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AMENISM, ATENISM AND EGYPTIAN MONOTHEISM

WITH HIEROGLYPHIC TEXTS OF HYMNS TO AMEN AND ATEN, TRANSLATIONS AND
ILLUSTRATIONS BY
SIR ERNEST A. WALLIS BUDGE, LITT. D., D. LITT.
KEEPER OF THE EGYPTIAN AND ASSYRIAN ANTIQUITIES IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM

New York: Dodd, Mead & Co.

[1923]
______________________________________________________________

DEVELOPMENT OF THE CULT OF ATEN UNDER AMENHETEP IV.

Amenhetep III was succeeded by his son by his beloved wife Ti, who
came to the throne under the name of Amenhetep IV. He reigned about
seventeen years, and died probably before he was thirty. The
accuracy of the latter part of this statement depends upon the
evidence derived from the mummy of a young man which was found in
the Tomb of Queen Ti, and is generally believed to be that of
Amenhetep IV. It is thought that this mummy was taken from a royal
tomb at Tall al-'Amarnah in mistake for that of Ti, and transported
to Thebes, where it was buried as her mummy. Dr. Elliot Smith
examined the skeleton, and decided that it was that of a man 25 or
26 years of age, "without excluding the possibility that he may
have been several years older." His evidence [19]1 is very
important, for he adds, "The cranium, however, exhibits in an
unmistakable manner the distortion characteristic of a condition of
hydrocephalus." So then if the skeleton be that of Amenhetep IV,
the king suffered from water on the brain; and if he was 26 years
old when he died he must have begun to reign at the age of nine or
ten. But there is the possibility that he did not begin to reign
until he was a few years older.

Even had his father lived, he was not the kind of man to teach his
son to emulate the deeds of warrior Pharaohs like Thothmes III, and
there was no great official to instruct him in the arts of war, for
the long peaceful reign of Amenhetep III made the Egyptians forget
that the ease and luxury which they then enjoyed had been purchased
by the arduous raids and wars of their forefathers. To all intents
and purposes, Ti ruled Egypt for several years after her husband's
death, and the boy-king did for a time at least what his mother
told him. His wife, Nefertiti, who was his father's daughter
probably by a Mesopotamian woman, was no doubt chosen for him by
his mother, and it is quite clear from the wall-paintings at Tall
al-'Amarnah that he was very much under their influence. His
nurse's husband, Ai, was a priest of Aten, and during his early
years he absorbed from this group of persons the fundamentals of
the cult of Aten and much knowledge of the religious beliefs of the
Mitannian ladies at the Egyptian Court. These sank into his mind
and fructified, with the result that he began to abominate not only
Amen, the great god of Thebes, but all the old gods and goddesses
of Egypt, with the exception of the solar gods of Heliopolis. In
many respects these gods resembled the Aryan gods worshipped by his
grandmother's people, especially Varuna, to whom, as to Ra, human
sacrifices were sometimes offered, and to them his sympathy
inclined. But besides this he saw, as no doubt many others saw,
that the priests of Amen were usurping royal prerogatives, and by
their wealth and astuteness were becoming the dominant power in the
land. Even at that time the revenues of Amen could hardly be told,
and the power of his priests pervaded the kingdom from Napata in
the South to Syria in the North.

During the first five or six years of his reign Amenhetep IV,
probably as the result of the skilful guidance of his mother, made
little or no change in the government of the country.

[INLINE]
Plate VII.

Portion of a painted stone tablet with a portrait figure of
Amenhetep IV in hollow relief. On him shine the rays of Aten which
terminate in human hands. British Museum, No. 24431.

[INLINE]
Plate VIII.

Portion of a head of a portrait figure of Amenhetep IV. British
Museum, No. 13366.

But his actions in the sixth and following years of his reign prove
that whilst he was still a mere boy he was studying religious
problems with zeal, and with more than the usual amount of boyish
understanding. He must have been precocious and clever, with a mind
that worked swiftly; and he possessed a determined will and very
definite religious convictions and a fearless nature. It is also
clear that he did not lightly brook opposition, and that he
believed sincerely in the truth and honesty of his motives and
actions. But with all these gifts he lacked a practical knowledge
of men and things. He never realized the true nature of the duties
which as king he owed to his country and people, and he never
understood the realities of life. He never learnt the kingcraft of
the Pharaohs, and he failed to see that only a warrior could hold
what warriors had won for him. Instead of associating himself with
men of action, he sat at the feet of Ai the priest, and occupied
his mind with religious speculations; and so, helped by his adoring
mother and kinswomen, he gradually became the courageous fanatic
that the tombs and monuments of Egypt show him to have been. His
physical constitution and the circumstances of his surroundings
made him what he was. In recent years he has been described by such
names as "great idealist," "great reformer," the "world's first
revolutionist," the "first individual in human history," etc. But,
in view of the known facts of history, and Dr. Elliot Smith's
remarks quoted above on the distortion of the skull of Amenhetep
IV, we are fully justified in wondering with Dr. Hall if the king
"was not really half insane." [20]2 None but a man half insane
would have been so blind to facts as to attempt to overthrow Amen
and his worship, round which the whole of the social life of the
country centred. He suffered from religious madness at least, and
spiritual arrogance and self-sufficiency made him oblivious to
everything except his own feelings and emotions.

[INLINE] 
Aten, the great god, lord of heaven, from whom proceeds "life";
beneath is Amenhetep IV who is here represented conventionally as a
Pharaoh.

Once having made up his mind that Amen and all the other "gods" of
Egypt must be swept away, Amenhetep IV determined to undertake this
work without delay. After years of thought he had come to the
conclusion that only the solar gods, Tem, Ra and Horus of the Two
Horizons were worthy of veneration, and that some form of their
worship must take the place of that of Amen. The form of the
Sun-god which he chose for worship was ATEN, i.e., the solar Disk,
which was the abode of Tem and later of Ra of Heliopolis. But to
him the Disk was not only the abode of the Sun-god, it was the god
himself, who, by means of the heat and light which emanated from
his own body, gave life to everything on the earth. To Aten
Amenhetep ascribed the attributes of the old gods, Tem, Ra, Horus,
Ptah, and even of Amen, and he proclaimed that Aten was "One" and
"Alone." But this had also been proclaimed by all the priesthoods
of the old gods, Tem, Khepera, Khnem, Ra, and, later, of Amen. The
worshippers of every great god in Egypt had from time immemorial
declared that their god was "One." "Oneness" was an attribute, it
would seem, of everything that was worshipped in Egypt, just as it
is in some parts of India. It is inconceivable that Amenhetep IV
knew of the existence of other suns besides the sun he saw, and it
was obvious that Aten, the solar disk, was one alone, and without
counterpart or equal. Some light is thrown upon Amenhetep's views
as to the nature of his god by the title which he gave him. This
title is written within two cartouches and reads:--

"The Living Horus of the two horizons, exalted in the Eastern
Horizon in his name of Shu-who-is-in-the-Disk."

