Probably they would have taken stronger measures to resist this foreign god had it not been for the fact that Atum of Heliopolis, an ancient god of Egypt, was on the one hand closely akin to Ra, the associated deity with Amon, and on the other hand to Aton of Syria. Thus Aton might be regarded merely as another name for Ra or Amon-Ra; but the danger to the old régime lay in the fact that with the worship of Aton there went a certain amount of freethought. The sun and its warm rays were the heritage of all mankind; and the speculative mind of the Asiatic, always in advance of the less imaginative Egyptian, had not failed to collect to the Aton-worship a number of semi-philosophical teachings far broader than the strict doctrines of Amon-Ra could tolerate.
| [Photo by E. Brugsch Pasha. |
| Toilet-spoons of carved wood, discovered in tombs of the Eighteenth
Dynasty. That on the right has a movable lid.—Cairo Museum. |
| Pl. xix. |
There is much reason to suppose that Queen Tiy was the prime factor in the new movement. It may, perhaps, be worth noting that her father was a priest of the Egyptian god Min, who corresponded to the North Syrian Aton in his capacity as a god of vegetation; and she may have imbibed something of the broader doctrines from him. It is the barge upon her pleasure-lake which is called Aton-gleams, and it is her private artist who is responsible for one of the first examples of the new style of art which begins to appear at this period. Egyptian art was bound down by conventions jealously guarded by the priesthood, and the slight tendency to break away from these, which now becomes apparent, is another sign of the broadening of thought under the reign of Amenhotep III. and Tiy.
King Amenhotep III. does not seem to have been a man of strong character, and in the changes which took place at this time he does not appear to have taken so very large a part. He always showed the most profound respect for, and devotion to, his Queen; and one is inclined to regard him as a tool in her hands. According to some accounts he reigned only thirty years, but there are contemporary monuments dated in his thirty-sixth year, and it seems probable that for the last few years he was reigning only in name, and that in reality his ministers, under the regency of Queen Tiy, governed the land. Amenhotep III. was perhaps during his last years insane or stricken with some paralytic disease, for we read of an Asiatic monarch sending a miracle-working image to Egypt, apparently for the purpose of attempting to cure him. It must have been during these six years of absolute power, while Akhnaton was a boy, that the Queen pushed forward her reforms and encouraged the breaking down of the old traditions, especially those relating to the worship of Amon-Ra.
Amenhotep III. died in about the forty-ninth year of his age, after a total reign of thirty-six years; and Akhnaton, who still bore the name of Amenhotep, ascended the throne. One must picture him now as an enthusiastic boy, filled with the new thought of the age, and burning to assert the broad doctrines which he had learned from his mother and her friends, in defiance of the priests of Amon-Ra. He was already married to a Syrian named Nefertiti, and certainly before he was fifteen years of age he was the father of two daughters.
The new Pharaoh's first move, under the guidance of Tiy, was to proclaim Aton the only true god, and to name himself high priest of that deity. He then began to build a temple dedicated to Aton at Karnak; but it must have been distasteful to observe how overshadowed and dwarfed was this new temple by the mighty buildings in honour of the older gods which stood there. Moreover, there must have been very serious opposition to the new religion in Thebes, where Amon had ruled for so many centuries unchallenged. In whatever direction he looked he was confronted with some evidence of the worship of Amon-Ra: he might proclaim Aton to be the only god, but Amon and a hundred other deities stared down at him from every temple wall. He and his advisers, therefore, decided to abandon Thebes altogether and to found a new capital elsewhere.
Akhnaton selected a site for the new city on the west bank of the river, at a point now named El Amarna, about 160 miles above Cairo. Here the hills recede from the river, forming a bay about three miles deep and five long; and in this bay the young Pharaoh decided to build his capital, which was named "Horizon of Aton." With feverish speed the new buildings were erected. A palace even more beautiful than that of his parents at Thebes was prepared for him; a splendid temple dedicated to Aton was set up amidst a garden of rare trees and brilliant flowers; villas for his nobles were erected, and streets were laid out. Queen Tiy, who seems to have continued to live at Thebes, often came down to El Amarna to visit her son; but it seems to have been at his own wish rather than at her advice that he now took the important step which set the seal of his religion upon his life.
Around the bay of El Amarna, on the cliffs which shut it off so securely, the King caused landmarks to be made at intervals, and on these he inscribed an oath which some have interpreted to mean that he would never again leave his new city. He would remain, like the Pope in the Vatican, for the rest of his days within the limits of this bay; and, rather than be distracted by the cares of state and the worries of empire, he would shut himself up with his god and would devote his life to his religion. He was but a youth still, and, to his inexperienced mind, this oath seemed nothing; nor in his brief life does it seem that he broke it, though at times he must have longed to visit his domains.