6. THE FIRST YEARS OF AKHNATON’S REIGN.
In a subsequent chapter it will be the writer’s purpose to show to what heights of ideal thought, and to what profundities of religious and moral philosophy, this boy, in the years of his early manhood, attained; and it will but enhance our respect for his abilities when he reached maturity, if we find in his early training all manner of shortcomings. The beautiful doctrines of the religion with which this Pharaoh’s name is identified were productions of his later days; and until he was at least seventeen years of age neither his exalted monotheism nor any of his future principles were really apparent. Some time after the eighth year of his reign one finds that he had evolved a religion so pure that one must compare it with Christianity in order to discover its faults; and the reader will presently see that this superb theology was not derived from his education.
One of the first acts of the king’s reign, undertaken at the desire of Queen Tiy or of the royal advisers, was the erection of a temple to Ra-Horakhti Aton at Karnak.[25] This was in no way an insult to Amon, for Thothmes III. and other Pharaohs had dedicated temples at Karnak to gods other than Amon. The priesthood of Amon-Ra recognised the existence of the many deities of Egypt, and gave them their place in the constitution of heaven, reserving for their own god the title of “King of the Gods.” There was a temple of Ptah here; there were shrines set apart for the worship of Min; and other gods, unconnected with Amon, were here accommodated. The priests of Amon-Ra thus could not offer any serious objection to the project. The building[26] was to be constructed of sandstone, and therefore various officials were dispatched to the great quarries of Gebel Silsileh, which lie on the river between Edfu and Kom Ombo, and to those near Esneh. Large tablets were there carved upon the cliffs towards the close of the work, and on them the figure of the Pharaoh was represented worshipping Amon, who was thus still the state god. Above the king’s figure, however, the disk of the sun is seen, and from it a number of lines, representing rays, project downwards towards the royal figure. These rays terminate in hands, which thus seem to be distributing the “Heat-which-is-in-Aton” around the Pharaoh. This is the first representation of the afterwards famous symbol of the religion of Aton, and it is significant that it should make its début in a scene representing the worship of Amon.
The king is called the High Priest of Ra-Horakhti; but the title “Living in truth,” which he took to himself in later years, and which had reference to the religion of Aton which he was soon to evolve, does not yet appear.
A large number of fragments from this shrine have been discovered, and on these one sees references to the gods Horus, Set, Wepwat, and others. The king is still called by the name Amonhotep, which was later banned, and the names of Aton, afterwards always written within the royal ovals or cartouches, are still lacking in that distinction. The temple was called “Aton-is-found-in-the-House-of-Aton,” a curious name of which the meaning is not clear.[27] A certain official named Hataay was “Scribe and Overseer of the Granary of the House of the Aton,” by which this temple is probably meant; and in the tomb of Rames a reference is made to the building by its full name, and a picture of it is given, but otherwise one knows little about it. The rapidity with which it was desired to be set up is shown by the fact that the great, well-trimmed blocks of stone usually employed in the construction of sacred buildings were largely dispensed with, and only small easily-handled blocks were used. The imperfections in the building were then hidden by a judicious use of plaster and cement, and thus the walls were smoothed for the reception of the reliefs. The quarter in which the temple stood was now called “Brightness of Aton the Great,” and Thebes received the new name of “City of the Brightness of Aton.”
There are two other monuments which date from these early years of the king’s reign: both are tombs of great nobles. At this period one of the greatest personages in the land was the above-mentioned Rames, the Vizir of Upper Egypt. This official was now engaged in constructing and decorating a magnificent sepulchre for himself in the Theban necropolis. In the great hall of this tomb the artists were busy preparing the beautiful sculptures and paintings which were to cover the walls, and ere half their work was finished they set themselves to the making of a fine figure of Amonhotep IV. seated upon his throne, with the goddess Maat standing behind him. The scene was probably executed a few months before the making of the tablets at the quarries. The sun’s rays do not appear, and the work was carried out strictly according to the canons of art obtaining during the last years of Amonhotep III. and the first of his son. But hardly had the figures been finished before the order came that the Aton rays had to be included, and certain changes in the art had to be recognised; and therefore the artists set to work upon another figure of the king standing under these many-handed beams of “heat,” and now accompanied by his, as yet, childless wife. The two scenes may be seen by visitors to Thebes standing side by side, and nowhere may the contrast between the old order of things and the new be so clearly observed.
While Rames was providing a tomb for himself at Thebes, another great noble named Horemheb, who ultimately usurped the throne, was constructing his sepulchre at Sakkârah, the Memphite necropolis near Cairo. Horemheb was commander-in-chief of the army, and in his tomb some superb reliefs are carved showing him receiving rewards in that capacity from the king. Some of the scenes represent the arrival of Asiatic refugees in Egypt, who ask to be allowed to take up their abode on the banks of the Nile, and the figures of these foreigners rank amongst the finest specimens of Egyptian art. In the inscriptions, Horemheb, who is supposed to be addressing the king, states that the Pharaoh owes his throne to Amon,[28] but yet we see that the figure of the king is drawn in that style of art which is typical of the new religion.[29]