It is followed by the words, "ever-living, eternal, great living
Disk, he who is in the Set Festival, [21]3 lord of the Circle
(i.e., everything which the Disk shines on in every direction),
lord of the Disk, lord of heaven, lord of the earth." Amenhetep IV
worshipped Horus of the two horizons as the "Shu who was in the
disk." If we are to regard "Shu" as an ordinary noun, we must
translate it by "heat," or "heat and light," for the word has these
meanings. In this case Amenhetep worshipped the solar heat, or the
heat and light which were inherent in the Disk. Now, we know from
the Pyramid Texts that Tem or Tem-Ra created a god and a goddess
from the emanations or substance of his own body, and that they
were called "Shu" and "Tefnut," the former being the heat radiated
from the body of the god, and the latter the moisture. Shu and
Tefnut created Geb (the earth) and Nut (the sky), and they in turn
produced Osiris, the god of the river Nile, Set, the god of natural
decay and death, and their shadowy counterparts, Isis and Nephthys.
But, if we regard "Shu" as a proper name in the title of
Amenhetep's god, we get the same result, and can only assume that
the king deified the heat of the sun and worshipped it as the one,
eternal, creative, fructifying and life-sustaining force. The old
Heliopolitan tradition made Tem or Tem-Ra, or Khepera, the creator
of Aten the Disk, but this view Amenhetep IV rejected, and he
asserted that the Disk was self-created and self-subsistent. The
common symbol of the solar gods was a disk encircled by a serpent,
but when Amenhetep adopted the disk as the symbol of his god, he
abolished the serpent and treated the disk in a new and original
fashion. From the disk, the circumference of which is sometimes
hung round with symbols of "life," ☥ he made a series of rays
to descend, and at the end of each ray was a hand, as if the ray
was an arm, bestowing "life" on the earth.

[INLINE]

The frog-headed goddess Heqit, one of the Eight Members of the
Ogdoad of Thoth.

This symbol never became popular in the country, and the nation as
a whole preferred to believe that the Sun-god travelled across the
sky in two boats, the Sektet and the Atet. The form of the old
Heliopolitan cult of the Sun-god that was evolved by Amenhetep
could never have appealed to the Egyptians, for it was too
philosophical in character and was probably based upon esoteric
doctrines that were of foreign origin. Her and Suti, the two great
overseers of the temples of Amen at Thebes, were content to follow
the example of their king Amenhetep III, and bow the knee to Aten
and, like other officials, to sing a hymn in his praise. But they
knew the tolerant character of their master's religious views, and
that outwardly at least he was a loyal follower of Amen, whose
blood, according to the dogma of his priests, flowed in the king's
veins. To Amenhetep III a god more or less made no difference, and
he considered it quite natural that every priesthood should extol
and magnify the power of its god. He was content to be a
counterpart of Amen, and to receive the official worship due to him
as such. But with his son it was different. The heat of Aten gave
him life and maintained it in him, and whilst that was in him Aten
was in him. The life of Aten was his life, and his life was Aten's
life, and therefore he was Aten; his spiritual arrogance made him
believe that he was an incarnation of Aten, i.e., that he was
God--not a mere "god" or one of the "gods" of Egypt--and that his
acts were divine. He felt therefore that he had no need to go to
the temple of Amen to receive the daily supply of the "fluid of
life," which not only maintained the physical powers of kings, but
gave them wisdom and understanding to rule their country. Still
less would he allow the high priest of Amen to act as his vicar.
Finally he determined that Amen and the gods must be done away and
all the dogmas and doctrines of their priesthoods abolished, and
that Aten must be proclaimed the One, self-created,
self-subsisting, self-existing god, whose son and deputy he was.

Without, apparently, considering the probable effect of his
decision when translated into action, he began to build the temple
of Gem-Aten in Per-Aten, at Thebes.

[INLINE]
Plate IX.

Sphinx, with the head of Amenhetep IV, making an offering of Maat
to Aten.

[INLINE]
Plate X.

Two of the daughters of Amenhetep IV. Reproduced by permission of
the Egyptian Exploration Society. From a bas-relief now in the
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

In it was a chamber or shrine, in which the ben, or benben, i.e.,
the "Sun-stone," was placed, and in doing this he followed the
example of the priests of Heliopolis. The site he selected for this
temple was a piece of ground about half way between the Temple of
Karnak and the Temple of Luxor. He decided that this temple should
be the centre of the worship of Aten, which should henceforward be
the one religion of his country. The effect of the king's action on
the priests of Amen and the people of Thebes can be easily imagined
when we remember that with the downfall of Amen their means of
livelihood disappeared. But Amenhetep was the king, the blood of
the Sun-god was in his veins, and Pharaoh was the master and owner
of all Egypt, and of every person and thing in it. Priests and
people were alike unable to resist his will, and, though they
cursed Aten and his fanatical devotee, they could not prevent the
confiscation of the revenues of Amen and the abolition of his
services. Not content with this, Amenhetep caused the name of Amen
to be obliterated on the monuments, and in some cases even his
father's name, and the word for "gods" was frequently cut out. Not
only was there to be no Amen, but there were to be no gods; Aten
was the only god that was to be worshipped.

The result of the promulgation of this decree can be easily
imagined. Thebes became filled with the murmurings of all classes
of the followers of Amen, and when the temple of Aten was finished,
and the worship of the new god was inaugurated, these murmurings
were changed to threats and curses, and disputes between the
Amenites and Atenites filled the city. What exactly happened is not
known and never will be known, but the result of the confusion and
uproar was that Amenhetep IV found residence in Thebes impossible,
and he determined to leave it, and to remove the Court elsewhere.
Whether he was driven to take this step through f ear for the
personal safety of himself and his family, or whether he wished
still further to insult and injure Amen and his priesthood, cannot
be said, but the reason that induced him to abandon his capital
city and to destroy its importance as such must have been very
strong and urgent. Having decided to leave Thebes he sought for a
site for his new capital, which he intended to make a City of God,
and found it in the north, at a place which is about 160 miles to
the south of Cairo and 50 miles to the north of Asyut. At this
point the hills on the east bank of the Nile enclose a sort of
plain which is covered with fine yellow sand. The soil was virgin,
and had never been defiled with temples or other buildings
connected with the gods of Egypt whom Amenhetep IV hated, and the
plain itself was eminently suitable for the site of a town, for its
surface was unbroken by hills or reefs of limestone or sandstone.
This plain is nearly three miles from the Nile in its widest part
and is about five miles in length. The plain on the other side of
the river, which extended from the Nile to the western hills, was
very much larger than that on the east bank, and was also included
by the king in the area of his new capital. He set up large stelæ
on the borders of it to mark the limits of the territory of Aten,
and had inscriptions cut upon them stating this fact.

