oppressed drifts by. But at the name Akhnaton there emerges from the darkness a figure more clear than that of any other Pharaoh; and for once we may look right into the mind of a king of Egypt and see something of its workings. Prof. Breasted, with some justice, has called Akhnaton the first individual in human history'; and the reader who wishes to acquaint himself with this personage cannot do better than read the chapter in that author's new volume which deals with this period. Recent discoveries, however, have rendered it necessary to modify some of the statements therein made. The body of Akhnaton was discovered in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings during the excavations undertaken there by Mr Theodore M. Davis in 1907; and, to the surprise of many, the revolutionary Pharaoh proved to have been a man of not more than twenty-eight years of age. So unexpected and surprising, in fact, was this discovery, that some savants have questioned the identification. There can, however, be no doubt that this wonderful Pharaoh's actual bones have been discovered; and since, in all Egyptological study, there never has been, and probably never will be, a subject of such intellectual interest as this religious revolution, which marks the first point in the study of advanced human thought, general attention should be directed towards the discovery.

A group of faithful nobles accompanied the king to his new capital; and it is from the walls of their tombs there that we learn so much concerning the Aton religion. We see in these representations how Akhnaton built temples to the sun, erected palaces and villas, laid out splendid gardens, and planned wide avenues. We see how he changed the style of the art until it could hardly be recognised as Egyptian. The old artistic conventions had been so bound up with the old religions that Akhnaton felt it necessary to break down the one with the other, though whether he himself devised the new canons or not cannot be said. It is significant that one of the few known artists of the period calls himself the Superintendent of the Artists of Queen Thiy. In the inscriptions upon these walls are to be read hymns and poems quite un-Egyptian in style; and the changed form of the literature is attributed by the flattering nobles to the genius of Akhnaton himself. The great hymn to the

sun which is here to be seen is in parts so like Psalm civ as to make it probable that both Akhnaton and the biblical psalmist drew from some ancient Syrian source. 'How manifold are all thy works! they are hidden from before us, O thou sole god, whose powers no other possesseth; thou didst create the earth according to thy desire.' These are words which remind one at once of Psalm civ, 24. Parallel quotations from the two hymns will further show their similarity:

AKHNATON'S HYMN.

'When thou settest... the world is in darkness like the dead. . . . Every lion cometh forth from his den; all serpents sting.

Bright is the earth when thou risest . . . the darkness is banished. The (people of) Egypt . . . awake and stand upon their feet... then in all the world they do their work.

The ships sail up and down the river . . . the fish leap up before thee, and thy rays are in the midst of the great sea.'

On the walls of these tombs we see how, in the midst of flowers and fair scenes, the king evolved a religion which in pureness of tone had not at the time its equal in the world. It was a return to nature; and it is amazing to read in pompous Egypt of a god-nay, one may write the word 'God'-who listens when the chicken crieth in the egg-shell,' and gives him life, delighted that he should chirp with all his might and run about upon his two legs when he hath come forth therefrom'; who creates the child in woman and soothes him that he may not weep'; who finds pleasure in causing the birds to flutter in their marshes, and the sheep to dance upon their feet.'

6

'A new spirit' (writes Prof. Breasted) has breathed upon dry bones of traditionalism in Egypt; and he who reads

the

these lines for the first time must be moved with involuntary admiration for the young king who in such an age found such thoughts in his heart. He grasped the idea of a world-dominator, the creator of nature, in which the king saw revealed the creator's beneficent purpose for all his creatures, even the meanest; for the birds fluttering about in the lily-grown Nile marshes to him seemed to be uplifting their wings in adoration of their creator; and even the fish in the stream leaped up in praise to God. It is his voice that summons the blossoms and nourishes the chicklet or commands the mighty deluge of the Nile. He called Aton "The father and the mother of all that he made"; and he saw in some degree the goodness of that All-father, as did He who bade us consider the lilies.' (History,' p. 376.)

Prof. Petrie's excavations at Tell-el-Amarna, many years ago, first brought the subject of the religious revolution before the reading public; Mr N. de G. Davies has published for the Egypt Exploration Fund five large volumes in which he has faithfully reproduced the reliefs and hieroglyphs in this series of tombs, and, with Mr F. L. Griffith, has translated the inscriptions; and at the same time Prof. Breasted, in his History of Egypt' and his Egyptian Records,' has set forth most of the material in an accessible form. Thus the reader now has before him the means of studying the period, at a time when the discovery of the king's body has made such a study of peculiar interest; for no Egyptologist has yet interpreted the history of the movement in the light shed upon it by the newly ascertained age of the Pharaoh.

