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Amenophis IV. was the son of Amenophis III., by a Mesopotamian princess called Thi, who came from the land of Mitani. When the young prince Amenophis IV. grew up, it was found that he had conceived a rooted dislike to the worship of Åmen-Ra, the king of the gods and great lord of Thebes, and that he preferred the worship of the disk of the sun to that of Åmen-Rā; as a sign of his opinions he called himself "beloved of the sun's disk," instead of the usual and time-honoured "beloved of Amen." The native Egyptian priesthood disliked the foreign queen, and the sight of her son with his protruding chin, thick lips, and other characteristic features of a foreign race, found no favour in their sight; that such a man should openly despise the worship of Amen-Ra was a thing intolerable to the priesthood, and angry words and acts were, on their part, the result. In answer to their objections the king ordered the name of Åmen-Rā to be chiselled out of all the monuments, even from his father's names. Rebellion then broke out, and Khut-en-åten thought it best to leave Thebes, and to found a new city for himself at a place between Memphis and Thebes, now called Tell el-Amarna. The famous architect Bek, whose father Men served under Amenophis III., designed the temple buildings, and in a very short time a splendid town with beautiful granite sculptures sprang out of the desert. As an insult to the priests and people of Thebes, he built a sandstone and granite temple at Thebes in honour of the god Harmachis. When Khut-en-åten's new town, Khut-åten, "the splendour of the sun's disk," was finished, his mother Thi came to live there; and here the king passed his life quietly with his mother, wife, and seven daughters. He died leaving no male issue, and each of the husbands of his daughters became king.

As long as the "heretic king" lived the city prospered and grew, and many wealthy people took up their abode in it; sculptors and artists and skilled workmen of every

kind found abundant employment, therefore their patrons were determined to be buried in the mountains close by. Beautifully decorated houses and tombs became the order. of the day, and the sculpture, and painting, and indeed art generally prove that artists of all kinds who settled there at that time threw off many of the old trammels and conventionalities of their professions, and indulged themselves in new designs, and new forms, and new treatment of their subjects. Indeed it is to the buildings of the city of Khut-åten and their decorations that we owe many ideas of the possibilities of Egyptian art. The new styles of sculpture and artistic decoration, however, only flourished as long as the king was alive, and as soon as he died the inhabitants of all classes drifted back to Thebes, and by degrees the city of Khut-åten became deserted; tradition and obedience to custom proved to be too strong for the would-be followers of the heretic king. The length of the king's reign does not seem to have been more than twelve or fifteen years, and certainly long before the reign of Rameses II. the beautiful city which he built had been made to fall into ruins. Fortunately, however, the ruins are very instructive, and they allow visitors to follow its plan with success. In 1887 a number of important cuneiform tablets were found by a native woman near the palace, and most of these may be seen in the Museums of London, Berlin, and Cairo. They are inscribed with letters and despatches from kings of countries in and about Mesopotamia and from governors of cities in Palestine and Syria, and those from the last named countries show that, whilst the heretic king was occupying himself with theological problems and artistic developments, his Empire was falling to pieces. In 1892 Mr. Petrie carried on excavations at Tell el-Amarna, and uncovered several painted plaster pavements of an unusual character. In the neighbourhood of the town are a number of inscribed tombs of considerable interest, by

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reason of the religious texts that are found in them. form and arrangement they have much in common with the tombs of the XIIth dynasty, but their decoration is characteristic of the period of Khut-Åten. Among them of special interest are:-(Northern Group) No. 1. Tomb of Pa-nehsi, which seems to have been used as a church by the Copts; No. 2. Tomb of Pentu, inscribed with a hymn to Aten; No. 3. Tomb of Meri-Rā, which is probably the most characteristic of the period, with sacrificial scenes, hymns to Åten, plans of houses, and scenes of the crowning of officials; No. 4. Tomb of Aāḥmes, with a hymn to Åten; No. 5. Tomb of an unknown official which was being built when King Rā-seña-ka came to the throne; and No. 7, a tomb which mentions the receipt of tribute from vassal nations. The scenes and portraits in this tomb are of great interest. (Southern Group), the Tomb of Tutu, with hymns to Åten; and the Tomb of Ai, the successor of King Khut-en-Åten. The Tomb of Khut-en-Åten lies at a considerable distance from the river, and it is chiefly interesting on account of the scenes of sun-worship which are depicted in it.

