Akhenaton |
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AMENOPHIS IV, better known as "Akhenaton, the Heretic King," is, in some respects, the most extraordinay monarch who ever sat on a throne. Lord Supreme of the then civilized world, with the mightiest army at his command, he preached the gospel of peace and preached it so consistently that when subject nations rebelled he refused to attack them. Living centuries before King David, he wrote psalms as beautiful as those of the Judean monarch. Thirteen hundred years before Christ he preached and lived a gospel of perfect love, brotherhood, and truth. Two thousand years before Mohammed he taught the doctrine of the One God. Three thousand years before Darwin, he sensed the unity that runs through all living things. Akhenaton, too, was the richest man on earth. The entire empire of Egypt was his personal property, and with it the lives of his subjects. It is impossible to convey an idea of his wealth. 'Only those who have visited the museum in Cairo and seen the immense treasure taken out of the tomb of his son, Tutankhamen, will have an idea of it. Akhenaton's great-grandfather, Thotmes III, and his father, Amenophis III, were among the world's mightiest conquerors and had extended their kingdoms over the then civilized world, and even into savage Europe. Their armies raided the adjoining islands of Europe for slaves, as later Europe raided Africa for them. Weigall says: Egypt was at the height of power to which the military skill of Thotmes III, had raised her, when Akhenaton came to the throne. The kings of Palestine and Syria were tributaries to the young Pharaoh; the Princes of the sea-coast cities, sent their yearly impost to Thebes; Cyprus, Crete, and even the Greek islands were Egyptianized; Sinai and the Red Sea coast as far as Somaliland were included in the Pharaoh's dominion; and the Negro tribes of the Sudan were his slaves. Egypt was indeed the greatest state in the world and Thebes was a metropolis at which the merchants, the ambassadors, and the artisans from the various countries met together. Here they could look upon buildings undreamed of in their own land and could participate in luxuries unknown even in Babylon. The wealth of Egypt was so enormous that a foreign sovereign who wrote to the Pharaoh asking for gold, mentioned that it could not be considered as anything more valuable than so much dust by an Egyptian. Gold vases in vast quantities adorned the tables of the King and his nobles, and hundreds of golden vessels of different kinds were used in the temples. The rulers of the then known world bowed before Akhenaton. Inscriptions of his time read: Year 12, the second month of winter, the eighth day… the King and the Queen . . . living forever and ever, made a public appearance on the great palanquin of gold to receive the tribute of Syria and Ethiopia and of the West and of the East. All the countries were collected at one time, and also the islands in the midst of the seas, bringing offering to the King when he was on the great throne of the city of Akhenaton, in order to receive the imposts of every land, and granting them in return the breath of life. And the King rested upon his great throne with which he is well pleased and which uplifts all his beauties." And His Majesty said: "Bring me the companions of the King, the great ones and the mighty ones, the captains of the soldiers, and the nobles of the land in entirety." And they were conducted to him straightaway and they lay on their bellies before His Majesty, kissing the ground. But Akhenaton was little interested in these displays because within him there burned the spirit of truth and beauty, and the desire to spread the knowledge of the One God. He saw his people worshipping bulls, hippopotami, lions, cats, and a multitude of other gods. The priests of Amen, firmly rooted in the great city of Karnak, disseminated these superstitions, suppressed free thought, and upheld ignorance. This grieved him for he held that there was but a single Force running through all life--a Force of which all other forces were but a part. That Power, he held, was the One God. Belief in that God made him happy, and with absolute power at his command he wished to create conditions under which his subjects would also be happy. Moreover, his people loved war and conquest, which he despised. The sight of burnt sacrifices also disgusted his esthetic soul. Later he forbade them and banished the sacred bull, Apis. God, to him, was a formless deity. A thousand years before Moses wrote the Second Commandment banishing graven images of God, Akhenaton did so. But realizing that it would be necessary to have a symbol of his new God-something that the less enlightened could see-Akhenaton selected the sun, source of all life. God to him was the unseen and yet ever-present Father of Mankind made manifest in sunshine, the Creator of the Universe and the Bestower of all Good. And his God, unlike that of Moses, was not a jealous God, but a God of Perfect Love, a God who was compassionate even toward the chicken that "crieth in the eggshell," a God who gives the manchild a mother "to soothe him so that he may not weep." Nowhere in his writings does Akhenaton make mention of an avenging God. In order to have his religion better developed and understood, he moved