History tells us only that, simultaneously with the fall of his empire, Akhnaton died; and the doctors who have examined his body report that death may well have been due to some form of stroke or fit. But in the imagination there seems to ring across the years a cry of complete despair, and one can picture the emaciated figure of this “beautiful child of the Aton” fall forward upon the painted palace-floor and lie still amidst the red poppies and the dainty butterflies there depicted.
[VIII.]
THE FALL OF THE RELIGION OF AKHNATON.
“Thus disappeared the most remarkable figure in early Oriental history.... There died with him such a spirit as the world had never seen before.”—Breasted: ‘History of Egypt.’
1. THE BURIAL OF AKHNATON.
The body of Akhnaton was embalmed in the city which he had founded; and while these mortal parts of the great idealist were undergoing the lengthy process of mummification, the new Pharaoh Smenkhkara made a feeble attempt to retain the spirit of his predecessor in the new régime. Practically nothing is known of his brief reign, but it is apparent from subsequent events that he entirely failed to carry on the work of Akhnaton, and the period of his sovereignty is marked by a general tendency to abandon the religion of the Aton. Smenkhkara had dated the first year of his reign from the day of his accession as co-ruler with Akhnaton, and thus it is that there are no inscriptions found which record his first year, although there are many references to his second year. The main event must have occurred some three months after the commencement of his sole reign, when the body of Akhnaton was carried in solemn state through the streets of the city and across the desert to the tomb which had been made for him in the distant cliffs.
