The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1

by Various

"That this dynasty was the X is made pretty clear by the inscriptions on the mainland side of the channel I have described. Here I have found inscriptions of the early sort mingled with those of the XI dynasty in such a way as to show that they cannot have been widely separated in age. Moreover, in one of them, the name of Khatî is associated with that of Ra-mer-ab; and Khatî is not only a name which characterises the XI dynasty, but it was also the name of the owner of one of the tombs at Siût, which Mr. Griffith has proved to belong to the time of the X dynasty. We were already acquainted with the name of Ra-mer-ab from a scarab; and two years ago Mr. Bouriant obtained a bronze vase which gave the double name of Ra-mer-ab Kherti. Kherti is a king of the X dynasty. By the side of the inscription which contains the name of Ra-mer-ab, I found others with the names of Ra-mer-ankh and Ameni. That Ameni was a king of the X dynasty has already been suspected.

"The inscriptions I have copied this winter, therefore, have not only given us the names of some kings of the X dynasty, one of them previously unknown; they have also shown that the power of the dynasty was acknowledged as far south as the Cataract. Moreover, they indicate that the government must have passed from the X to the XI dynasty in a peaceful and regular manner."

SHAT-ER-RIGALEH.--Prof. Sayce writes: "I have visited the famous "Shat er-Rigâleh," the valley a little north of Silsilis and the village of El-Hammâni, in which so many monuments of the XI dynasty have been discovered by Messrs. Harris, Eisenlohr, and Flinders Petrie. To these I have been able to add another cartouche, that of Ra-nofer-neb, a king who is supposed to belong to the XIV dynasty. His name and titles have been carved on the rock at the northern corner of the entrance into the valley by a certain Ama, a memorial of whom was found by Mr. Petrie in the Wadi itself (A Season in Egypt, pl. XV. No. 438). Mr. Spicer, whose dahabiyeh accompanied mine, photographed the inscriptions in which Mentuhotep-Ra-neb-kher of the XI dynasty is mentioned, as well as the one which enumerates the names of three kings of the XVIII dynasty, Amenophis I, Thothmes I, and Thothmes II. One of the inscriptions of Mentuhotep is dated in the thirty-ninth year of the king's reign. The epithet mâ-kheru "deceased" is attached only to the cartouche of Amenophis I, not to those of the other two kings, proving that they reigned contemporaneously."--Academy, March 12.

TEL EL-AMARNA.--EXCAVATIONS BY MR. PETRIE.--Mr. Petrie communicates the following report to the Academy: "During the last four months I have been excavating at this place, the capital of Khuenaten. Past times have done their best to leave nothing for the present--not even a record. The Egyptians carried away the buildings in whole blocks down to the lowest foundations, completely smashed the sculptures, and left nothing in the houses; and the Museum authorities, and a notorious Arab dealer, have cleared away without any record what had escaped the other plunderers of this century. I have now endeavoured to recover what little remained of the art and history of this peculiar site, by careful searching in the town. From the tombs I am debarred, although the authorities are doing nothing whatever there themselves, and the tomb of Khuenaten remains uncleared, with pieces of the sarcophagus and vessels thrown indiscriminately in the rubbish outside.

The region of main interest is the palace; and the only way to recover the plan was by baring the ground, and tracing the bedding of the stones which are gone. For this I have cleared all the site of the buildings, and in course of the work several rooms with portions of painted fresco pavements have been found. One room which was nearly entire, about 51 by 16 feet, and two others more injured, have now been entirely exposed to view, and protected by a substantial house, well lighted, and accessible to visitors, erected by the Public Works Department. With the exception of a pavement reported to exist at Thebes, these are the only examples of a branch of art which must have been familiar in the palaces of Egypt. The subjects of these floors are tanks with fish, birds, and lotus; groups of calves, plants, birds, and insects; and a border of bouquets and dishes. But the main value of these lies in the new style of art displayed; the action of the animals, and the naturalistic grace of the plants, are unlike any other Egyptian work, and are unparalleled even in classical frescoes. Not until modern times can such studies from nature be found. Yet this was done by Egyptian artists; for where the lotus occurs, the old conventional grouping has constrained the design, and the painter could not overstep his education, though handling all the other plants with perfect individuality. That Babylonian influence was not active, is seen by the utter absence of any geometrical ornament; neither rosettes or stars, frets or circles, nor any other such elements are seen, and perhaps no such large piece of work exists so clear of all but natural forms. Some small fragments of sculptured columns show that this flowing naturalism was as freely carried out in relief as in colour.

