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Updated: June 20, 2025
During the reign of Khu-n-Aten, indeed, their own Semitic kinsmen from Canaan held the chief offices of state, and the Pharaoh was endeavouring to force upon his subjects a form of monotheism which had much in common with that of Israel. The language of the hymns engraved on the walls of the tombs at Tel el-Amarna reads not unfrequently like the verses of a Hebrew Psalm.
The Pharaoh is entreated to send help speedily; if his troops do not come at once, it is reputed, they will come too late. But it would seem that the troops could not be spared at home. There, too, civil war was breaking out, and though Khu-n-Aten died before the end came, his sepulchre was profaned, his mummy rent to pieces, and the city he had built destroyed.
This was the sentiment of the nation, by the lips of Khu-n-Aten, the artist king: "Sweet love fills my heart for the queen; may she ever keep the hand of the Pharaoh." Whatever Egypt's mode of worshiping Khem and Isis, nothing could set at naught this clean, impulsive, sincere avowal. Here, then, openly and in perfect propriety was a woman abroad with her suitor.
This latter was a personal enemy of Rib-Hadad the governor of Gebal, whose letters to Khu-n-Aten form a considerable portion of the Tel el-Amarna collection. The authority of Rib-Hadad originally extended over the greater part of Phoenicia, and included the strong fortress of Zemar or Simyra in the mountains.
Meanwhile he sent his messenger Elimelech to Khu-n-Aten with various presents, and gave the king an account of what had been happening in "Canaan." The Hittite troops had departed, but Etagama elsewhere called Aidhu-gama the pa-ur or "prince" of Kadesh, in the land of Kinza, had joined Aziru in attacking Namya-yitsa, the governor of Kumidi.
It is clear that the death of Khu-n-Aten must have been quickly followed by the triumph of his enemies. His capital was overthrown, the stones of its temple carried away to Thebes, there to adorn the sanctuary of the victorious Amon, and the adherents of his reform either slain or driven into exile. The vengeance executed upon them was national as well as religious.
Among the tablets found at Tel el-Amarna are some fragments of Babylonian literature, one of which has served as a lesson-book, and traces of dictionaries have also been discovered there. The religious reforms of Khu-n-Aten resulted in the fall of the dynasty and the Egyptian empire.
His own name was next changed, and Amenophis IV. became Khu-n-Aten, "the splendour of the solar disk." Khu-n-Aten's attempt to overthrow the ancient faith of Egypt was naturally resisted by the powerful priesthood of Thebes. A religious war was declared for the first time, so far as we know, in the history of mankind.
But there was no England at hand to prevent the banishment of the stranger and his religion; the Semites who had practically governed Egypt under Khu-n-Aten were expelled or slain, and hard measure was dealt out to such of their kinsfolk as still remained in the land.
Many of the tablets had been brought from the archive chamber of Thebes, but the greater part of the collection belongs to the reign of Khu-n-Aten himself. It consists almost entirely of official correspondence; of letters from the kings of Babylonia and Assyria, of Mesopotamia and Kappadokia, and of despatches from the Egyptian governors and vassal-princes in Syria and Palestine.
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