L.CO CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Cornell University Library DT 87.4.W41 1922a Life and times of ,*,!^|^,?,?.|,9|j|| 3 1924 028 678 260 The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028678260 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF AKHNATON BY THE SAME AUTHOR Tutankhamen and other essays. The Glory of the Pharaohs. The Life and Times of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. A Report on the Antiquities of Lower Nubia. A Catalogue of the Weights and Balances in the Cairo Museum. A Guide to the Antiquities of Upper Egypt. Travels in the Upper Egyptian Deserts. A History of Egypt from 1798 to 1914. Madeline of the Desert. The Dweller in the Desert. Bedouin Love. THE LIFE AND TIMES OF AKHNATON Pharaoh of Egypt ARTHUR WEIGALL Late Inspector General of Antiquities, Egyptian Government, and Member of the Catalogue Staff of the Cairo Museum ; Officer of the Order of the MedjidieK " Ye ask who are those that draw us to the Kingdom if the Kingdom is in Heaven ? The fowls of the air, and all the beasts that are under the earth or upon the earth, and the fishes of the sea, these are they which draw you,, and the Kingdom of Heaven is within you." — Grenfell and Hunt; Oxyrhynchus Papyri, iv. 6. NEW AND REVISED EDITION THORNTON BUTTERWORTH LIMITED 15 BEDFORD STREET, LONDON, W.C. 2 JJa 3~r v/4-1 First Edition published - - 1910 Second Edition . - - 1911 Third Edition ... 1912 New and Revised Edition - Oct., 1922 Do. Reprinted Dec, 1922 Do. „ Jan., 1923 Do. „ Feb., 1923 Do. „ Sept., 1923 Made and printed in Great Britain CONTENTS PREFACE 13 I.— THE PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS OF AKHNATON 1. INTRODUCTION .... 2. THE ANCESTORS OF AKHNATON 3. THE GODS OF EGYPT 4. THE DEMIGODS AND SPIRITS — THE PRIESTHOODS 5. THUTMOSIS IV. AND MUTEMUA 6. YUAA AND TUAU .... 7. AMENOPHIS III. AND HIS COURT . 1 5 8 15 17 20 28 II.— THE BIRTH AND EARLY YEARS OF AKHNATON 1. THE BIRTH OF AKHNATON 2. THE RISE OF ATON 3. THE POWER OF QUEEN TIY 4. AKHNATON'S MARRIAGES . 5. THE ACCESSION OF AKHNATON 6. THE FIRST YEARS OF AKHNATON's REIGN 7. THE NEW ART 8. THE NEW RELIGION DEVELOPS 9. THE NATURE OF THE NEW RELIGION 36 38 42 45 50 53 58 67 73 III.— AKHNATON FOUNDS A NEW CITY 1. THE BREAK WITH THE PRIESTHOOD OF AMON-RA . . 77 2. AKHNATON SELECTS THE SITE OF HIS CITY . . 80 3. THE FIRST FOUNDATION INSCRIPTION . . .82 4. THE SECOND FOUNDATION INSCRIPTION . . .87 5. THE DEPARTURE FROM THEBES .... 90 6. THE AGE OF AKHNATON ..... 94 vii Vl^l CONTENTS IV.— AKHNATON FORMULATES THE RELIGION OF ATON 1. ATON THE TRUE GOD . . . . • 2. ATON THE TENDER FATHER OF ALI, CREATION 3. ATON WORSHIPPED AT SUNRISE AND SUNSET 4. THE GOODNESS OF ATON. . . . . • 5. AKHNATON THE " SON OF GOD " BY TRADITIONAL RIGHT 6. THE CONNECTIONS OF THE ATON WORSHIP WITH OLDER RELIGIONS . . . . . ■•?. THE SPIRITUAL NEEDS OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH 8. THE MATERIAL NEEDS OF THE SOUL 99 101 106 109 112 117 120 124 v.— THE TENTH TO THE TWELFTH YEARS OF THE REIGN OF AKHNATON 1. THE HYMNS OF THE ATON WORSHIPPERS . . . 129 2. THE SIMILARITY OF AKHNATON'S HYMN TO PSALM CIV. . 134 3. MERYRA is made high priest of ATON . . .137 4. THE ROYAL FAMILY VISIT THE TEMPLE . . , . 141 5. AKHNATON IN HIS PALACE .... 145 6. HISTORICAL EVENTS OF THIS PERIOD OF AKHNATOn's REIGN 147 7. QUEEN TIY VISITS THE CITY OF THE HORIZON . 153 8. TIY VISITS HER TEMPLE . . . , .158 9. THE DEATH OF QUEEN TIY .... 160 VI.— THE THIRTEENTH TO THE FIFTEENTH YEARS OF THE REIGN OF AKHNATON 1. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RELIGION OF ATON 2. AKHNATON OBLITERATES THE NAME OF AMON 3. THE GREAT TEMPLE OF ATON 4. THE BEAUTY OF THE CITY 5. AKHNATON'S AFFECTION FOR HIS FAMILY 6. AKHNATON'S FRIENDS 7. AKHNATON'S TROUBLES 164 168 172 175 185 188 19? CONTENTS IX VII.— THE LAST TWO YEARS OF THE REIGN OF AKHNATON 1. the hittite invasion of syria . . . .197 2. akhnaton's conscientious objections to warfare . 200 3. the faithlessness of aziru .... 203 4. the fighting in SYRIA BECOMES GENERAL . . 207 5. aziru and ribaddi fight to a finish . . . 210 6. akhnaton continues to refuse to send help . 214 7. akhnaton's health gives way .... 217 8. akhnaton's last days AND DEATH . . . 222 VIII.— THE FALL OF THE RELIGION OF AKHNATON 1. THE BURIAL OF AKHNATON 2. THE COURT RETURNS TO THEBES 3. THE REIGN OF HOREMHEB 4. THE PERSECUTION OF AKHNATON's MEMORY 5. THE FINDING OF THE BODY OF AKHNATON 6. CONCLUSION .... 228 233 238 241 245 250 INDEX 253 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE AKHNATON. (From a Statuette in the Louvre) Frontispiece THE HEAD OF THE MUMMY OF THUTMOSIS IV., THE GRAND- FATHER OF AKHNATON .... THE MUMMY OF TUAU, GRANDMOTHER OF AKHNATON THE MUMMY OF YUAA, GRANDFATHER OF AKHNATON SITE OF THE PALACE OF AKHNATON's PARENTS, AT THEBES COFFIN OF YUAA ..... CHEST BELONGING TO YUAA .... CARVED WOODEN CHAIR, THE DESIGNS PARTLY COVERED WITH GOLD-LEAF .... CEILING DECORATION PROM THE PALACE OF AKHNATON's PARENTS AT THEBES .... PAVEMENT DECORATION FROM THE PALACE AMENOPHIS III. .... THE HEAD OF A STATUETTE OF AKHNATON'S MOTHER THE HEAD OF AKHNATON .... THE ALABASTER HEAD OF AKHNATON AKHNATON. {From a Relief found at El Amarna) AKHNATON. (From his Statuette in the Louvre) A PORTRAIT HEAD OF AKHNATON FRAGMENT OF A HEAD OF AKHNATON VASES OF VARI-COLOURED GLASS FOUND AT EL AMARNA A SCULPTURED HEAD OF ONE OF AKHNATON's DAUGHTERS HEAD OF ONE OF AKHNATON's DAUGHTERS . HEAD OF A STATUETTE . . . 16 24 24 32 40 48 48 56 56 72 72 80 80 136 176 176 176 184 192 192 216 xu LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS LETTER FROM RIBADDI TO THE KING OF EGYPT . DEATH MASK OF AKHNATON . . . . THE SKULL OF AKHNATON . . , . GOLDEN VULTURE FOUND UPON AKHNATON'S MUMMY FACING PAGE 232 232 248 248 ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT THUTMOSIS IV. SLAYING ASIATICS . . . THE ART OF AKHNATON COMPARED WITH ARCHAIC ART AKHNATON DRIVING WITH HIS WIFE AND DAUGHTER . AKHNATON AND NEFERTITI WITH THEIR THREE DAUGHTERS AN EXAMPLE OF THE FRIENDLY RELATIONS BETWEEN SYRIA AND EGYPT . . . . ' . THE ARTIST AUTA AKNHATON AND HIS WIFE AND CHILDREN , . PAGE 21 64 113 144 165 179 186 PREFACE " The Life and Times of Akhnaton " was first published in 1910, and went through two or three editions ; but at length it passed out of print, and the few copies which remained in the market were sold at five and six times the book's original price. This continued demand has led to the present re-issue, in which the material has been brought up-to-date and considerable additions have been made, though it has been thought best to leave the text on the whole in its original form. Great excavations are now being conducted by the Egypt Exploration Society upon the site of Akhnaton' s sacred city ; and so important is this work, and so widely should its aims be known, that on this account also the re-publica- tion of this volume may serve a useful purpose. Those who chance to have their