United States or Angola ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Amen-hotep changed his own name to Khu-n-Aten, "the glory of the solar disk," and every effort was made to extirpate the state religion, of which he was himself the official head. But the ancient priesthood of Thebes proved too strong for the king. He left the city of his fathers, and built a new capital farther north, where its ruins are now known as Tel el-Amarna.

The age of Khu-n-Aten, which is also the age of Moses, was essentially a literary age; a knowledge of reading and writing was widely spread, and an active correspondence was being constantly carried on from one part of the civilised world to the other. Even the Bedâwin shêkhs, who acted as free-lances in Palestine, sent letters to the Pharaoh and read his replies.

Many of them were doubtless Egyptians, but many, perhaps the majority, were of Asiatic extraction. Already under his father and grandfather the court had been filled with Canaanites and other natives of Asia, and the great offices of state had been occupied by them. Now under Khu-n-Aten the Asiatic character of the government was increased tenfold.

The priests of Amon had thus far triumphed; the old idolatrous worship was carried on once more in the great temple of Karnak, though its official head was absent, and Khu-n-Aten with his archives and his court had fled to a safer home. Upper Egypt was left to its worship of Amon and Min, while the king established himself nearer his Canaanite possessions.

Several of the most interesting of the Tel el-Amarna letters were written to the Pharaoh Amenôphis IV. Khu-n-Aten by Ebed-Tob the king of Jerusalem. Not only is the name of Uru-salim or Jerusalem the only one in use, the city itself is already one of the most important fortresses of Canaan. It was the capital of a large district which extended southwards as far as Keilah and Karmel of Judah.

Khu-n-aten, it is urged, could not allow the latter crime to go unpunished. The Sun-god had created him and his father, and had caused them to be called after his own name. He was the supreme object of the Pharaoh's worship, the deity for whose sake Khu-n-Aten had deserted Thebes.

The appeal was so far successful that troops were despatched to Zemar. But it was too late: along with Arka it had already been occupied by Ebed-Asherah, who thereupon writes to the Pharaoh, protesting his loyalty to Khu-n-Aten, declaring that he is "the house-dog" of the king, and that he guards the land of the Amorites for "the king" his lord.

Hunters not infrequently went inland at this point for large game, and although the place was in a state of partial demolishment, Kenkenes hoped that there might be an inn. He tied his boat to a stake and entered Khu-aten, the destroyed capital of Amenophis IV, self-styled Khu-n-Aten.

In his boyhood he had heard the Pharaoh Khu-n-Aten anathematized by the shaven priests, and in the depths of his heart he had been startled to find no sympathy for their rage against the artist-king. Ritual-bound Egypt had resented liberty of worship a liberalism that lacked naught in zeal or piety, but added grace to the Osirian faith. In his beauty-worship, Kenkenes was not narrow.

The Pharaoh transferred his capital from Thebes to a new site farther north, now known as Tel el-Amarna, changed his own name to Khu-n-Aten, "the Glory of the Solar Disk," and filled his court with Asiatic officials and the adherents of the new cult. The reaction, however, soon came.