At the height of the revolution Akhnaton must have been but twenty years of age; and it seems clear that Queen Thiy, then under sixty, must have been his adviser. The queen died shortly after this and was buried in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, at Thebes, a few paces from the spot at which her mother and father lay. The restraint of her influence being removed, Akhnaton's character became more fanatical. He ruthlessly persecuted the worshippers of Amen, and actually erased that god's name wherever it occurred throughout the length and breadth of Egypt, not sparing even the Amen in his father's name, Amenhotep. He erased it on temple walls, and on statues and small objects; and Queen Thiy's tomb was entered in order that the name might be cut out of

the inscriptions upon her sarcophagus. Shutting himself up in his new city, he preached his enlightened religion and sang his rolling psalms to the sun, without thought for aught else. His empire fell to pieces rapidly; and it is pathetic to read the unanswered demands for reinforcements which his generals in Asia sent to him, and which were pigeon-holed so effectually that they were only found a few years ago. One by one the cities of Syria fell into other hands; but Akhnaton, believing that war was a thing hated of God, would give no help to the garrisons. He had dreamed that the Aton religion would bind the nations together; and now, while revolt followed revolt, he still believed that the Truth,' as he called his religion, would triumph. But the world was not ready, and still is not ready, for the promulgation of the doctrine of peace; and the price of enlightenment was paid by Akhnaton in the utter wreck of his empire.

After a reign of seventeen years, when he was but twenty-eight years of age, this remarkable man died, from the effects, it would seem, of water on the brain. He was buried at Tell-el-Amarna in the tomb which had been prepared for him there. He was succeeded by his son-in-law, Smenkhkara, who, after a year or so, gave place to another son-in-law, Tutankhamen. In this king's reign the court abandoned the Aton capital and returned to Thebes. Akhnaton's body was carried to Thebes and was laid in the tomb of his mother, Queen Thiy, in the royal valley. No other tomb was available there; and it was doubtless felt right that he should rest with his mother, whom he had loved so much. At this time the religion of Aton was still dominant; but the priests of Amen were now regaining ground, and many years had not passed before Akhnaton came to be regarded as a heretic. With the fall of Aton the priesthood of Amen once more became paramount; and its first act was to enter the sepulchre of Akhnaton and to erase his name from his body and coffin. Queen Thiy's mummy, lest it should be contaminated, was carried away, and is now lost. An attempt was also made to remove her sarcophagus, but the work was abandoned, and one side of it was found lying in the passage when Mr Davis entered the tomb. Mr Davis's publication must not be anticipated here by a description of the 'find';

suffice it to say that the king's body lay, wrapped in sheets of pure gold, in a sarcophagus inscribed with his favourite appellation, 'The beautiful child of Aton,' his other titles and his (erased) name. His skull plainly showed the disease from which he suffered, and as plainly displayed the characteristic pointed jaw and elongated head with which we are familiar in his portraits.

Such was the religious revolution of Akhnaton, as interpreted in the light of the most recent discoveries. The importance of the subject justifies us in noticing the controversy, now engaging the attention of Egyptologists, as to whether the body found by Mr Davis is really that of this wonderful Pharaoh or not.

The objection raised by several Egyptologists, whose opinions are worthy of consideration, is that the body is too young to have been that of Akhnaton. It is known that the king had a daughter in the fourth year of his reign, and two in the sixth year; and, if he died when he was twenty-eight years of age, he must have been a father at fifteen. Prof. Maspero considers that this renders the identification highly improbable; and Prof. Petrie, Prof. Sayce, and Mr N. de G. Davies, regard it as a difficulty. Those, however, who regard the identification as more or less certain, contend that the evidence is all in favour of the early marriage of the king. Dr Elliot Smith believes that the body of Thothmes IV, who reigned eight years, cannot be much over twenty-six or twenty-seven years of age. We know, however, that his son, Amenhotep III, was able to hunt lions in the first year of his reign, and that he was married to Queen Thiy before the second year. Dr Elliot Smith also thinks that the mummy of Amenhotep III is that of a man under fifty years of age. It seems, therefore, that both of these Pharaohs were married when they were about thirteen years of age; and thus it is probable that Akhnaton also was married very young. Of Akhnaton's daughters, the eldest, born in the fourth year, was married to Smenkhkara when she was twelve; another was married to Tutankhamen when she was about that age. Such early marriages are still, or were until lately, quite usual in Egypt. The present writer is acquainted with a certain Egyptian peasant who is well under eighteen years of age, and has a four-year-old son; and many other