interest aroused by it should communicate with the Secretary of the Society, 13, Tavistock Square, London, W.C. 1, who will be glad to supply information as to these excavations. Funds are urgently needed for the extension of the work ; and, as the reader will realise from the following pages, there is probably no period in ancient history which so merits elucidation, and no site which wiU so well repay excavation. XIV PREFACE When this book was first prepared for the press I was alone in my belief that Akhnaton was only thirty years of age at his death, and my contention that the then recently discovered mummy of a young man of that age was this Pharaoh himself was greatly ridiculed. Time, however, has shown the correctness of my asser- tion, and the identification, as well as the course and duration of the king's life as given in the present volume, are now generally admitted, except by the well-known German scholar. Pro- fessor Kurt Sethe of Gottingen, who, at the time of writing (1922) stUl finds himself in doubt. Although the lay reader will not, perhaps, be interested, I think it will be as well to state here in brief outline my general argument for the identification of the mummy and the age of Akhnaton at his death ; and I may be per- mitted to preface my statement by a few words in regard to the excavations which led, in 1907, to the discovery. The Tomb of Queen Tiy, in which lay the mummy believed to be that of Akhnaton, was discovered in January, 1907, during the excava- tions which were being conducted by Mr. Theodore M. Davis in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes. Mr. Davis was a very charming American gentleman, who, in his old age, used to spend his winters on a dahabiyeh PREFACE XV at Luxor, and there became interested in Egyptology. In 1902 he gave a small sum of money to Mr. Howard Carter, then Inspector- General of the Antiquities of Upper Egypt, in order to enable him to conduct some excavations in the royal necropolis, and in 1903 the Tomb of Thutmose IV was discovered during the work carried out with this money. In the same year the Tomb of Queen Hatshepsut was cleared out by Mr. Carter, again at Mr. Davis's expense ; and thus the latter became established, so to speak, as the banker behind the Egyptian Government's excavations in the Famous VaUey. In 1904 Mr. Quibell took Mr. Carter's place at Luxor, and continued these excavations ; and in 1905 I was appointed Inspector-General, Mr. QuibeU and I jointly working the famous Tomb of Yuaa and Tuau early in that year. At that time Mr. Davis was paying for the actual excavations, but we, the Egyptian Govern- ment Department of Antiquities, bore all the other expenses, such as those of packing the antiquities, safeguarding the finds, and so forth. It is interesting to note that the total cost to Mr. Davis of the season's work which thus pro- duced one of the greatest finds ever made in Egypt was about £80. In 1906 I insisted that Mr. Davis should em- ploy a proper archaeologist to conduct the work XVI PREFACE under my supervision, and Mr. Edward R. Ayrton was nominated. From that time on- wards for the next few years these excavations were carried on in the following manner : — Mr. Davis paid for the actual excavations and was regarded as their nominal director ; an archaeologist, paid by him, lived on the spot, and conducted the work ; I supervised it on behalf of the Government and officially took charge whenever any discovery was made ; the antiquities found all went to the Cairo Museum, with the exception of a few objects given as souvenirs to Mr. Davis and now in the Metro- politan Museum of New York, U.S.A. ; the Government bore all working costs other than those of the excavations themselves ; Mr. Davis paid for the publication of the annual volume ; and we all united to give him the credit of the discoveries, the work being deemed worthy of every encouragement, in spite of the fact that its promoter was himself an amateur, and that the greatest tact had to be used in order to impose proper supervision on his work. The work was being conducted in this manner when the Tomb of Queen Tiy was found. Mr. Ayrton was in charge, and officially handed over to me as soon as the discovery was made ; but, for diplomatic reasons, I kept in the back- ground, and to a great extent left the clearing I PREFACE XVU of the tomb in his efficient hands, only keeping an eye on the work. When Mr. Davis pub- Ushed the results, he incorporated a short note by Mr. Ayrton, but preserved a strict silence in regard to my own part in the work ; and I should hke to explain that this was not in any way an ungenerous or unfriendly act, but was due to his very understandable objection to the restrictions which my Department rightly obliged me to impose upon him. Mr. Davis and Mr. Ayrton are now dead, and Mr. Harold Jones, who helped in the work, has also passed away. I am, therefore, the only surviving member of this httle company of excavators, and the above explanation is neces- sary in order to make clear my own standing in regard to these excavations, and to give authority to the statements which I shall make. In this preface I want to show that there can be no doubt that the mummy found in the Tomb of Queen Tiy was that of Akhnaton ; and it will therefore be best to begin by deciding, from the monuments and other historical evi- dence, the age at which this king died. The following arguments may be adduced : — 1. Akhnaton was married to Nefertiti either before or soon after his accession to the throne. On the boundary stelae at El Amarna, dated in the sixth year of his reign he was already XVIU PREFACE the father of two daughters by her. What, then, is the hkely age at which he would have become a father ? The mummy of Thutmose IV, his grandfather, has been shown by Professor Elliot Smith to be that of a man of not more than twenty-six years of age. That king was succeeded by his son, Amenophis III, who is known to have been married to Queen Tiy before the second year of his reign. Thus both Thutmose IV and Amenophis III must have been married by twelve or thirteen years of age. Amenophis III was, according to the examinai tion of his mummy by Elliot Smith, about forty-five or fifty at his death ; and, as he reigned thirty-six years, he could have been at most fourteen at his marriage. Akhnaton's daughter! Merytaton, born in the third or fourth year of his reign was married to Smenkhkara before the seventeenth year of the reign, i.e., at thir- teen or fourteen. The Princess Ankhsenpaatod bom about the eighth year of the reign was married at latest two years after Akhnaton's death, i.e., when she was eleven ; and the younger princess, Neferneferuaton, was marrieJ to the King of Babylon's son when she was probably not more than five or six. Child-marriages such as these are common in Egypt even at the present day ; and if Akh- naton was, in this regard, like his father and PREFACE Xix grandfather it may be assumed that he was certainly not older than fourteen when his first child was born. This would make him some- where round about thirty at his death. 