3. THE GREAT TEMPLE OF ATON.
The City of the Horizon of Aton must now have been a very city of temples. There were these shrines dedicated to the king’s ancestors; there was the temple of Queen Tiy; there was a shrine for the use of Baketaton, the king’s sister; there was the “House of putting the Aton to Rest,” where Queen Nefertiti officiated; and there was the great temple of Aton, in which probably were included other of the buildings named in the inscriptions. The great temple may here be briefly described, as the reader has so far made the acquaintance only of the building belonging to Queen Tiy.
The temple was entirely surrounded by a high wall, and in this respect was not unlike the existing temple of Edfu, which the visitor to Egypt will assuredly have seen. Inside the area thus enclosed there were two buildings, the one behind the other, standing clear of the walls, thus leaving a wide ambulatory around them. Upon passing through the gates of the enclosing wall there was seen before one the façade of the first of the two temples, while to right and left there stood a small lodge or vestry. The façade of the temple was most imposing. Two great pylons towered up before one, rising from behind a pillared portico, and between them stood the gateway with its swinging doors. Up the face of each pylon shot five tall masts, piercing the blue sky above, and from the heads of each there fluttered a crimson pennant. Passing through the gateway one entered an open court, in the midst of which stood the high altar, up to which a flight of steps ascended. On either side of this sun-bathed enclosure stood a series of small chapels or chambers; while in front of one, in the axial line, there was another gateway leading on into the second court, from which one passed again into a third court. Passing through yet another gateway, a fourth division of the temple was reached, this being a pillared gallery or colonnade where one might rest for a while in the cool shadow. Then onwards through another gateway into the fifth court, crossing which one entered the sixth court, where stood another altar in the full sunshine. A series of some twenty little chambers passed around the sides of this court, and looking into the darkness beyond each of their doorways one might discern the simple tables and stands with which the rooms were furnished. A final gateway now led one into the seventh and last court, where again there was an altar, and again a series of chambers surrounded the open space.
Behind this main temple, and quite separate from it though standing within the one enclosure, stood the lesser temple, which was probably the more sacred of the two. It was fronted by a pillared portico, and before each column stood a statue of Akhnaton, beside which was a smaller figure of his wife or one of his daughters. Passing through the gateway, which was so designed that nothing beyond could be seen, one entered an open court in which stood the altar, and around the sides of which were small chambers. Here the temple ended, save for a few chambers of uncertain use, approached from the ambulatory.
Both buildings were gay with colours, and at festivals there were numerous stands heaped high with flowers and other offerings, while red ribbons added their notes of brilliant colour on all sides. There was nothing gloomy or sombre in this temple of Aton; and it contrasts strikingly with the buildings in which Amon was worshipped. There vast halls were lit by minute windows, and a dim uncertainty hovered around the worshipper. Such temples lent themselves to mystery, and amidst their gloomy shadows many a supplicant’s heart beat in terror. Dark stairways led to subterranean passages, and these passages to black chambers built in the thickness of the wall, from whence the hollow voice of the priest throbbed as from mid-air upon the ears of the crouching congregation. But in Akhnaton’s temple each court was open to the full blaze of the sunlight.[69] There was, there could be, no mystery; nor could there be any terror of darkness to loosen the knees of the worshipper. Akhnaton, true scientist that he was, had no sympathy for the occult and no interest in spiritualism. Boldly he looked to God as a child to its father; and having solved what he deemed to be the riddle of life, there was no place in his mind for aught but an open, fearless adoration of the Creator of that vital energy which he saw in all things. Akhnaton was the sworn enemy of the table-turners of his day, and the tricks of priestcraft, the stage effects of religiosity, were anathema to his pure mind.