We have already seen that Amenhetep IV had, whenever possible,
caused the name of Amen to be chiselled out from stelæ, statues,
and other monuments, and even from his father's cartouches, whilst
at the same time the name of Amen formed part of his name as the
son of Ra. It was easy to remedy this inconsistency, and he did so
by changing his name from Amenhetep, which means "Amen is content,"
to AAKHUNATEN, [INLINE] a name which by analogy should mean
something like "Aten is content." This meaning has already been
suggested by more than one Egyptologist, but there is still a good
deal to be said for keeping the old translation, "Spirit of Aten."
I transcribe the new name of Amenhetep IV, Aakhunaten, not with any
wish to add another to the many transliterations that have been
proposed for it, but because it represents with considerable
accuracy the hieroglyphs. The Pyramid Texts show that the phonetic
value of [INLINE] was [INLINE] or [INLINE] . The first sign
represents a short vowel, a, e, or i; the second a, like the Hebrew
aleph, the third kh, and the fourth u; therefore the phonetic value
of in Pyramid times was aakh, or aakhu, but in later times the a
was probably dropped, and then the value of [INLINE] would be akh,
as Birch read it sixty years ago. If this were so, the name will be
correctly transliterated by "Akhenaten." How the name was
pronounced we do not know and never shall know, but there is no
good ground for thinking that "Ikhnaton" or "Ikh-en-aton"
represents the correct pronunciation. In passing we may note that
Aten has nothing to do with the Semitic 'adhon, "lord."

At this time Amenhetep IV adopted two titles in connection with his
new name, i.e., "Ankh-em-Maat" and "Aa-em-aha-f," the former
meaning, "Living in Truth" and the latter "great in his life
period." What is meant exactly by "living in truth" is not clear.

[INLINE]

[INLINE]

Thoth, lord of the writing of the god, i.e., hieroglyphs. He was the
of the primeval God, and translated into speech the will of this God.

Maat, the goddess of truth, reality, law, both physical and spiritual,
order, rectitude, uprightness, integrity, etc.

Maat means what is straight, true, real, law, both physical and
moral, the truth, reality, etc. He can hardly have meant "living in
or by the law," for he was a law to himself, but he may have meant
that in Atenism he had found the truth or the "real" thing, and
that all else in religion was a phantom, a sham. Aten lived in
maat, or in truth and reality, and the king, having the essence of
Aten in him, did the same. The exact meaning which Amenhetep IV
attached to the other title, "great in his life-period," is also
not clear. He, as was every Pharaoh who preceded him, was a "son of
Ra," but he did not claim, as they did, to "live like Ra for ever,"
and only asserted that his life-period was great. Amenhetep IV
called his new capital Aakhutaten, i.e., "the Horizon of Aten," and
he and his followers regarded it as the one place in which Aten was
to be found. It was to them the visible symbol of the splendour and
benevolence and love of the god, the sight of it rejoiced the
hearts of all beholders, and its loveliness, they declared, was
beyond compare. It was to them what Babylon was to the Babylonians,
Jerusalem to the Hebrews, and Makkah to the Arabs; to live there
and to behold the king, who was Aten's own son, bathed in the
many-handed, life-giving rays of Aten, was to enjoy a foretaste of
heaven, though none of the writers of the hymns to Aten deign to
tell us what the heaven to which they refer so glibly was like.
Having taken up his a ode in this city, Amenhetep set to work to
organize the cult of Aten, and to promulgate his doctrine, which,
like all writers of moral and religious aphorisms, he called his
"Teaching," Sbait.

Having appointed himself High Priest, he, curiously enough, adopted
the old title of the High Priest of Heliopolis and called himself
"Ur-maa," i.e., the "Great Seer." But he did not at the same time
institute the old semi-magical rites and ceremonies which the
holders of the title in Heliopolis performed.

[INLINE]
Amenhetep IV, accompanied by his queen and family, making offerings
to Aten. He did not hold the office very long, but transferred it
to Merira, one of his loyal followers.

When still a mere boy, probably before he ascended the throne and
rejected his name of Amenhetep, he seems to have dreamed of
building temples to Aten, and so when he took up his residence in
his new city he at once set to work to build a sanctuary for that
god. Among his devoted followers was one Bek, an architect and
master builder, who claims to have been a pupil of the king, and
who was undoubtedly a man of great skill and taste. Him the king
sent to Sun, the Syene of the Greek writers, to obtain stone for
the temple of Aten, and there is reason to think that, when the
building was finished, its walls were most beautifully decorated
with sculptures and pictures painted in bright colours. A second
temple to Aten was built for the Queen-mother Ti, and a third for
the princess Baktenaten, one of her daughters; and we should expect
that one or more temples were built in the western half of the city
across the Nile. With the revenues filched from Amen Aakhunaten
built several temples to Aten in the course of his reign. Thus he
founded Per-gem-Aten in Nubia at a place in the Third Cataract;
Gem-pa-Aten em. Per-Aten at Thebes; Aakhutaten in Southern Anu
(Hermonthis); the House of Aten in Memphis; and Res-Ra-em-Anu. It
will be noticed that no mention is made of Aten in the name of this
last temple of Aten. He also built a temple to Aten in Syria, which
is mentioned on one of the Tall al-'Amarnah tablets in the British
Museum under the form Hi-na-tu-na. [22]4

[INLINE]
Amenhetep IV and his queen and family worshipping Aten.

As the buildings increased in Aakhutaten and the cult of Aten
developed, the king's love for his new city grew, and he devoted
all his time to the worship of his god. Surrounded by his wife and
family and their friends, and his obedient officials, who seem to
have been handsomely rewarded for their devotion, the king had
neither wish nor thought for the welfare of his kingdom, which he
allowed to manage itself.

[INLINE]
Amenhetep IV and his Queen Nefertiti bestowing gold-collars upon
favourite courtiers. Between the king and queen is the princess
Ankh-s-en-pa-Aten, who married Tutankhamen, and behind the queen
are two of her other daughters.