2. In the biography of Bakenkhonsu, High Priest of Amen under Rameses II, we are told that he came of age at sixteen. Now Akhnaton was under the regency of his mother during the first years of his reign, as the Tell El Amarna letters and the Wady Hammamat inscription prove ; and one may thus assume that he was then under age. If, as seems probable, the great changes in art and religion began when he came of age, say in the third or fourth year of his reign (and the King speaks of the fourth year in this connection in the foundation inscrip- tion), he would be just about thirty at his death. In this regard it is worthy of note that the Caliph El Hakkim was sixteen when he issued his first reUgious decrees. 3. When Yuaa and Tuau were buried, prob- ably quite late in the reign of Amenophis III, since both were of an advanced age according to Professor Elliot Smith, that King, and Queen Tiy, and two of their daughters gave presents of funeral furniture, but there is no mention yet of a son. Nor have we any evidence of Akhnaton' s existence until late in the reign when his marriage to Tadukhipa of Mitanni XX PREFACE was arranged. On the Medinet Habu colossus three of Tiy's daughters are shown, but there is no reference yet to a son. We should surely have some mention of him had he been living during the main years of his father's reign ; and the inference thus is that he was still very young at his father's death. 4. Amenophis III seems to have been in iU-health during the last years of his reign, for on two occasions the King of Mitanni sent a miracle-working statuette of the goddess Ishtar to him in the hope that it might cure him. And there is the curious fact that Manetho gives only thirty years for his reign, whereas there is contemporary evidence that he reigned for thirty-six, the explanation being, probably, that he was unfit to govern during the last six years of his reign. Yet his son did not assume olhce, and the power evidently remained in the hands of Queen Tiy. Akhnaton, therefore, must have stiU been very young ; and even when he came to the throne the Tell El Amarna letters show that his mother had stiU to be consulted in affairs of state. On the other hand a letter from Dushratta, docketed in the thirty-sixth year of the reign of Amenophis III, refers to Tadu- khipa as being already married to Akhnaton, which indicates that the boy was twelve or thirteen by then. This would make his age AkhnaLon From a .statuette in the Louvre (Si-e pai^e 179) PREFACE Xxi at his death, seventeen years later, just about thirty. In view of the above arguments I d6 not see that it is possible to suppose that Akhnaton was more than thirty years of age at his death. On the other hand, there is at Oxford a frag- ment which shows the King celebrating his heb-sed, or Jubilee, and which, therefore, at first sight indicates that he was much older. I do not think, however, that anything definite can be deduced from the occurrence of this festival. The heb-sed festival was generally thought to have been held after a king had reigned thirty years ; but Professor Sethe has shown that it was more probably a festival held thirty years after a king had become heir to the throne. Now Akhnaton was heir immedi- ately on his birth, and, if Sethe is right, the celebration of the jubilee would thus only indi- cate that he was at least thirty years of age at his deiath, a fact which is in accord with the above arguments. There is nothing on the Oxford fragment^ to indicate the date at which this jubilee occurred, but the fact that a " High Priest of Akhnaton " is mentioned thereon sug- gests that it belongs to the last years of the reign, since this looks like a late and advanced development of the Aton religion. Edward I Prof. Sethe is wrong in thinking that the cartouches on this frag- ment show signs of the earlier spelling. XXii PREFACE Meyer, however, has pointed out that Thutmose II, whose mummy shows him to have died before he was thirty, seems to have celebrated his jubilee twice. Akhnaton may thus have held this festival at an equally early date. The mummy which we found in the tomb of Queen Tiy, and which rested in a coffin un- doubtedly belonging to Akhnaton, was sent by me to Professor Elliot Smith in Cairo for exam- ination. I may mention, in order to debar any possible suggestion of confusion or mistake in regard to the body, that I soaked the bones in paraffin wax so as to preserve them, and that the bones examined by EUiot Smith were thus distinguished. His report on them was pub- lished in his catalogue of the royal mummies- in the Cairo Museum. In regard to the age, after an exhaustive examination of the condition of the skeleton, he comes to the conclusion that although many of the data suggest an age of about twenty-six years, "no anatomist would be justified in refusing to admit that this individual may have been several years younger or older than this estimate" ; and he goes on to say that if the historian can produce proofs to show that Akhnaton was as old as thirty at his death, the anatomical evidence which suggests an earlier age would have to be considered too PRErACE xxiii slight to weigh against that conclusion. Thus, so far as the age of the body is concerned, the mummy may be regarded as fulfilling the con- ditions necessary for its identification with Akhnaton. As to the physical features, the following facts from the report are important. (1) The configuration of the upper part of the face, including the forehead, is identical with that of Akhnaton's maternal grandfather, Yuaa. (2) The jaw is typically Armenoid, as might be expected in view of the fact that Akhnaton's paternal grandmother was Mutemua, a princess of Mitanni. (3) The projection of the upper incisors is similar to that found in many mem- bers of the royal family of the Eighteenth Dynasty. (4) A curious and unusual bony ridge passing from the nasal spine to the alveolar point in this skuU occurs also as a peculiarity of the skull of Amenophis III. (5) There are points of resemblance to Amenophis III, also, in the molar teeth. (6) The general structure of the face, and especially the jaw, is exactly that portrayed in the statues of Akhnaton. These physical features prove pretty con- clusively that the mummy is that of a male member of the royal family, who had in his veins the blood both of Yuaa and Amenophis III, and the objects found with it prove that XXIV PREFACE it is to be dated to the period of Akhnaton. Thus the body, so far as the known historical facts go, could only be that of Akhnaton. There is nobody else whom it could be, and this is a negative argument which must be given prom- inence throughout. As to the evidence of the coffin and other objects found with the body. The coffin, now exhibited ia the Cairo Museum, is that of Akh- naton