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Rh claim the support of authentic history, while his attempt to find room for the atrocities of the wicked bailiffs elsewhere than at Altdorf consists only in suggesting an intricate series of possibilities, none of which are supported by any positive evidence.

(W. A. B. C.)

TELL EL AMARNA, the name now given to a collection of ruins and rock tombs in Upper Egypt near the east bank of the Nile, 58 m. by river below Assiut and 190 m. above Cairo. The ruins are those of Ekhaton (Akhet-Aton), a city built c. 1360 by Akhenaton (Amenophis IV.) as the new capital of his empire (in place of Thebes) when he abandoned the worship of Ammon and devoted himself to that of Aton, i.e. the sun (see : History, &sect; Ancient). Shortly after the death of Akhenaton the court returned to Thebes, and the city, after an existence of perhaps only twenty years &mdash; of fifty years at the utmost &mdash; was abandoned. Not having been inhabited since, the lines of the streets and the ground-plans of many buildings can still be traced. The chief ruins are those of the royal palace and of the House of the Rolls; there are scanty remains of the great temple. In the palace are four pavements of painted stucco work in fair preservation. They were discovered in 1891-92 by Prof. Flinders Petrie (see his Tell el Amarna, 1894). In the Rolls House were discovered in 1887 by the fellahin some 300 clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform characters. They are letters and state documents addressed to Amenophis IV. and his father, from the kings of Babylon, Assyria, &c., and from the Egyptian governors in Syria and neighbouring districts. The greater part of them were purchased for the Berlin Museum, but a large number were secured for the British Museum. Their contents proved invaluable for the reconstruction of the history, social and political, of Egypt and Western Asia during that period.

Hewn out of the sides of the hills which close in on the east the plain on which Ekhaton stood are two groups of tombs; one group lies 1½ m. N.E., and the other 3 m. S. of the city. The tombs, all of which belong to the time of Akhenaton, are full of interesting scenes in the peculiar style of the period, accompanied by hymns to the sun god. The most important tomb is, perhaps, that of Meri-Ra, high priest of the sun, which has a façade nearly 100 ft. long and two large chambers. On one of the walls of the main chamber is depicted the scene, now well known, in which a blind choir of harpists and singers celebrate the arrival of the court at the temple. In the early centuries of Moslem rule in Egypt the northern tombs were inhabited by Copts, one tomb, that of Pa-Nehesi, being turned into a church. In a ravine opening into the plain between the north and south tombs, and some seven miles from the city, is a tomb supposed to be that of Akhenaton.

TELLER, WILHELM ABRAHAM (1734-1804), German Protestant divine, was born at Leipzig on the 9th of January 1734. His father, Romanus Teller (1703-1750), was a pastor at Leipzig, and afterwards became professor of theology in the university. He edited the earlier volumes of a Bibelwerk (19 vols., 1749-70) which was designed as an adaptation for German readers of the exegetical works of Andrew Willet, Henry Ainsworth, Symon Patrick, Matthew Poole, Matthew

Henry and others. Wilhelm Abraham studied philosophy and theology in the university of his native town. Amongst the men whose influence mainly determined his theological position and line of work was J. A. Ernesti. Teller's writings present rationalism in its course of development from biblical supernaturalism to the borders of deistical naturalism. His first learned production was a Latin translation of Benjamin Kennicott's Dissertation on the State of the Printed Hebrew Text of the Old Testament (1756), which was followed the next year by an essay in which he expounded his own critical principles. In 1761 he was appointed pastor, professor of theology and general superintendent in the university of Helmstedt. Here he pursued his exegetical, theological and historical researches, the results of which appeared in his Lehrbuch des christlichen Glaubens (1764). This work caused some commotion, as much by the novelty of its method as by the heterodoxy of its matter, and more by its omissions than by its positive teaching, though everywhere the author seeks to put theological doctrines in a decidedly modern form. In 1767 Teller, whose attitude had made his position at Helmstedt intolerable, was glad to accept an invitation from the Prussian minister for ecclesiastical affairs to the post of provost of Kölln, with a seat in the supreme consistory of Berlin. Here he found himself in the company of the rationalistic theologians of Prussia &mdash; F. S. G. Sack (1738-1817), Johann Joachim Spalding (1714-1804) and others and became one of the leaders of the rationalistic party, &mdash; and one of the chief contributors to C. F. Nicolai's Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek. Teller was not long in making use of his freer position in Berlin. In 1772 appeared the most popular of his books, Wörterbuch des Neuen Testamentes zur Erklärung der christlichen Lehre (6th ed., 1805). The object of this work was to recast the language and ideas of the New Testament and give them the form of 18th-century illuminism. The author maintains that the Graeco-Hebraic expressions must not be interpreted literally, but explained in terms intelligible to the modern mind. By this lexicon Teller had put himself amongst the most advanced rationalists, and his opponents charged him with the design of overthrowing positive Christianity altogether. In 1786 the author became a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. The &ldquo;Wöllner edict&rdquo; of July 9, 1788, for the enforcement of Lutheran orthodoxy, and Teller's manly action, as member of the consistorial council, in defiance of it (cf. his Wohlgemeinte Erinnerungen, 1788), led the Prussian government to pass upon him the sentence of suspension for three months, with forfeiture of his stipend. He was not, however, to be moved by such means, and (1792) issued his work Die Religion der Vollkommeneren, an exposition of his theological position, in which he advocated at length the idea, subsequently often urged, of &ldquo;the perfectibility of Christianity,&rdquo; &mdash; that is, of the ultimate transformation of Christianity into a scheme of simple morality, with a complete rejection of all specifically Christian ideas and methods. This book represents the culminating point of German illuminism, and is separated by a long process of development from the author's Lehrbuch. In the same year he published his Anleitung zur Religion überhaupt und zum Allgemeinen des Christenthums besonders; für die Jugend höherer und gebildeter Stünde aller Religionsparteien. Teller died on the 9th of December 1804. Besides his contributions to the Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek, he edited a popular and practically useful Magazin für Prediger (1792-1801).

TELLICHERRY, a seaport of British India, in the Malabar district of Madras, between Cannanore and the French settlement of Mahe. Pop. (1901) 27,883. It is a healthy and picturesque town, built upon a group of Wooded hills running down to the sea, and is protected by a natural breakwater of rock. The town with its suburbs occupies about 5 sq. m., and was at one time defended by a strong mud wall. The old fort 