His religion and his domestic happiness filled his life, and the
inclinations and wishes of the ladies of his court had more weight
with him than the counsels and advice of his ablest officials. We
know nothing of the forms and ceremonies of the Aten worship, but
hymns and songs and choruses must have filled the temple daily. And
the stele of Tutankhamen proves (see p. 9) that a considerable
number of dancing men and acrobats were maintained by the king in
connection with the service of Aten. Not only was the king no
warrior, he was not even a lover of the chase. As he had no son to
train in manly sports and to teach the arts of government and war,
for his offspring consisted of seven daughters, [23]5 his officers
must: have wondered how long the state in which they were then
living would last. The life in the City of Aten was no doubt
pleasant enough for the Court and the official classes, for the
king was generous to the officers of his government in the City,
and, like the Pharaohs of old, he gave them when they died tombs in
the hills in which to be buried. The names of many of these
officers are well known, e.g., Merira I, Merira II, Pa-nehsi (the
Negro), Hui, Aahmes, Penthu, Mahu, Api, Rames, Suti,
Nefer-kheperu-her-sekheper, Parennefer, Tutu, Ai, Mai, Ani, etc.
[24]6

[INLINE]
Amenhetep IV and his Queen Nefertiti and some of the daughters
seated with the rays of Aten falling upon them. The queen wears the
disk, horns and plumes of Hathor and Isis. The abnormal development
of the lower part of the body seems to be a characteristic of every
member of the royal family.

The tombs of these men are different from all others of the same
class in Egypt. The walls are decorated with pictures representing
(1) the worship of Aten by the king and his mother; (2) the
bestowal of gifts on officials by the king; (3) the houses, gardens
and estates of the nobles; (4) domestic life, etc. The hieroglyphic
texts on the walls of the tombs contain the names of those buried
in them, the names of the offices which they held under the king,
and fulsome adulation of the king, and of his goodness, generosity
and knowledge. Then there are prayers for funerary offerings, and
also Hymns to Aten. The long Hymn in the tomb of Ai is not by the
king, as was commonly supposed; it is the best of all the texts of
the kind in these tombs, and many extracts from it are found in the
tombs of his fellow officials. A shorter Hymn occurs in some of the
tombs, and of this it is probable that Aakhunaten was the author.
We look in vain for the figures of the old gods of Egypt, Ra,
Horus, Ptah, Osiris, Isis, Anubis, and the cycles of the gods of
the dead and of the Tuat (Underworld), and not a single ancient
text, whether hymn, prayer, spell, incantation, litany, from the
Book of the Dead in any of its Recensions is to be found there. To
the Atenites the tomb was a mere hiding place for the dead body,
not a model of the Tuat, as their ancestors thought. Their royal
leader rejected all the old funerary Liturgies like the "Book of
Opening the Mouth," and the "Liturgy of funerary offerings," and he
treated with silent contempt such works as the "Book of the Two
Ways," the "Book of the Dweller in the Tuat," and the "Book of
Gates." Thus it would appear that he rejected en bloc all funerary
rites and ceremonies, and disapproved of all services of
commemoration of the dead, which were so dear to the hearts of all
Egyptians. The absence of figures of Osiris in the tombs of his
officials and all mention of this god in the inscriptions found in
them suggests that he disbelieved in the Last judgment, and in the
dogma of rewards for the righteous and punishments for evil doers.
If this were so, the Field of Reeds, the Field of the Grasshoppers,
the Field of Offerings in the Elysian Fields, and the Block of
Slaughter with the headsman Shesmu, the five pits of the Tuat, and
the burning of the wicked were all ridiculous fictions to him.

[INLINE]
The four grandsons of Horus the Aged. They were the gods of the
four cardinal points, and later, as the sons of Osiris, protected
the viscera of the dead.

Perhaps they were, but they were ineradicably fixed in the minds of
his subjects, and he gave them nothing to put in the place of these
fictions. The cult of Aten did not satisfy them, as history shows,
for right or wrong, the Egyptian, being of African origin, never
understood or cared for philosophical abstractions. Another
question arises: did the Atenites mummify their dead? It is clear
from the existence of the tombs in the hills about Aakhunaten that
important officials were buried; but what became of the bodies of
the working class folk and the poor? Were they thrown to the
jackals "in the bush"? All this suggests that the Atenites adored
and enjoyed the heat and light which their god poured upon them,
and that they sang and danced and praised his beneficence, and
lived wholly in the present. And they worshipped the triad of life,
beauty and colour. They abolished the conventionality and rigidity
in Egyptian painting and sculptures and introduced new colours into
their designs and crafts, and, freed from the control of the
priesthoods, artists and workmen produced extraordinarily beautiful
results. The love of art went hand in hand with their religion and
was an integral part of it. We may trace its influence in the
funerary objects, even of those who believed in Osiris and were
buried with the ancient rites and ceremonies especially in figures,
vases, etc., made of pottery. Perhaps the brightly coloured
vignettes, which are found in the great rolls of the Book of the
Dead that were produced at this period, were painted by artists who
copied the work of Atenite masters.

Now whilst Aakhunaten was organizing and developing the cult of
Aten, and he and his Court and followers were passing their days
and years in worshipping their god and in beautifying their houses,
what was happening to the rest of Egypt? Tutankhamen tells us that
the revenues of the gods were diverted to the service of Aten, that
the figures of the gods had disappeared from their thrones, that
the temples were deserted, and that the Egyptians generally were
living in a state of social chaos. For the first twelve years; or
so of Aakhunaten's reign the tribute of the Nubians was paid, for
the Viceroy of Nubia had at hand means for making the tribes bring
gold, wood, slaves, etc., to him. In the north of Egypt General
Heremheb, the Commander-in-Chief, managed to maintain his lord's
authority, but there is no doubt, as events showed when he became
king of Egypt, that he was not a wholly sincere worshipper of Aten,
and that his sympathies lay with the priesthoods of Ptah of Memphis
and Ra of Heliopolis.

[INLINE]
Amenhetep IV seated on his portable lion-throne beneath the rays of
Aten; he holds in his hands the old Pharaonic symbols of
sovereignty [INLINE] and dominion [INLINE] .

The Memphites and the Heliopolitans must have resented bitterly the
building of temples to Aten in their cities, and there can be
little doubt that that astute soldier soon came to an understanding
with them. Moreover, he knew better than his king what was
happening in Syria, and how the Khabiru were threatening Phnicia
from the south, and how the Hittites were consolidating their
position in Northern Syria, and increasing their power in all
directions. He, and every one in Egypt who was watching the course
of events, must have been convinced that no power which the king
could employ could stop the spread of the revolt in Western Asia,
and that the rule of the Egyptians there was practically at an end.