without any question, for it is inscribed with his name and titles, on the top of the lid, inside the lid, and inside the shell. But there is one fact which, by some most mysterious circumstance, has been obscured. A great deal of rain-water had dripped into the tomb through a fissure in the rock, and the mummy — flesh and bandages — had rotted away. But when we removed the Ud of the coffin, we found a band or ribbon of thin gold foU which had evidently passed down the front oi the mummy, outside the wrappings, and, at right angles to this, other bands which had passed round the body. When we had gathered up the bones and fragments and dust we found another similar band which had evidently passed down the back of the mummy. These bands were about two inches wide and were inscribed with the titles of Akh- naton, but the cartouche was in each case cut out, so that there was simply an oval hole in PREFACE XXV the band wherever it occurred. The cartouches of Akhnaton, it is to be noted in this connection, were likewise erased in the cofl&n-inscription. I must now give a brief description of the tomb and such of its contents as are pertinent, which should be read in connection with Mr. Davis's and Mr. Ayrton's account of the dis- covery pubUshed in the former's big volume. The tomb was a rock-cut chamber approached by a sloping passage. It was similar to the tomb of Yuaa and Tuau, and was thus the sort of sepulchre one might expect to be made for a queen or other royal personage who was not actually a reigning sovereign. In it were the remains of a large box-like wooden shrine or canopy which had evidently contained a coffin and mummy. The inscriptions leave no doubt that this was made for Queen Tiy's burial by Akhnaton, and four foundation bricks are also inscribed with Akhnaton's name. A number of small objects inscribed with the Queen's name also belonged to this the original burial in the tomb. The sides of the shrine or canopy had been taken to pieces, and one side lay in the passage, as though an attempt had been made to remove it at the same time that the mummy of the queen was removed, but that the work had been abandoned owing to the narrowness of the passage. XXVi PREFACE Thus there can be no reasonable doubt that the tomb was made for Queen Tiy, and that her body was removed at a later date, the large shrine or canopy being left behind because of the difficulty of taking it out, and some of the small objects being overlooked. But in another part of the chamber we found the coffin of Akhnaton. Originally it had lain upon a bier, but this had rotted away and col- lapsed, and in the fall the mummy had been jerked partly out of the coffin, so that the head of the body projected somewhat from under the lid. Photographs of it as we found it are pub- Ushed in Mr. Davis's volume. Near the coffin were four canopic vases which will be discussed later. Scattered about in the rubbish were fragments of smaU clay sealings inscribed with the name of King Tutankhamen. The entrance of the tomb showed the remains of at least two closings up. There was part of an original waU of rough hmestone blocks cemented on the outside, and above the ruins of this there was a second and more loosely constructed wall. On fragments of the cement were impressions of a seal reprcn senting a jackal crouching over nine captives— the usual seal of the necropolis. The second waU had been partly pulled down and had not been built up again. PREFACE XXVU I interpret the above facts in the following manner : — Firstly, Queen Tiy was buried in this tomb, but it was entered later by the agents of Akhnaton whose orders were to erase the name of Amen wheresoever it was to be found. After Akhnaton had died and had been buried at El Amarna, the court returned to Thebes under King Tutankhamen. The body of Akh- naton was then brought to the old necropolis of his fathers and was placed in this tomb of his mother. A few years later when his memory came to be hated, the priests removed the mummy of Tiy from the tomb which had been polluted by the presence of " that criminal," as Akhnaton was now called, erased the king's name, and left him the solitary and nameless occupant of the sepulchre. Mention has been made of the four canopic jars. These obviously do not belong to Queen Tiy ; for the men who removed the queen's mummy from the tomb would not have left her heart, viscera, etc. behind. By the same token the jars belong to the mummy which we found in the tomb. The contents of the jars have rotted away, as had the flesh on the mummy, owing to the damp. Only such frag- ments of their wrappings as were well covered with bitumen are now to be found in the jars. (See Daressy on p. 24 of Mr. Davis's volume). XXVlii PREFACE On each jar there has been an inscription, pre- sumably giving the owner's name ; but in each case this has been entirely erased. The lids of the jars are each carved in the form of a royal head, wearing an ordinary wig which might be either that of a male or female, but having a king's single uraeus on the forehead. The queens of this period have a double uraeus, as may be seen, for instance, on the Sinai head of Tiy, on the Userhat relief of that queen at Brussels, on her Medinet Habu colossus now at Cairo, on the Fayum head of this period now in Berlin, on various reliefs of Nefertiti, notably that shown in Petrie's History, ii, p. 230, and so forth. The fact that these canopic heads have no beard does not suggest that they are female, for I do not think Akhnaton is ever shown with a beard. The heads might well be portraits of Akhnaton executed somewhat early in the reign, and the characteristic lower jaw is quite noticeable in at least one of the four, as Daressy also has pointed out. I think the reasoning should follow these lines : — The canopies are not those of Tiy, for if they were they would have been removed with her mummy, being an essential part of the mummy ; and moreover there would have been a double urseus on the forehead. But if they do not belong to a queen they must certainly PREFACE XXIX belong to a king, and what king other than Akhnaton could they possibly represent ? Canopic jars, however, would never be inten- tionally separated from the mummy whose heart, etc. they contained ; and thus, if the jars are those of Akhnaton then the presumption is that the mummy must be that of Akhnaton also. The fact that these canopic jars seem, by the style of the portraiture, to date from several years before Akhnaton's death is interesting, as suggesting that he had caused his funeral outfit to be made ready for him in anticipation. There are two other facts which lead to the same conclusion. Firstly, in the inlaid inscrip- tion which runs down the front of his coffin the word " truth " is written with the sign of the goddess, a sign which was not used in the late years of the reign. On the other hand, the inscriptions on the foot of the coffin, and on the inside of the Ud and