At Tel-el-Amarna, east of the Nile, are still to be seen the ruins of this great and hastily constructed city, which was about two miles in length, but very narrow in width. Travellers say that the ground-plan of the houses may still be traced, and that there are some immense mounds covered by the drifting sand, where temples and palaces might be buried. Four miles off are tombs and rock-temples excavated in the hill-side, but often entirely blocked up by sand. Wherever the new worship was portrayed, the sun’s disk is represented above, with long rays reaching downwards, and each ending in a hand—the sign of divine protection; the hand often holds the symbol of life before the king.
The family life of Khu-en-aten is depicted more than once. In one group he is seen with his queen Nefer-tai and their young daughters, distributing gifts of honour at some festival. One little boy is there too, but he is too young to take part in the distribution, and is caressing his mother’s face. Strong affection appears to have united the royal family, who doubtless felt their position a very isolated one. The prayers and praises, however, that are recorded as forming part of the new ritual, are very similar in tone and expression to those used in the customary worship. Prayer for the reigning sovereigns is frequent; on one festive occasion we read that the king gave his city the name of ‘Delight of the Sun’s disk,’ and offered sacrifices with solemn invocation. ‘Tender love fills my heart for the queen and her young children. Grant long years of life to Nefer-tai, that she may keep the king’s hand. Grant long life to the royal daughters, that they may keep the hand of the queen, their mother, for evermore.’ Nefer-tai appears to have died comparatively young; in one of the sculptures she is represented ‘with terrible fidelity,’ Mr. Villiers Stuart says, as apparently in the last stage of wasting disease. Her only son must have died quite in childhood; he is not represented again, but the daughters, seven in number, are frequently seen. As Khu-en-aten died without a male heir, the crown passed to his daughters’ husbands, two if not three of whom reigned in succession. They soon returned to Thebes, and to the worship of Amen-Ra, but none of them were ever acknowledged as true-born kings; it is doubtful whether they were crowned at Thebes. Ai was the last of them, and a beautiful rose-coloured sarcophagus of granite found in a tomb to the west of the royal sepulchres bears his cartouche.[44] It is worthy of notice that he is styled prince, not king. Each of these rulers, in fact, occupied the throne only in right of his wife,[45] and were themselves apparently merely officers in high position at Khu-en-aten’s court—a fact sufficient to account for the coldness with which the priests of Amen regarded them, in spite of their official return to the national worship. The government, however, appears to have been well administered by them, and foreign tributes were duly paid. A scene is represented on the walls of a tomb at Thebes, in which the governor of the south (whose tomb it was) is introducing a negro queen into the presence of Tutankh-amen, one of these princes. She has come in person to lay tribute and gifts at his feet. The boats are depicted in which the party have travelled and brought with them giraffes and leopards from the South, which are now presented to the king with other offerings, amongst which is a model of one of the negro dome-shaped huts with palm trees, around the tops of which giraffes are nibbling. The dark-hued princess made use of a sort of chariot drawn by oxen; her offerings are by no means devoid of artistic merit, though they cannot vie, in this respect, with those presented at the same levée by Asiatic princes of red complexion, and long curling black hair; they bring costly works wrought in gold, silver, and precious stones—the produce of skilled Phœnician art.
None of these kings apparently left any children. The official lists of sovereigns do not include any names between that of Amenhotep III. and Horus. It was to Horus that all eyes turned when the direct succession failed. He was then living in retirement at a city called Ha-Suten in middle Egypt, but had held high office at court at one time, and had been promoted to the dignity of ‘guardian,’ and afterwards of ‘Adon’ or ‘Lord,’ of the land—if indeed he had not been in some way recognised as heir to the throne itself. Horus was esteemed and beloved for the uprightness and gentleness of his character. ‘He took pleasure in justice,’ it is said of him, ‘which he carried in his heart; he followed the gods Thoth and Ptah in all their ways, and they were his shield and protectors on earth for evermore.’ He was especially acceptable to the priesthood on account of his fervent attachment to the old faith and the national gods—the god Horus being regarded as his special patron and guardian. To him was ascribed his elevation to the royal dignity. ‘Horus made his son great, and willed to prolong his life until the day came when he should receive the office destined for him.’ It is doubtful whether he was himself of royal descent, but it is certain that he married a princess of the direct line, and that no one else was thought of for a moment when the throne became vacant. There is a long account preserved of his accession, and solemn reception, and coronation at Thebes. ‘Heaven and earth rejoice together—the gods invested him with the double crown. Heaven kept festival, and all the land was glad. The deities rejoiced on high, and the people of Egypt raised their rapturous songs of praise even unto heaven; great and small united their voices with one accord. It was as if Horus, son of Isis, were once more presenting himself after his triumph over Set.’
The new king was indeed regarded as, in some sense, an avenger triumphing over evil. One can imagine that even though the previous rulers had returned to Thebes and its gods, it would have been hardly possible for their wives, who must have shared their sovereignty, to indulge in any bitter animosity towards the city in which they had been brought up, towards the worship which their father had established there, or towards the names and memory of their parents. But at the accession of Horus, all restraint was removed, and the full tide of animosity let loose against the ‘city of the delight of the sun’s disk.’ City, temples, and tombs were destroyed, and every vestige and trace of the reign and the religion of Khu-en-aten effaced as far as possible. The stone was taken to be employed in the building of Theban temples. Only a few ruins and a few inscriptions have escaped to tell the traveller of this curious episode in Egyptian history.
Equal diligence was shown by this sovereign in rebuilding and beautifying the temples which had long been neglected. The cities of the gods, we are told in decidedly hyperbolical language, ‘lay as heaps of rubbish.’ ‘He renewed the temples of the sun-god,’ we read, ‘and Ra rejoiced to see that renewed which had been destroyed in former times.’ The king also provided for the sacrifices; he appointed holy persons, singers, and bodyguards for the temples, and assigned for their use and service arable land, cattle, and all that was required—that ‘they might sing thus each new morning unto Ra: “Thou hast made the kingdom great for us in thy son the delight of thy heart, King Horus. Grant him length of years and victory in all lands, even as unto Horus, son of Isis.”’
Horus reigned for more than twenty years, and his death was followed by the accession of a new dynasty—the nineteenth.
[CHAPTER X.]
The Nineteenth Dynasty (circa 1400-1200 b.c.)