When the king as Amenhetep IV ascended the throne, all his father's
friends in Babylonia, Assyria, Mitanni, the lands of the Kheta and
Cyprus hastened to congratulate him, and all were anxious to gain
and keep the friendship of the new king of Egypt. Burraburiyash,
king of Karduniash, hoped that the new king and he would always
exchange presents, and that the old friendship between his country
and Egypt would be maintained. Ashuruballit sent him gifts and
asked for 20 talents of gold in return. Tushratta, king of Mitanni,
addressed him as "my son-in-law," sent greetings to Queen Ti, and
spoke with pride of the old friendship between Mitanni and Egypt.
He also wrote to Queen Ti, and again refers to the old friendship.
But Aakhunaten did not respond in the manner they expected, and
letters sent by them to him later show that the gifts which he sent
were mean and poor. Clearly he lacked the open-handedness and
generosity of his father Amenhetep III. As years went on, the
governors of the towns and cities that were tributaries of Egypt
wrote to the king protesting their devotion, fidelity and loyalty,
many of them referring to favours received and asking for new ones.
Very soon these protestations of loyalty were coupled with requests
for Egyptian soldiers to be sent to protect the king's possessions.

[INLINE]
The rays of Aten giving "life" ☥ to Amenhetep IV whilst he is
bestowing gifts on his favourite courtiers.

Thus one Shuwardata writes: To the king, my lord, my gods and my
Sun. Thus saith Shuwardata, the slave: Seven times and seven times
did I fall down at the feet of the king my lord, both upon my belly
and upon my back. Let the king, my lord, know that I am alone, and
let the king, my lord, send troops in great multitudes, let the
king, my lord, know this. [25]7

The people of Tunip, who were vassals of Thothmes III, wrote and
told the king that Aziru had plundered an Egyptian caravan, and
that if help were not sent Tunip would fall as Ni had already done.
Rib-Adda of Byblos writes: We have no food to eat and my fields
yield no harvest because I cannot sow com. All my villages are in
the hands of the Khabiru. I am shut up like a bird in a cage, and
there is none to deliver me. I have written to the king, but no one
heeds. Why wilt thou not attend to the affairs of thy country? That
"dog," Abd-Ashratum, and the Khabiri have taken Shigata and Ambi
and Simyra. Send soldiers and an able officer. I beseech the king
not to neglect this matter. Why is there no answer to my letters?
Send chariots and I will try to hold out, else in two months' time
Abd-Ashratum will be master of the whole country. Gebal (Byblos)
will fall, and all the country as far as Egypt will be in the hands
of the Khabiri. We have no grain; send grain. I have sent my
possessions to Tyre, and also my sister's daughters for safety. I
have sent my own son to thee, hearken to him. Do as thou wilt with
me, but do not forsake thy city Gebal. In former times when Egypt
neglected our city we paid no tribute; do not thou neglect it. I
have sold my sons and daughters for food and have nothing left.
Thou sayest, "Defend thyself," but how can I do it? When I sent my
son to thee he was kept three months waiting for an audience.
Though my kinsmen urge me to join the rebels, I will not do it.

Abi-Milki of Tyre writes: To the king, my lord, my gods, my Sun.
Thus saith Abi-Milki, thy slave. Seven times and seven times do I
fall down at the feet of the king my lord. I am the dust under the
sandals of the king my lord. My lord is the sun that riseth over
the earth day by day, according to the bidding of the Sun, his
gracious Father. It is he in whose moist breath I live, and at
whose setting I make my moan. He maketh all the lands to dwell in
peace by the might of his hand; he thundereth in the heavens like
the Storm-god, so that the whole earth trembleth at his thunder. .
. . Behold, now, I said to the Sun, the Father of the king my Lord,
When shall I see the face of the king my Lord? And now behold also
I am guarding Tyre, the great city, for the king my lord until the
king's mighty hand shall come forth unto me to give me water to
drink and wood to warm myself withal. Moreover, Zimrida, the king
of Sidon, sendeth word day by day unto the traitor Aziru, the son
of Abd-Ashratum, concerning all that he hath heard from Egypt. Now
behold, I have written unto my lord, for it is well that he should
know this.

In a letter from Lapaya the writer says: If the king were to write
to me for my wife I would not refuse to send her, and if he were to
order me to stab myself with a bronzed dagger I would certainly do
so. Among the writers of the Letters is a lady who reports the
raiding of Ajalon and Sarha by the Khabiri. All the letters tell
the same story of successful revolt on the part of the subjects of
Egypt and the capture and plundering and burning of towns and
villages by the Khabiri, and the robbery of caravans on all the
trade routes. And whilst all this was going on the king of Egypt
remained unmoved and only occupied himself with the cult of his
god! The general testimony of the Tall al-'Amarnah Letters proves
that he took no trouble to maintain the friendly relations that had
existed between the kings of Babylonia and Mitanni and his father.
He seems to have been glad enough to receive embassies and gifts
from Mesopotamia, and to welcome flattering letters full of
expressions of loyalty and devotion to himself, but the gifts which
he sent back did not satisfy his correspondents. He sent little or
no gold to be used in decorating temples in Mesopotamia and for
making figures of gods, and some of the letters seem to afford
instances of double-dealing on the part of the king of Egypt. At
all events, he waged no wars in Mesopotamia, and when one city
after another failed to send tribute he made no attempt to force
them to do so. It is uncertain how much he really knew of what was
happening in Western Asia, but when Tushratta and others sent him
dispatches demanding compensation for attacks made upon their
caravans, when passing through his territory, he must have realized
that the power of Egypt in that country had greatly weakened. As
the years went on he must have known that the Egyptians hated his
god and loathed his rule, and such knowledge must have, more or
less, affected the health of a man of his physique and character.