shell, show this word spelt out in the later manner. Thus, we may suppose that the coffin was begun, though not finished, early in the reign. That it was finished later is also shown by the appearance of the later form of the cartouche of the god Aton on the uraeus at the forehead of the effigy on the lid. Secondly, amongst the debris of the mummy a necklace ornament and a piece of gold foil XXX PREFACE were found, each inscribed with the eariier form of this Aton cartouche. This shows that some parts, if not all, of the burial equipment were prepared several years before they were actually required. Such a procedure, however, is not surprising. A Pharaoh always caused his tomb to be prepared during his reign, and it is to be presumed, therefore, that the coffin and funeral outfit were also made ready at the same time. And, indeed, it may be argued that these proofs of the early date of the coffin and mummy ornaments explain why the heads of the canopic jars show a rounder, younger, and less peculiar face than is seen in the later portraits of Akh- naton ; and thus the identification is strengthened. Over the face or head of the mummy we found an object in the form of a vulture, made of gold, and slightly curved so as to fit over the bandages. Mr. Davis and M. Daressy call it a queen's crown, and M. Maspero caused it to be labelled as such in the Cairo Museum. It is, however, no crown ; a conclusion which is apparent from the fact that it was found with the tail and not the head projecting over the forehead. It is simply a sort of pectoral of the usual form seen in the wall-paintings in the Theban tombs (for example, that of Horemheb, No. 78) as part of a mummy's equipment. To sum up :— The mummy lay in the coffin PREFACE XXXI of Akhnaton, was enclosed in bands inscribed with Akhnaton' s name and was accompanied by the canopic jars of Akhnaton. It was that of a man of Akhnaton' s age, the facial structure corresponds to the portraits of Akhnaton, and it has physical characteristics similar to those of Akhnaton' s father and grandfather. How, then, can one possibly doubt its identity ? Pro- fessor Sethe, however, published in the Nach- richten der K. GeseUschaft der Wissenschaften zu Gottingen in 1921 an article in which he comes to the conclusion that the mummy we found was perhaps not that of Akhnaton ; but it is evident that all the facts were not marshalled before him when he set himself to question an identification which surely is not open to doubt. ARTHUR WEIGALL. London, June, 1922. I THE PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS OF AKHNATON I. INTRODUCTION /The reign of Akhnaton/ for seventeen years ^Pharaoh of Egypt (from B.C. 1375 to 1358), stands out as the most interesting epoch in the long sequence of Egyptian history. We have watched the endless line of dim Pharaohs go by, each ht momentarily by the pale lamp of our present knowledge, and most of them have left httle impression upon the mind. They are so misty and far off, they have been dead and gone for such thousands of years, that they have almost entirely lost their individuality. We call out some royal name, and in response a vague figure passes into view, stiffly moves its arms, and passes again into the darkness. With one there comes the muffled noise of battle ; with » Some philologists, preferring to give the value " I " to the initial letter of the name, call the King " Ikhnaton " instead of " Akhnaton." The reading " Khuenaten," sometimes found in earUer works, is incorrect. 2 PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS OF AKHNATON another there is laughter and the sound of music ; with yet another the wailing of the oppressed drifts by. But at the name of Akhnaton there emerges from the darkness a figure more clear than that of any other Pharaoh, and with it there come the singing of birds, the voices of children, and the scent of many flowers. For once we may look right into the mind of a king of Egypt and may see something of its work- ings ; and all that is there observed is worthy of admiration. Akhnaton has been called " the first individual in human history " ;' but if he is thus the first historical "^Ggure whose personality is known to us, he is also the first of all human founders of religious doctrines. Akhnaton may be ranked in degree of time, and, in view of the new ground broken by him, perhaps also in degree of genius, as the world's first idealist; and, since in all ancient Oriental research there never has been, and probably never will be, brought before us a subject of such intellectual interest as this Pharaoh's religious revolution, which marks the first point in the study of a6 vanced human thought, a careful consideration of this short reign deserves to be made. The following pages do not pretend to do more than acquaint the reader with the subject, as interpreted in , the light of recent discoveries. » Breasted : A History of Egypt. INTRODUCTION 3 A series of volumes have been issued by the Egypt Exploration Fund,' in which accurate copies are to be found of the reliefs, paintings, and inscriptions upon the walls of the tombs of some of Akhnaton's disciples and followers. In the year 1893 Professor Flinders Petrie excavated the site of the city which the Pharaoh founded, and published the results of his work in a volume entitled " Tel el Amama".^ Shortly before the late war the Germans made some valuable excavations in Akhnaton's city, and discovered amongst other things the studio of a sculptor in which several great works of art, now in Berlin, were found ; and soon after the war the Egypt Exploration Society began its work on the site, which, year by year, is revealing the marvels of that amazing epoch in Egyptian history. In 1906 Professor J. H. Breasted devoted some space to a masterly study of this period in his " History of Egypt " and " Ancient Records of Egypt. "^ From these pubHcations, and from the Journals of the Egypt Exploration Society, the reader will be able to refer himself to the remaining literature deaUng with the subject ; I N. de G. Davies : The Rock Tombs of El Amama. 5 vols. The Egypt Exploration Fund is the earlier name of the Egypt Exploration Society. » Now out of print. 3 Published by the Chicago University. 