Page:The Hittites - the Story of a Forgotten Empire.djvu/24

22 brought from Birejik on the Euphrates to the British Museum; and even at Boghaz Keui, far away in Northern Asia Minor, the winged solar disk has been carved by Hittite sculptors upon the rock.

Amenophis IV., the son of Amenophis III., was educated in the faith of his mother, and after his accession to the throne endeavoured to impose the new creed upon his unwilling subjects. The powerful priesthood of Thebes withstood him for a while, but at last he assumed the name of Khu-n-Aten, 'the refulgence of the solar disk,' and quitting Thebes and its ancient temples he built himself a new capital dedicated to the new divinity. It stood on the eastern bank of the Nile, to the north of Assiout, and its long line of ruins is now known to the natives under the name of Tel el-Amarna. The city was filled with the adherents of the new creed, and their tombs are yet to be found in the cliffs that enclose the desert on the east. Its existence, however, was of no long duration. After the death of Khu-n-Aten, 'the heretic king,' his throne was occupied by one or two princes who had embraced his faith; but their reigns were brief, and they were succeeded by a monarch who returned once more to the religion of his forefathers. The capital of Khu-n-Aten was deserted, and the objects found upon its site show that it was never again inhabited.

Among its ruins a discovery has recently been made which casts an unexpected light upon the history of the Oriental world in the century before the Exodus. A large collection of clay tablets has been found, similar to those disinterred from the mounds of Nineveh and Babylonia, and like the latter inscribed in cuneiform characters and in the Assyro-Babylonian language.