During the earlier years of his reign painters and sculptors gave
him the conventional form of an Egyptian king, but later he is
represented in an entirely different manner. He had naturally a
long nose and chin and thick, protruding lips, and he was somewhat
round-shouldered, and had a long slim body, and he must have had
some deformity of knees and thighs. On the bas-reliefs and in the
paintings all these physical characteristics are exaggerated, and
the figures of the king are undignified caricatures. [26]8 But
these must have been made with the king's knowledge and approval,
and must be faithful representations of him as he appeared to those
who made them. In other words, they are examples of the realism in
art (which he so strongly inculcated in the sculptors and artists
who claimed to be his pupils) applied to himself. History is silent
as to the last years of his reign, but the facts now known suggest
that, overwhelmed by troubles at home and abroad, and knowing that
he had no son to succeed him, and that he had failed to make the
cult of Aten the national religion, his proud and ardent spirit
collapsed, and with it his health, and that he became a man of
sorrow. Feeling his end to be near, he appointed as co-regent
Sakara tcheser-kheperu, who had married his eldest daughter
Merit-Aten, and died probably soon afterwards. He was buried in a
rock-hewn tomb, which he had prepared in the hills five miles away
on the eastern bank of the Nile instead of in the western hills,
where all the kings of the XVIIIth dynasty were buried. Even in the
matter of the position of his tomb he would not follow the custom
of the country. This tomb was found in 1887-8 by native diggers,
who cut out the cartouches of the king and sold them to travellers.

Under the section dealing with Amenhetep III reference has beep.
made to the series of large steatite scarabs on which this king
commemorated in writing noteworthy events in his life. Up to the
present nothing has been found at Tall al-'Amarnah or in Egypt
which would lead us to suppose that his son Amenhetep IV copied his
example, but a very interesting scarab found at Sadenga in the
Egyptian Sudan [27]9 proves that he did, at least on one occasion.
This scarab is now in the British Museum (No. 51084). On one side
of the body of the scarab is the king's prenomen and on the other
is his nomen. the base, which is mutilated at the sides, are seven
lines of text.

This inscription shows that the scarab was made for Amenhetep IV
before he adopted his new name of Aakhunaten. The last three lines
give names and titles of the king and his queen, and the first four
contain an address or prayer concerning some god. The breaks at the
beginnings and ends of the lines do not permit a connected
translation to be made, but the general meaning of the inscription
is as follows:--

"The king of the South and of the North, Nefer-kheperu-Ra-ua-en-Ra,
giver of life, son of Ra, loving him, Amenhetep, God, Governor of
Thebes, great in the duration of his life, [and] the great royal
wife Nefertiti, living and young, say: Long live the Beautiful God,
the great one of roarings (thunders?) in the great and holy name of
. . . Dweller in the Set Festival like Ta-Thunen, the lord of . . .
the Aten (Disk) in heaven, stablished of face, gracious (or
pleasant) in Anu (On)." This address or prayer seems to have been
made to some Thunder-god, whose name was great and holy: the
ordinary god of the thunder in Egypt was Aapep, who in this
character is called "Hemhem-ti." The mention of Tathunen is
interesting, for he was, of course, one of the "gods" whom
Amenhetep IV at a later period of his life wished to abolish. Can
this inscription represent an attempt to assimilate an indigenous
Sudani Thunder-god with Aten? The writer of one of the Tall
al-'Amarnah Letters quoted above (p. 101) speaks of the Thundering
of Amenhetep IV, and says that when he thunders all the people
quake with fear. From this it seems that some phase of Aten was
associated in the minds of foreigners with the Thunder-god, but
there is no evidence to show who that god was.

The facts known about the life and reign of Aakhunaten seem to me
to prove that from first to last he was a religious fanatic,
intolerant, arrogant and obstinate, but earnest and sincere in his
seeking after God and in his attempts to make Aten the national god
of Egypt. Modern writers describe him as a "reformer," but he
reformed nothing. He tried to force the worship of "Horus of the
Two Horizons in his name of Shu (i.e., Heat) who is in the Aten"
upon his people and failed. When he found that his subjects refused
to accept his personal views about an old, perhaps the oldest,
solar god, whose cult had been dead for centuries, he abandoned the
capital of his great and warlike ancestors in disgust, and like a
spoilt child, which no doubt he was, he withdrew to a new city of
his own making. Like all such religious megalomaniacs, so long as
he could satisfy his own peculiar aspirations and gratify his
wishes, no matter at what cost, he was content. Usually the harm
which such men do is limited in character and extent, but he, being
a king, was able to inflict untold misery on his country during the
seventeen years of his reign. He spent the revenues of his country
on the cult of his god, and in satisfying his craving for beauty in
shape and form, and for ecstatic religious emotion; Though lavish
in the rewards in good gold and silver to all those who ministered
to this craving, he was mean and niggardly when it came to spending
money for the benefit of his country. The Tall al-'Amarnah Letters
make this fact quite clear. The peoples of Western Asia might think
and say that the King of Egypt had "turned Fakir," but there was
little asceticism in his life. His boast of "living in reality," or
"living in truth," which suggests that he lived a perfectly natural
and simple life, seeing things as they really were, on the face of
it seems to be ludicrous. Aakhunaten had much in common with Hakim,
the Fatimid Khalifah of Egypt (A.D. 996-1021). Each was the son of
a wealthy, pleasure-loving, luxurious father, and each succeeded to
the throne when he was a boy. Each had a strange face, each was
moved to break with tradition and introduce new ideas, but the
spirit in which each made changes was that of a mad reformer.
Christians and Jews were to Al-Hakim what the Amenites were to
Aakhunaten. Both king and Khalifah were pious in an intolerant and
arrogant fashion, and each was a builder of places for worship.
Each thought that he was the incarnation of God, and each usurped
the attributes of the Deity, and prescribed rules for worship. Each
was a patron of the arts, but there is no evidence that the Pharaoh
encouraged learned men to flock to his Court as did the Khalifah.
Al-Hakim frequently had his enemies murdered, and in his fits of
rage had people killed wholesale. Though we have no knowledge that
such atrocities were committed at Aakhutaten, yet it would be rash
to assume that persons who incurred the king's displeasure in a
serious degree were not removed by the methods that have been well
known at Oriental Courts from time immemorial.

Aakhunaten was succeeded by his co-regent Sakara, whose reign was
probably very short and unimportant. He was the son-in-law of the
king and a devoted worshipper of Aten, whose cult he wished to make
permanent. Nothing is known of his acts or whether deposition or
death removed him from the throne. He was succeeded by Tutankhamen,
whose reign has been already described. The short reign of Ai, who
had married the nurse of Amenhetep IV, and was Master of the Horse,
followed, and he was succeeded by Her-em-heb, a military officer
who served in the north of Egypt during the reign of Aakhunaten.
The restoration of the cult of Amen begun by Tutankhamen was
finally confirmed by him, and the triumph of Amen was complete. The
immediate result of this was the decline and fall of the cult of
Aten, and the city "Horizon of Aten" lost all its importance and
fell into decay. The artisan classes, finding no work, migrated to
Thebes and other places where they could ply their crafts in the
service of Amen, and many of the Atenites abandoned their god and
transferred their worship to Amen. It is probable that the temples
and houses of the officials were plundered by the mob, who treated
them in the way that the property of an overthrown religious
faction has always been treated in the East. The forsaken city soon
fell into ruins and was never rebuilt or again inhabited. A liberal
estimate for the life of the city is 50 years.