4 PARENTS AND GKANDPAEENTS OF AKHNATON but he should bear in mind that the discovery' of the bones of Akhnaton himself, which have shown us how old he was when he died — namely, about thirty years of age — ^have modified many of the deductions in the earUer works. Those who have travelled in Egypt wiU probably have visited the site of Akhnaton's city, near the modern village of El Amarna ; and in the mu- seums of Cairo, London, Paris, Berhn, Vienna, Leiden, and elsewhere, they wUl perhaps have seen some of the rehcs of his age. During the early years of the present century an extraordinary series of discoveries was made in the VaUey of the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes. In 1903 the tomb of Thutmosis IV, the paternal grandfather of Akhnaton, was discovered ; in 1905 the tomb of Yuaa and Tuau, the maternal grandparents of Akhnaton, was found ; in 1907 Akhnaton's body was discovered in the tomb of his mother, Queen Tiy ; and in 1908 the tomb of the Pharaoh Horemheb, one of the immediate successors of Akhnaton, was brought to light. At all but the first of these discoveries the present writer had the good fortune to be in charge; and a particular interest in the period was thus I As will be recorded at the end of this volume, the body of Akhnaton was discovered at Thebes early in 1907 by Mr. Theodore M. Davis, and the party financed by him, under the supervision of the Egyptian Government Department of Antiquities in the person of the present writer. THE ANCESTORS OF AKHNATON S engendered, of which the following sketch, pre- pared during an Upper Egyptian summer, is an outcome. It must be understood, however, that a volume written at such times as the exigencies of official work allowed — ^partly in the shade of the rocks beside the Nile, partly at railway- stations or in the train, partly amidst the ruins of ancient temples, and partly in the darkened rooms of official quarters during the heat of the day — cannot claim the value of a treatise pre- pared in an English study where books of refer- ence are always at hand. It is believed, however, that no errors have been made in the statement of the facts ; and the deductions drawn there- from are frankly open to the reader's criticism. There will certainly be no two opinions as to the originality, the power, and the idealism of the Pharaoh whose Hfe is now to be outlined.' 2. THE ANCESTORS OF AKHNATON The Eighteenth Dynasty of Egyptian kings took possession of the throne of the Pharaohs in the year 1580 B.C., over thirteen hundred years after the building of the great pyramids, and some two thousand years after the beginning of dyn- astic history in the Nile Valley. The founder I The writer has to thank the editors of " The Quarterly Review,'' "Blackwood's Magazine," and "The Century Magazine," for permit- ting him to embody in this volume certain portions of articles contri- buted by him to the pages of those journals. 6 PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS OF AKHNATON of the dynasty was the Pharaoh Ahmose I. He drove out the Asiatics who had overrun the country during the previous century, and pur- sued them into the heart of Syria. His successor, Amenophis I, penetrated as far as the territory between the Orontes and the Euphrates ; and the next king, Thutmosis I, was able to set his boundary-stone at the northern Umits of Syria, and thus could call himself the ruler of the entire east end of the Mediterranean, the emperor of all the countries from Asia Minor to the Sudan. Thutmosis II, the succeeding Pharaoh, was occupied with wars in his southern dominions ; but his successor, the famous Queen Hatshepsut, was able to devote the years of her reign to the arts of peace. She was followed by the great warrior Thutmosis III, who conducted campaign after campaign in Syria, and raised the prestige of Egypt to a point never attained before or after that time. Every year he returned to Thebes, his capital, laden with the spoils of Asia. From the capture of the city of Megiddo alone he carried away 924 splendid chariots, 2,238 horses, 2,400 head of various kinds of cattle, 200 shining suits of armour, including those of two kings, quantities of gold and silver, the royal sceptre, the gorgeous tent of one of the kings, and many minor articles. Booty of like value was brought THE ANCESTORS OF AKHNATON 7 in from other shattered kingdoms, and the Egyptian treasuries were full to overflowing. The temples of the gods also received their share of the riches, and their altars groaned under the weight of the offerings. Cyprus, Crete, and perhaps the islands of the .^gean, sent their yearly tribute to Thebes, whose streets, for the first time in history, were thronged with foreigners. Here were to be seen the long-robed Asiatics adorned with jewels made by the hands of Tyrian craftsmen ; here were chariots mounted with gold and electrum drawn by prancing Syrian horses ; here were Phoenician merchants with their precious wares stripped from the kingdoms of the sea ; here were negroes bearing their barbaric treasures to the palace. The Egyptian soldiers held their heads high as they walked through these streets, for they were feared by all the world. The talk was everywhere of conquest, and the tales of adventure now related remained current in Egypt for many a century. War^songs were composed, and hymns of battle were inscribed upon the temple walls. The spirit of the age will be seen in the following hnes, in which the god Amon addresses Thutmosis III : — " I have come, giving thee to smite the princes of Zahi, I have hurled them beneath thy feet among their high- lands . . . Thou hast trampled those who are in the districts of Punt, 8 PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS OF AKHNATON I have made them see thy majesty as a circling star . . . Crete and Cyprus are in terror . . . Those who are in the midst of the great sea hear thy roarings ; I have made them see thy majesty as an avenger, Rising upon the back of Ms slain victim . . . I have made them see thy majesty as a fierce- eyed hon, While thou makest them corpses in their valleys . . ." It was a fierce and a splendid age — the zenith of Egypt's great history. The next king, Amen- ophis II, carried on the conquests with a degree of ferocity not previously apparent. He himself was a man of great physical strength, who could draw a bow which none of his soldiers could use. He led his armies into his restless Asiatic dominions, and having captured seven rebellious Syrian kings, he hung them head downwards from the prow of his gaUey as he approached Thebes, and later sacrificed six of them to Amen with his own hand. The seventh he carried up to a distant city of the Sudan, and there hung him upon the gateway as a warning to all rebels. Dying in the year 1420 B.C., he left the throne to his son, Thutmosis IV, the grandfather of Akhnaton, who at his accession was about eighteen years of age.' 3. THE GODS OF EGYPT With the reign of Thutmosis IV we reach a period of history in which the beginnings are to > Page 95. THE GODS OF EGYPT 9 be observed of certain religious movements, which become more apparent in the time of his son Amenophis III and his grandson Akhnaton. We must look, therefore, more closely at the events of this reign, and must especially observe their religious aspect. For this reason, and also in order that the reader may the more readily appreciate, by contrast, the pure teachings of the Pharaoh whose life forms the subject of the following pages, it will be necessary to glance at the nature of the religions which now held sway. Egypt had at this time existed as a civilised nation for over two thousand years, during the whole of which period these religious beliefs had been developing ; and now they were so engrained in the hearts of the people that changes, how- ever slight, assumed revolutionary proportions, requiring a master-mind for their initiation, and a hand of iron for their carrying into execution^ At the time of which we now write, this mind and this hand had not yet come into existence, and the old gods of Egypt were at the zenith of their power. Of these gods Amon, the presiding deity of Thebes, was the most powerful. He had been originally the tribal god of the Thebans, but when that city had become the capital of Egypt, he had risen to be the state god of the country. The sun-god Ra, or Ra-Horakhti, originally the 10 PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS OF AKHNATON deity of Heliopolis,, a city not far from the modern Cairo, had been the state god in earlier times, and the priests of Amon contrived to identify the two deities under the name " Amon- Ra, King of the Gods."