LAYING BARE HISTORY

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11435, 3 February 1923, Page 11

LAYING BARE HISTORY

VALUE OF EGYPTIAN FINDS THE HERETIC .PHARAOHS. Students of history everywhere are following with intense interest- the accounts of the Egyptian discoveries in the town of Tutankhamen, which are expected to throw much light on the period of tlie heretic Pharaohs. Professor E. T. Peet, Professor Egyptology at Liverpool University, who under the Egyptian Exploration Society, was himself engaged m the excavation of Tell-el-Amarna in the winter of 1920-21, explained to a oorrosnnii dent the bearing of these reve. J&tioss era the buried city of Khut Aten at Tell-el-Amarna. SUN WORSHIP. “The first of the heretic Pharaohs,’’ said Professor Peet, “was Amenhotep (about 1375 8.C.). This young king changed the State religion of Egypt into a form. of (Monotheism. He gave up worshiDping Amen and the other orthodox deities, and introduced the worship of the Sun God Aten. _ . •‘lt whs probably directed againM the priests of Amen, who were becoming too powerful for him. Amenhotep moved the court from Thebes down the river to Tell-el-Amarna, and. there built an entirely new city, which he called Khut Aten (“The Horizon of the Jibe’’), at the same time be changed his mu uame to Akhen Aten (“The Disc is Pleased”). “In a few years Akhenaten was succeeded by his son-in-law. SmaDkhKakra, who had for some time been his co’-regent, and later another son-in-law, Tutankhaten, succeeded to the throne. The city of Khut Aten had existed only for about a quarter of a century when Tutankhaten returned to the worship of Amen, removed bis Oourt to Thebes, changed his name trom Tuiankhaten (“The Living Trudge of the Disc”), to Tutankhamen (“The Living Image of Amen’.’). LINK WITH EARLY HISTORY. It was this Tutankhamen whose tomb has now been unearthed, and the value of the discovery is that, as some of the property in the ante chambers of' the tomb must havo belonged to the King at Khut Aten, it clearly establishes a link with the history of the Egyptian Court. The Egyptian Exploration Society, he added, intended to continue with their work, for which there was at least- sufficient to engage them for 20 years, because the buried city is five miles long and a 'quarter of a mile wide, and contains besides the Royal palace, an enormous Sun Tem- • ple and many houses. “What particularly interests me," he added, “is the statement that Lord Carnarvon’s include a box containing rolls of papvri. “For me, that all-important story is what have these rolls to tell? We may expect them to contain chapters from the hook of the dead.”