Gebel Abu Fêdah.-Seventeen miles south of Haggi Kandil, 212 miles from Cairo, on the east side of the river, is the range of low mountains about twelve miles long known by this name. Lying a little distance inland is the village of Al-Kusiyeh, which marks the site of the Greek City of Cusae, the Qes of the hieroglyphic

texts, and the capital of the XIVth nome of Upper Egypt. The name seems to mean, "the town of the mummy bandages." According to Aelian (H.A. x. 27), the goddess of the city was worshipped under the form of a white cow. Towards the southern end of this range there are some crocodile mummy pits.

Manfalût, 223 miles from Cairo on the west bank of

the Nile, occupies the site of an ancient Egyptian town. Leo Africanus says that the town was destroyed by the Romans, and adds that it was rebuilt under Muḥammadan rule. In his time he says that huge columns and buildings inscribed with hieroglyphs were still visible. The Coptic name Manbalot, ǹ B&λOT "place of the sack,"

is the original of its Arabic name to-day.

Asyût, 249 miles from Cairo, is the capital of the province of the same name, and the seat of the InspectorGeneral of Upper Egypt; it stands on the site of the ancient Egyptian city called Seut, whence the Arabic name Siût or Asyût, and the Coptic clwort. The Greeks called the city Lycopolis, or "wolf city," probably because the jackal-headed Anubis was worshipped there. In ancient Egyptian times the sacred name of the , and it formed the

city was Per-Anpu~~

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capital of the XVIIth or Anubis nome,

of Upper

Egypt. Asyût is a large city, with spacious bazaars and fine mosques; it is famous for its red pottery and for its market, held every Sunday, to which wares from Arabia and Upper Egypt are brought. The American Missionaries have a large establishment, and the practical, useful education of the natives by these devoted men is carried on here, as well as at Cairo, on a large scale. The Asyût Training College was specially established to provide and prepare workers to carry on the educational and evangelistic operations of the Evangelical community in Egypt, and nearly all the male teachers, in number 215, have been trained in it. At the end of 1898 there were 604 boarders and day scholars in the institution, who represented 112 towns and villages, and came from all parts of Egypt. In the same year the American Mission had in all Egypt 180 schools with 11,872

pupils, and 295 teachers, and of its Protestant community 365 per 1,000 knew how to read, as against 48 per 1,000 of the entire population in Egypt. If the evangelical community is deducted from the entire population, the latter figure would become smaller still. Of the males of the evangelical community in Egypt, 521 per 1,000 know how to read, and of the females, 200 per 1,000. The number of stations belonging to the Mission, including churches, is 207, and in 1898 the pupils paid 26,741 dollars in tuition fees. The Arabic geographers described Asyût as a town of considerable size, beauty, and importance, and before the abandonment of the Sûdân by the Khedive all caravans from that region stopped there. In the hills to the west of the town are a number of ancient Egyptian tombs, which date back as far as the XIIth dynasty. A large number have been destroyed during the present century for the sake of the limestone which forms the walls. When M. Denon stayed here he said that the number of hieroglyphic inscriptions which cover the tombs was so great that many months would be required to read, and many years to copy them. The disfigurement of the tombs dates from the time when the Christians took up their abode in them.

Fifteen miles farther south is the Coptic town of Abu Tîg, the name of which appears to be derived from AПOOнкн, a "granary"; and 14 miles beyond, 279 miles from Cairo, is Kau el-Kebir (the TKWOT of the Copts), which marks the site of Antaeopolis, the capital of the Antaeopolite nome in Upper Egypt. The temple which formerly existed here was dedicated to Antaeus, the Libyan wrestler, who fought with Hercules. In the plain close by it is said by Diodorus that the battle between Horus, the son of Osiris and Isis, and Set or Typhon, the murderer of Osiris, took

* He was the son of Poseidon and Ge, and was invincible as long as he remained in contact with his mother earth.

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