- Amon had several forms. He was usually regarded as a man of shining countenance, upon whose head two tall feathers arose from a golden cap. Sometimes, however, he assumed the form of a heavy-horned ram. Sometimes, again, he adopted the appear- ance of a brother god, named Min, who was later identified with the Greek Pan ; and it may be mentioned in passing that the goat-form of the Greek deity may have been derived from, or con- nected with, this Min-Amon of the Thebans. On occasions, Amon would take upon himself the like- ness of the reigning Pharaoh, choosing a moment when the monarch was away or was asleep, and in this manner he would obtain admittance to the queen's bed-chamber. Amenophis III himself was said to be the son of a union of this nature, though at the same time he did not deny that his earthly father was Thutmosis IV. Amon delighted in battle, and gave willing assistance to the Pharaohs as they clubbed the heads of their enemies or cut their throats. It is possible that, like other of the Egyptian gods, he was but a deified chieftain of the prehistoric period whose love of battle had never been forgotten. THE GODS OF EGYPT 11 The goddess, Mut, " the Mother," was the consort of Amon, who would sometimes come to earth to nurse the king's son at her breast. By Amon she had a son, Khonsu, who formed the third member of the Theban trinity. He was the god of the Moon, and was very fair to look upon. Such were the Theban deities, whose influence upon the coiut was necessarily great. The Helio- politan worship of the sun had also a very con- siderable degree of power at the palace. The god Ra was believed to have reigned as Pharaoh upon earth in the dim ages of the past, and it was thought that the successive sovereigns of Egypt were his direct descendants, though this tradition actually did not date from a period earlier than the Fifth Dynasty. " Son of the Sun " was one of the proudest titles of the Pharaohs, and the personal name of each suc- cessive monarch was held by him in the official titulary as the representative of Ra. While on ea:rth Ra had had the misfortune to be bitten by a snake, and had been cured by the goddess Isis, who had demanded in return the revealing of the god's magical name. This was at last told her ; but for fear that the secret would come to the ears of his subjects, Ra decided to bring about a general massacre of mankind. The slaughter was carried out by the goddess Hathor 12 PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS OF AKHNATON in her form of Sekhmet, a fierce lion-headed woman, who dehghted to wade in streams of blood ; but when only the half of mankind had been slain, Ra repented, and brought the mas- sacre to an end by causing the goddess to become drunk, by means of a gruesome potion of blood and wine. Weary, however, with the cares of state, he decided to retire into the heavens, and there, as the sun, he daily sailed in his boat from horizon to horizon. At dawn he was called Khepera, and had the form of a beetle ; at noon he was Ra ; and at sunset he took the name of Atum, a word probably connected with the Syrian Adon, " Lord," better known to us in its Greek translation " Adonis," As the rising and the setting sun — that is to say, the sun near the horizon — he was called Ra-Horakhti, ; a name which the reader must bear in mind. The goddess Isis, mentioned in the above tradition, was the consort of Osiris, originally a Lower Egyptian deity. Like Ra, this god had also reigned upon earth, but had been murdered by his brother Set, his death being ultimately revenged by his son Horus, the hawk. Thus Osiris, Isis, and Horus formed a trinity, which at this time was mainly worshipped at Abydos, a city of Upper Egypt, where it was thought that Osiris had been buried. Having thus ceased to live upon earth, Osiris became THE GODS OF EGYPT 13 the great King of the Underworld, and all persons prayed to him for their future welfare after death. Meanwhile Horus, the hawk, was the tribal god of more than one city. At Edfu he was worshipped as the conqueror of Set ; and in this manifestation he was the husband of Hathor, the lady of Dendereh, a city some considerable distance from Edfu. At Ombos, however, Set was worshipped, and in the local religion there was no trace of aught but the most friendly relations between Set and Horus. The goddess Hathor, at the same time, had become patron of the Western HiUs, and in one of her earthly forms — namely, that of a cow — she is often represented emerging from her cavern in the cliffs. At Memphis the tribal god was the httle dwarf Ptah, the European Vulcan, the blacksmith, the artificer, and the potter of the gods. In this city also, as in many other districts of Egypt, there was a sacred buU, here called Apis, who was worshipped with divine honours and was regarded as an aspect of Ptah. At Elephantine a ram-headed deity named Khnum was adored, and there was a sacred ram kept in his temple for ceremonial purposes. As Khnum had some connection with the First Cataract of the NUe, which is situated near Elephantine, he was re- garded as of great importance throughout Eg5^t. Moreover, he was supposed by some to have 14 PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS OF AKHNATON used the mud at the bottom of the Nile to form the first human being, and thus he found a place in the mythology of several districts. A Vulture, named Nekheb, was the tribal deity of the trading city of Eileithiaspohs ; a ferocious crocodile, Sebek, was the god of a second city of the name of Ombos ; an ibis, Thoth, was that of Hermopolis ; a cat, Bast, that of Bubastis ; and so on — almost every city having its tribal god. Besides these there were other more abstract deities : Nut, the heavens, who, in the form of a woman, spread herself across the sky ; Seb, the earth ; Shu, the vast- ness of space ; and so forth. The old gods of Egypt were indeed a multitude.