Dio had been wondering for some time what would be good enough to write on this scroll; at last she thought of something.
All the king's teaching was given by word of mouth; he never wrote down anything himself and did not allow others to do so. "To write," he used to say, "is to kill the word."
"It will all be lost, it will vanish like a footprint on the sand," Dio often thought sorrowfully, and at last she decided: "I will write down on the papyrus the king's teaching; I will not disobey him: no one living now shall see the scroll; but when I have finished writing I will bury it in the ground; perhaps in ages to come men will discover it and read it."
She carried out her plan.
In secret from all she worked night after night, sitting on the floor in front of a low desk with a sloping board for the papyrus, tracing upon it, with the sharpened end of a reed, close columns of hieroglyphics, abbreviated into shorthand, and covering each column with cedar varnish which made the writing indelible.
Words of wisdom of King Akhnaton Uaenra Neferheperura—Sun's joy, Sun's beautiful essence, Sun's only Son—heard and written down by Dio, daughter of Aridoel, a Cretan, priestess of the Great Mother.
The King says:
"Aton, the face of god, the disc of the sun, is the visible image of the invisible God. To reveal to men the hidden one is everything.
"My grandfather, Prince Tutmose, was hunting once in the desert of the Pyramids; he was tired, lay down and dropped asleep at the foot of the great Sphinx which, in those days, was buried in the sands. The Sphinx appeared to him in a dream and said "I am your father, Aton; I will make you king if you dig me out of the sands." The prince did so, and I am doing so, too: I dig the living God out of the dead sands—dead hearts."
The King says: