is excavated somewhat deeply into the hillside, and the dark rooms within it are decorated with the usual scenes of worship, but the vaulted approach to them displays upon its western wall the victory of the king. We see here a figure receiving from Amon the assurance of a long and happy life, and another letting fly his arrows at a host of fleeing enemies; Ethiopians raise their heads to him in suppliant gesture; soldiers march past with their captives; above one of the doors we see twelve military leaders marching and carrying the king aloft upon their shoulders, while a group of priests and nobles salute him, offering incense.*

* The significance of the monument was pointed out first by Champollion. The series of races conquered was represented at Karnak on the internal face of one of the pylons built by Harmhabi; it appears to have been "usurped" by Ramses II.

At this period Egyptian ships were ploughing the Red Sea, and their captains were renewing official relations with Puanit. Somali chiefs were paying visits to the palace, as in the time of Thutmosis III. The wars of Amon had, in fact, begun again. The god, having suffered neglect for half a century, had a greater need than ever of gold and silver to fill his coffers; he required masons for his buildings, slaves and cattle for his farms, perfumed essences and incense for his daily rites. His resources had gradually become exhausted, and his treasury would soon be empty if he did not employ the usual means to replenish it. He incited Harmhabi to proceed against the countries from which, in olden times he had enriched himself—to the south in the first place, and then, having decreed victory there, and having naturally taken for himself the greater part of the spoils, he turned his attention to Asia.



Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Daniel Heron. The black spots are due to the torches of the fellahin of the neighbourhood who have visited the rock tomb in bygone years.

In the latter campaign the Egyptian troops took once more the route through Coele-Syria, and if the expedition experienced here more difficulties than on the banks of the Upper Nile, it was, nevertheless, brought to an equally triumphant conclusion. Those of their adversaries who had offered an obstinate resistance were transported into other lands, and the rebel cities were either razed to the ground or given to the flames: the inhabitants having taken refuge in the mountains, where they were in danger of perishing from hunger, made supplications for peace, which was granted to them on the usual conditions of doing homage and paying tribute.*

* These details are taken from the fragment of an inscription now in the museum at Vienna; Bergmann, and also Erman, think that we have in this text the indication of an immigration into Egypt of a tribe of the Monatiu.

We do not exactly know how far he penetrated into the country; the list of the towns and nations over which he boasts of having triumphed contains, along with names unknown to us, some already famous or soon to become so—Arvad, Pibukhu, the Khati, and possibly Alasia. The Haui-Nibu themselves must have felt the effects of the campaign, for several of their chiefs associated, doubtless, with the Phoenicians, presented themselves before the Pharaoh at Thebes. Egypt was maintaining, therefore, its ascendency, or at least appearing to maintain it in those regions where the kings of the XVIIIth dynasty had ruled after the campaigns of Thutmosis I., Thutmosis III., and Amenothes II. Its influence, nevertheless, was not so undisputed as in former days; not that the Egyptian soldiers were less valiant, but owing to the fact that another power had risen up alongside them whose armies were strong enough to encounter them on the field of battle and to obtain a victory over them.

Beyond Naharaim, in the deep recesses of the Amanus and Taurus, there had lived, for no one knows how many centuries, the rude and warlike tribes of the Khati, related not so, much to the Semites of the Syrian plain as to the populations of doubtful race and language who occupied the upper basins of the Halys and Euphrates.* The Chaldaean conquest had barely touched them; the Egyptian campaign had not more effect, and Thutmosis III. himself, after having crossed their frontiers and sacked several of their towns, made no serious pretence to reckon them among his subjects. Their chiefs were accustomed, like their neighbours, to use, for correspondence with other countries, the cuneiform mode of writing; they had among them, therefore, for this purpose, a host of scribes, interpreters, and official registrars of events, such as we find to have accompanied the sovereigns of Assyria and Babylon.** These chiefs were accustomed to send from time to time a present to the Pharaoh, which the latter was pleased to regard as a tribute,*** or they would offer, perhaps, one of their daughters in marriage to the king at Thebes, and after the marriage show themselves anxious to maintain good faith with their son-in-law.

* Halevy asserts that the Khati were Semites, and bases his assertion on materials of the Assyrian period. Thes Khati, absorbed in Syria by the Semites, with whom they were blended, appear to have been by origin a non-Semitic people.

** A letter from the King of the Khati to the Pharaoh Amenothes IV. is written in cuneiform writing and in a Semitic language. It has been thought that other documents, drawn up in a non-Semitic language and coming from Mitanni and Arzapi, contain a dialect of the Hittite speech or that language itself. A "writer of books," attached to the person of the Hittite King Khatusaru, is named amongst the dead found on the field of battle at Qodshu.

*** It is thus perhaps we must understand the mention of tribute from the Khati in the Annals of Thutmosis III., 1. 26, in the year XXXIII., also in the year XL. One of the Tel el-Amarna letters refers to presents of this kind, which the King of Khati addresses to Amenothes IV. to celebrate his enthronement, and to ask him to maintain with himself the traditional good relations of their two families.

They had, moreover, commercial relations with Egypt, and furnished it with cattle, chariots, and those splendid Cappadocian horses whose breed was celebrated down to the Greek period.* They were already, indeed, people of consideration; their territory was so extensive that the contemporaries of Thutmosis III. called them the Greater Khati; and the epithet "vile," which the chancellors of the Pharaohs added to their name, only shows by its virulence the impression which they had produced upon the mind of their adversaries.**

* The horses of the Khati were called abari, strong, vigorous, as also their bulls. The King of Alasia, while offering to Amenothes III. a profitable speculation, advises him to have nothing to do with the King of the Khati or with the King of Sangar, and thus furnishes proof that the Egyptians held constant commercial relations with the Khati.

** M. de Rouge suggested that Khati "the Little" was the name of the Hittites of Hebron. The expression, "Khati the Great," has been compared with that of Khanirabbat, "Khani the Great," which in the Assyrian texts would seem to designate a part of Cappadocia, in which the province of Miliddi occurs, and the identification of the two has found an ardent defender in W. Max Millier. Until further light is thrown upon it, the most probable reading of the word is not Khani-rabat, but Khani-galbat. The name Khani-Galbat is possibly preserved in Julbat, which the Arab geographers applied in the Middle Ages to a province situated in Lesser Armenia.

Their type of face distinguishes them clearly from the nations conterminous with them on the south. The Egyptian draughtsmen represented them as squat and short in stature, though vigorous, strong-limbed, and with broad and full shoulders in youth, but as inclined frequently to obesity in old age. The head is long and heavy, the forehead flattened, the chin moderate in size, the nose prominent, the eyebrows and cheeks projecting, the eyes small, oblique, and deep-set, the mouth fleshy, and usually framed in by two deep wrinkles; the flesh colour is a yellowish or reddish white, but clearer than that of the Phoenicians or the Amurru.