Of the architecture there remain only small pieces flaked off the columns. By comparing these the style can be entirely recovered; and we see that both the small columns in the palace, and those five feet thick in the river frontage, were in imitation of bundles of reeds, bound with inscribed bands, with leafage on base and on capital, and groups of ducks hung up around the neck. A roof over a well in the palace was supported by columns of a highly geometrical pattern, with spirals and chevrons. In the palace front were also severer columns inscribed with scenes, and with capitals imitating gigantic jewellery. The surface was encrusted with brilliant glazes, and the ridges of stone between the pieces were gilt, so that it resembled jewels set in gold. An easy imitation of this was by painting the hollows and ridges, and the crossing lines of the setting soon look like a net over the capital. We are at once reminded of the "net work" on the capitals of Solomon, and see in these columns their prototype.

This taste for inlaying was carried to great lengths on the flat walls. The patterns were incrusted with coloured glazes, and birds and fishes were painted on whole pieces and let into the blocks; hieroglyphs were elaborately carved in hard stones and fixed in the hollowed forms, black granite, obsidian, and quartzite in white limestone, and alabaster in red granite. The many fragments of steles which have come from here already, and which I have found, appear to show a custom of placing one stele--with the usual adoration of the sun by the king and queen--in each of the great halls of the palace and temple. These steles are in hard limestone, alabaster, red granite, and black granite. I have found more steles on the rocks on both sides of the Nile, and have seen in all eight on the eastern and three on the western cliffs.

The history of this site, and of the religious revolutions, is somewhat clearer than before. Khuenaten came to the throne as a minor; for in his sixth year he had only one child, and in his eighth year only two, as we learn from the steles, suggesting that he was not married till his fifth year apparently. On his marriage he changed his name from Amenhotep IV (which occurs on a papyrus from Gurob in his fifth) to Khuenaten (which we find here in the sixth). A scarab which I got last year in Cairo shows Amenhotep (with Amen erased subsequently) adoring the cartouches of the Aten, settling his identity with Khuenaten. In a quarry here is the name of his mother, Queen Thii, without any king; so she was probably regent during his minority, and started this capital here herself.

The character of the man, and the real objects of his revolution in religion and art, are greatly cleared by our now being able to see him as in the flesh. By an inexplicable chance, there was lying on the ground, among some stones, a plaster cast taken from his face immediately after his death for the use of the sculptors of his funeral furniture; with it were the spoilt rough blocks of granite ushabtis for his tomb. The cast is in almost perfect condition, and we can now really study his face, which is full of character. There is no trace of passion in it, but a philosophical calm with great obstinacy and impracticability. He was no vigorous fanatic, but rather a high bred theorist and reformer: not a Cromwell but a Mill. An interesting historical study awaits us here from his physiognomy and his reforms. No such cast remains of any other personage in ancient history.

According to one view, he was followed successively by four kings, Ra saa ka khepru, Tut ankhamen, Ai, and Horemheb, in peaceable succession. But of late it has been thought that the last three were rival kings at Thebes; and that they upheld Amen in rivalry to Khuenaten and his successor, who were cut very short in their reigns. Nothing here supports the latter view. A great number of moulds for making pottery rings are found here in factories; and those of Tut ankhamen are as common and as varied as of Khuenaten, showing that he was an important ruler here for a considerable time. Of Ai rings are occasionally found here, as also of Horemheb, who has left a block of sculpture with his cartouche in the temple of Aten. So it is certain that he actually upheld the worship of Aten early in his reign, and added to the buildings here, far from being a destructive rival overthrowing this place from Thebes. Afterwards he re-established Amen (as I got a scarab of his in Cairo, "establishing the temple of Amen"), and he removed the blocks of stone wholesale from here to build with at Thebes. Later than Horemheb there is not a trace here; Seti and Ramessu are absolutely unknown in this site, showing that it was stripped of stone and deserted before the XIX dynasty. Hence, about two generations, from 1400 to 1340 B.C., are the extreme limits of date for everything found here. The masonry was re-used at Thebes, Memphis, and other places where the name of Khuenaten has been found.