The remains of Aakhutaten are marked to-day by the ruins and
rock-hewn tombs which lie near the Arab villages of Hagg Kandil and
At-Tall, and are commonly known as "Tall al-'Amarnah." In 1887 this
name was in common use among the Egyptians of Upper Egypt, and I
asked Mustafa Agha, H.B.M.'s Vice-Consul at Luxor, to explain it.
He said that the Bani 'Amran Arabs settled at At-Tall (ordinarily
pronounced At-Tell, or even At-Till), and that for many years the
Village was known as "Tall Bani 'Amran." When most of the Bani
'Amran left the place and returned to the desert, the village was
called "Tall al-'Amarnah" (pronounced Tellel-'Amarnah). The site,
which is a very large one, needs careful excavation from one end to
the other, for only here can possibly be found material for the
real history of Amenhetep IV and his reign. The discoveries already
made there prove this, for over three hundred Letters and
Despatches written in cuneiform from kings and governors in Western
Asia were found on the site by a woman in 1887, [28]10 and she sold
them to a neighbour for 10 piastres (2s.). As a result of the
woman's discovery Petrie made excavations at Tall al-'Amarnah and
succeeded in finding several small fragments and chips of lists of
signs and words, etc., and some beautifully painted pavements.
[29]11 The Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft began to excavate there in
1913, and in the year following they discovered a number of very
important objects, among which may be specially mentioned a
cuneiform tablet and a marvellously beautiful head of Queen
Nefertiti, which is now in the Museum at Berlin. This head is the
finest example known of the painted sculpture work from Tall
al-'Amarnah, and should have been kept in Egypt and placed in the
Egyptian Museum at Cairo. This oversight on the part of the
officials of the Cairo Museum seems to require an explanation.
Among the cuneiform fragments discovered by the German excavators
at Tall al-'Amarnah in 1913 was one which was inscribed with a
legend describing the expedition of Sargon of Akkad to Asia Minor.
The original text of the legend of the "King of the Battle" is
published by Schroeder in Vorderasiatische Schriftdenkmäler, xii,
pp. 2-4, and it has been translated by Weidner under the title of
Der Zug Sargons von Akkad nach Kleinasien.

In the winter of 1920-21 the Egypt Exploration Society sent out an
expedition to Tall al-'Amarnah, under the direction of Prof. T. E.
Peet, to carry on the work of excavation from the point where the
Germans left it in 1914. During the course of the work a
considerable number of very interesting objects were found,
including a fragment of a cuneiform tablet, inscribed with a list
of signs, and some fine examples of variegated glass vessels and
pottery. The data he collected [30]12 answered a number of
questions and settled some difficulties, and the Society determined
to continue their excavation of the site. In 1922 Mr. Woolley
succeeded Prof. Peet as Director of the Expedition, and continued
the work as long as funds permitted. The discovery made by Lord
Carnarvon and Mr. Howard Carter in December, 1922, has stirred up
public interest in all that concerns the reigns of Tutankhamen and
his predecessor Amenhetep IV, the notorious "Heretic King." It is
more necessary now than ever that excavations should be carried on
until the ruins at Tall al-'Amarnah have been thoroughly cleared
and examined. In order to do this the Egypt Exploration Society
must be liberally supported, and everyone who is interested in the
History and Religion of the ancient Egyptians should subscribe to
this work. Like everything else, the cost of excavating sites has
increased in recent years, and subscriptions to the Society have
not increased in proportion to the expenses. The President of the
Society is the Right Hon. General J. Grenfell Maxwell, G.C.B., who
is himself an ardent collector of Egyptian antiquities, and the
Hon. Secretary is Dr. H. R. Hall, Deputy Keeper of the Department
of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum. The
excavations and other operations of the Society are conducted with
strict regard to efficient economy, and all the objects obtained
from the excavations are distributed gratis among Museums.

HYMNS TO ATEN.

The first Hymn (A) is put into the mouth of Aakhunaten, and is
known as the "Shorter Hymn to Aten." Several copies of it have been
found in the tombs at Tall al-'Amarnah. Texts of it have been
published by Bouriant, Daressy, Piehl and others, but the most
correct version is that copied from the tomb of Api and published
by Mr. N. de G. Davies. [31]13 The second Hymn (B) is found in the
tomb of Ai, and is known as the "Longer Hymn to Aten." The text was
first published by Bouriant in Mission Archéologique, tom. I, p. 2,
but badly, and he revised it in his Monuments du Culte d'Atonou,
I., pl. xvi. A good text with a Latin translation was published by
Breasted in his De Hymnis in Solem sub rege Amenophide IV
conceptis, Berlin, 1894, and English versions of most of it were
given by him in his History of Egypt, p. 315, and in other
publications. Other versions and extracts have been published by
Griffith, World's Literature, p. 5225; Wiedemann, Religion, pp.
40-42; Hall, Ancient History, p. 306; Erman, Religion, p. 64, etc.
The best text yet published is that of Davies [32]14 and that, with
a few trivial alterations, is reproduced in the following pages. In
recent years this Hymn has been extolled as a marvellously
beautiful religious composition, and parts of it have been compared
with some of the Hebrew Psalms. In consequence it has been regarded
as an expression of sublime human aspirations, and the outcome of a
firm belief in a God who was a counterpart of the Yahweh of the
Hebrews and identical with God Almighty. But if we examine the
Hymn., line by line, and compare it with the Hymns to Ra, Amen and
other gods, we find that there is hardly an idea in it which is not
borrowed from the older Egyptian religious books. Aten is called
the eternal, almighty, self-produced, living, or self-subsisting,
creator of heaven and earth and all that is in them, and "one god
alone." His heat and light are the sources of all life and only for
these and the material benefits that they confer on man and beast
is Aten praised in these hymns. There is nothing spiritual in them,
nothing to appeal to man's higher nature. The language in which
they are written is simple and clear, but there is nothing
remarkable about the phraseology, unless the statements are
dogmatic declarations like the articles of a creed. A very
interesting characteristic of the hymns to Aten is the writer's
insistence on the beauty and power of light, and it may be
permitted to wonder if this is not due to Mitannian influence, and
the penetration into Egypt of Aryan ideas concerning Mitra, Varuna,
and Surya or Savitri, the Sun-god. Aten, or Horus of the Two
Horizons, corresponds closely to Surya, the rising and setting sun,
Ra to Savitri, the sun shining in full strength, "the golden-eyed,
the golden-handed, and golden tongued." "As the Vivifier and
Quickener, he raises his long arms of gold in the morning, rouses
all beings from their slumber, infuses energy into them, and buries
them in sleep in the evening." [33]15 Surya, the rising and setting
sun, like Aten, was the great source of light and heat, and
therefore Lord of life itself. He is the Dyaus Pitar, the
"Heaven-Father." Aten, like Surya, was the "fountain of living
Light," [34]16, with the all-seeing, eye, whose beams revealed his
presence, and "gleaming like brilliant flames " [35]17 went to
nation after nation. Aten was not only the light of the sun which
seems to give new life to man and to ail creation, but the giver of
light and all life in general. The bringer of light and life
to-day, he is the same who brought light and life on the first of
days, therefore Aten is eternal. Light begins the day, so it was
the beginning of creation; therefore Aten is the creator, neither
made with hands nor begotten, and is the Governor of the world. The
earth was fertilized by Aten, therefore he is the Father-Mother of
all creatures. His eye saw everything and knew everything. The
hymns to Aten suggest that Amenhetep IV and his followers conceived
an image of him in their minds and worshipped him inwardly. But the
abstract conception of thinking was wholly inconceivable to the
average Egyptian, who only understood things in a concrete form. It
was probably some conception of this kind that made the cult of
Aten so unpopular with the Egyptians, and caused its downfall.
Aten, like Varuna, possessed a mysterious presence, a mysterious
power, and a mysterious knowledge. He made the sun to shine, the
winds were his breath, he made the sea, and caused the rivers to
flow. He was omniscient, and though he lived remote in the heavens
he was everywhere present on earth. And a passage in the Rig-Veda
would form an admirable description of him.