£j Here were those who had marched into the country at the head of conquering tribes ; here were ancient heroes and chieftains individually deified, or often identified with the god whom their tribe had served ; here were the elements personified ; here the orbs of heaven which man could see above him. As intercourse between city and city became more general, one set of beliefs had been brought into line with another, and myths had developed to explain the discrepancies. Thus in the time of Thutmosis IV the heavens were crowded with gods ; but the reader will do well to familiarise himself with the figure of Amon-Ra, the god of Thebes, who stood above DEMIGODS AND SPIRITS — PRIESTHOODS 15 them all, and with Ra-Horakhti, the god oft Heliopolis. In the following pages the lesser denizens of the Egyptian Olympus play no great part, save as a routed army hurled back into th^ ignorant darkness from which they came. 4. THE DEMIGODS AND SPIRITS— THE PRIESTHOODS The sacred bulls and rams mentioned above were relics of an ancient animal-worship, the origin of which is lost in the obscurity of pre- history. The Egyptians paid homage to a variety of animals, and almost every city or district possessed its particular species to which special protection was extended. At Hermopolis and in other parts of Egypt the baboon was sacred, as well as the ibis, which typified the god Thoth. Cats were sacred both at Bubastis, where the cat-goddess, Bast, resided, and in various other districts. Crocodiles were very generally held in reverence, and several river fish were thus treated. The snake was much feared and reverenced ; and, as a pertinent example of this superstition, it may be mentioned that Ameno- phis III, the father of Akhnaton, placed a figure of the agathodemon serpent in a temple at Benha. The cobra was reverenced as the symbol of Uazet, the goddess of the Delta, and, first used as a royal emblem by the archaic kings of that PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS OF AKHNATON country, it became the main emblem of sover- eignty in Pharaonic times. It is unnecessary here to look more closely at this aspect of Egyptian religion ; and but a word need be said of the thousand demons and spirits which, together with the gods and the sacred animals, crowded the regions of the unknown. Many were the names which the magician might call upon in the hour of his need, and many were the awful forms which the soul of a man who had died was liable to meet. Osiris, the great god of the dead, was served by four such genii, and under his authority there sat no less than forty- two terrible demons whose business it was to judge the quavering soul. The numerous gates of the underworld were guarded by monsters whose names alone would strike terror into the heart, and the unfortunate soul had to repeat endless and peculiarly tedious formulae before admittance Was granted. To minister to these hosts of heaven there had of necessity to be vast numbers of priests. At Thebes the priesthood of Amon formed an organisation of such power and (;^eaitfi!\that the actions of the Pharaoh had largely coine to be controlled by it. The High Priest of Amon-Ra was one of the most important personages in the land, and his immediate subordinates, the Second, Third, and Fourth Priests, as they were The Head of the Mummy of Thutmosis IV., the grandfather of Akhnaton {See page 20) THUTMOSIS rv AND MUTEMUA 17 called, were usually nobles of the highest rank. The High Priest of Amon was at this period often Grand Vizir also, and thus combined the highest civil appointment with the highest sacerdotal of&ce. The priesthood of Ra at HeUo- polis, although of far less power than that of Amon, was eiIso a body of great importance. The High Priest was known as " the Great One of Visions," and he was perhaps less of a pohtician and more of a priest than his Theban colleague. The High Priest of Ptah at Memphis was called " the Great Master Artificer," Ptah being the Vulcan of Egypt. He, however, and the many other high priests of the various gods, did not rank with the two great leaders of the Amon and the Ra priesthoods, 5. THUTMOSIS IV AND MUTEMUA When Thutmosis IV ascended the throne he was confronted by a very serious political prob- lem. The HeUopoUtan priesthood at this time was chafing against the power of Amon, and was striving to restore the somewhat fallen prestige of its own god Ra, who in the far past had been the supreme deity of Egypf,. but had now to play an annoying second to the Theban god. Thutmosis IV, as we shall presently be told by Akhnaton himself,* did not altogether D I Page 86 18 PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS OF AKHNATON approve of the political character of the Amon priesthood, and it may have been due to this dissatisfaction that he undertook the repairing of the great sphinx at Gizeh, which was in the care of the priests of HeUopolis. The sphinx was thought to represent a combination of the Heliopolitan gods Horakhti, Khepera, Ra, an^ Atum, who have been mentioned above; "and according to a later tradition, Thutmosis IV had obtained the throne over the heads of his elder brothers through the mediation of the sphinx — that is to say, through that of the Heliopolitan priests. By them he was called " Son of Atum and Protector of Horakhte, . . . who purifies Heliopolis and satisfies Ra,'" and it seems that they looked to him to restore to them their lost power. The Pharaoh, however, was a- physical weakling, whose small amount of energy was entirely expended upon his army, which he greatly loved, and which he led into Syria and into the Sudan. His brief reign of somewhat over eight years, from 1420 to 1411 B.C., marks but the indecisive beginnings of the struggle between Amon and Ra, which culminated in the early years of the reign of his grandson Akhnaton. Some time before he came to the throne he had married a daughter of the King of Mitanni, X The sphinx tablet. THUTMOSIS IV AND MUTEMUA ( 19~^ a North-Syrian state which acted as a buffer between the Eg5rptian possessions in Syria and the hostile lands of Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, and which it was desirable, therefore, to placate by such a union. There is little doubt that this princ£S^ is to be identified with the Queen Mutemua,"~)Df whom several monuments exist,-' ^aiKi"'WKo''was the mother of Amenophis III, the son and successor of Thutmosis IV. A foreign element was thus introduced into the court which much altered its character, and led to numerous changes of a very radical nature. It may be that this Asiatic influence induced the Pharaoh to give further encouragement to the priests of Heliopolis. The god Atum, the aspect of Ra as the setting sun, was, as has been said, probably of common origin with Aton, who was largely worshipped in North Syria ; and the (foreign queen Vith her retinue may have there- fore felt more sympathy with Heliopolis than with Thebes. Moreover, it was the Asiatic tendency: _tp speculate- in religious