Light-giving Varuna! Thy piercing glance doth scan
In quick succession all this stirring active world.
And penetrateth, too, the broad ethereal space,
Measuring our days and nights and spying out all creatures. [36]18

But Varuna possessed one attribute, which, so far as we know, was
wanting in Aten; he spied out sin and judged the sinner. The early
Aryan prayed to him, saying, "Be gracious, O Mighty God, be
gracious. I have sinned through want of power; be gracious. What
great sin is it, Varuna, for which thou seekest in thy worshipper
and friend? Tell me, O unassailable and self-dependent god; and,
freed from sin, I shall speedily come to thee for adoration."
[37]19

And Varuna was a constant witness of men's truth and falsehood. The
early Aryan also prayed to Surya, and addressed to him the Gayatri,
a formula which is the mother of the Vedas and of the Brahmans. He
said to the god, "May we attain the excellent glory of the divine
Vivifier: so may he enlighten or stimulate our understanding." The
words secured salvation for a man. [38]20 No consciousness of sin
is expressed in any Aten text now known, and the Hymns to Aten
contain no petition for spiritual enlightenment, understanding or
wisdom. For what then did the follower of Aten pray? An answer to
this question is given in the Teaching of Amenemapt, the son of
Kanekht, who says:--

"Make the prayer which is due from thee to the Aten, when he is
rising,
Say, Grant to me, I beseech, strength [and] health.
He will give thy provision for the life.
And thou shalt be safe from that which would terrify [thee]."
[39]21
______________________________________________________________

Footnotes

1 See Davis, The Tomb of Queen Tiyi, London, 1910.

2 Ancient History of the Near East, p. 298.

3 The object of this festival seems to have been to prolong the
life of the king, who dressed himself as Osiris, and assumed the
attributes of Osiris, and by means of the rites and ceremonies
performed became absorbed into the god. In this way the king
renewed his life and divinity.

4 Babylonian Room, Table-Case F. No. 72 (29855).

5 The names of the seven daughters of Aakhunaten were 1.
Aten-merit, 2. Maket-Aten, 3. Ankh-s-en-pa-Aten, 4.
Nefer-neferu-Aten the little, 5. Nefer-neferu-Ra, 6. Setep-en-Ra,
7. Bakt-Aten. The first daughter married her father's co-regent,
Sakara. The second died young and was buried in a tomb in the
eastern hills. The third married Tutankhaten (Amen).

6 The tombs of all these have been admirably published by Davies,
The Rock Tombs of El-Amarna. Six vols. London, 1903-08.

7 All these letters and reports are written in cuneiform upon clay
tablets, of which over three hundred were found by a native woman
at Tall al-'Amarnah in 1887-8. Summaries of the contents of those
in the British Museum were published by Bezold and Budge in Tell
el-Amarna Tablets, London, 1892, and by Bezold in Oriental
Diplomacy, London, 1893. The texts of all the letters in London,
Berlin, and Cairo were published, together with a German
translation of them, by Winckler; another German translation was
published by Knudtzon. The texts, with translations by
Thureau-Dangin, of the six letters acquired by the Louvre in 1918,
are published in Revue d'Assyriologie, Vol. XIX, Paris, 1921. Three
of the letters are from Palestinian governors and two from Syrian
chiefs; the third is by the King of Egypt and is addressed to
Intaruda, governor of Aksaph.

8 Some interesting remarks by Dr. H. Asselbergs on the old and new
style of bas-relief work in the reign of Amenhetep IV, with a
photographic reproduction of a block published by Prisse in his
Monuments, plate 10, No. 1, will be found in Aegyptische
Zeitschrift, Band 58 (1923), P. 36 ff.

9 It was first Published by Hall, Catalogue of Scarabs, p. 302.

10 This discovery has been attributed to Petrie by Mr. Garvin in
the Observer, February 25, 1923. I have told the true story of the
"find" in my Nile and Tigris, Vol. I, p. 140 ff.

11 He dug there from November, 1891, to the end of March, 1892. See
his Tell el Amarna, London, 1894, 4to.

12 See his preliminary Report in the Journal of Egyptian
Archæology, Vol. VII (1921), p. 169 ff.

13 For the published literature see his Rock Tombs, Vol. IV, p. 28.

14 Ibid., Vol. VI, pl. xxvii.

15 Wilkins, Hindu Mythology, p. 33.

16 See Martin, Gods of India, p. 35.

17 Monier-Williams, Indian Wisdom, p. 19.

18 Monier-Williams' translation.

19 Rig-Veda, VII, 86, 3-6.

20 Martin, The Gods of India, p. 39.

21 Hieratic Papyri in the British Museum, ed. Budge, 2nd Series,
London, 1923, pl. 5.