his court from the magnificent city of Thebes, home of his ancestors, and, descending the Nile, built the beautiful city of Akhenaton (now Tell el'Amarna)--a city "great in loveliness, mistress of pleasant ceremonies.... At the sight of her beauty there is rejoicing. She is lovely and beautiful; when one sees her, it is like a glimpse of heaven." Here he erected beautiful temples dedicated to religion, art, and music. He taught his poets to write what they felt, and his artists to paint what they saw. The temples of his new God were unlike any that had been built before. In the place of gloomy, mystifying, terror-inspiring structures, he constructed halls, resplendent with light and beauty. No oracles, no stage effects, no tricks of priest-craft to terrify the ignorant. "He gave," says Breasted, "the first signal of the religion that the West upholds today." In his Dream City, he abolished pose and pretense by setting the example. Other Pharaohs had taught that they were of heavenly origin. Their persons were held so sacred that no one dared to look at them. They could be depicted only in certain conventional attitudes. But Akhenaton showed himself to the people, and when he drove through the streets his guard was unarmed. He allowed himself to be painted in all manner of poses, thus being, perhaps, the first Pharaoh of whom we have a true likeness. (His earliest pictures, however, are of the conventional type.) In his pictures he is seen in such familiar scenes as playing with his daughters, resting in his garden, eating a roasted pigeon, or putting his teeth into the neatly trimmed meat adhering to a large bone, which he holds in his hand. Of jewels, he wore none, and his crown was used only for state occasions. In all things he attempted to teach naturalness. Truth, to him, was the daily facts of life. He also encouraged respect for women by setting an example. He is portrayed in many affectionate poses with his wife, the beautiful Queen Nefertiti, who is said by several authorities to have been his own sister. (It was the practice of the Pharaoh, like that of the Inca ruler, to marry his own sister in order to preserve the purity of the royal strain.) Although she presented him with seven daughters and he longed for a son, he did not take another wife as was the custom. He seemed never to tire of posing with the members of his family for the artists. As for his mother, the great Queen Tiyi, a coal-black woman, his affection for her stands out as one of the great examples of filial love. As his religion was one of happiness and joy, he loved the good things of life--the flowers, the beautiful gardens, the charms of music, the tonic of a good bowl of wine or a well-cooked meal. Hating cruelty, he abolished the use of the lash. The art of his time shows no slaves burdened with chains. Intoxicated with the artistic passion that burned within him, his mind was ever at work. "His brain," says Weigall, "was so active that he could not submit to be idle, and even when he reclined amidst the flowers in his gardens, his whole soul was straining upwards in the attempt to pierce the barrier which lay between him and the God which caused the flower to bloom." But alas! the young Dreamer-King--he was only fourteen when he came to the throne--was to learn, like all others who try to create perfection, that mankind was not ready for it. The soldiers, who had fought under his mighty father in Lebanon, Tyre, Sidon, and Ethiopia, conquering city after city, and returning laden with loot and wives, were chafing with inaction. The commander-in- chief of his army, mighty Horemheb, was urging him to conquest. The people, too, wanted to see the stolen wealth from other nations flowing into the empire as of yore. Troubles multiplied. The priests of Amen, seeing the wealth that had formerly come to them going to the worship of the new God, began to conspire against the Pharaoh. Thereupon Akhenaton, who up to now had been tolerant, showed the weight of his hand. He repressed them and ordered the name of Amen to be hammered out of every monument in his empire, and that of the new God inscribed in his place. He went so far as to have it removed from the tomb of his father, and to banish the word "Gods" from the vocabulary. As for the subject nations, he endeavored to impress upon them also his gospel of love; but designing leaders threw insults at him and rebelled. He consistently refused, however, to attack vassal nations, saying that they had been brought under his rule by force and were now free to go. As these subject nations seceded, the rich tribute they used to bring in fell off. Egypt, from a mighty nation, was falling to the rank of a petty state. But Akhenaton held firmly to his principles, amid all trials, till his death at the age of thirty-one. He left his throne to his chief disciple, Smenkara, who had married his eldest daughter, but Horemheb and Tutankhamen quickly overthrew him. They made war on the rebels, restored all the old injustices, and brought back prosperity to the nation. The triumphant priests closed over his new religion as hungry waters over the land. They tore down his temples, obliterated his name, and thereafter referred to him as "the criminal." Akhenaton's conduct has been denounced as obstinate and fanatical by some historians. It was certainly an excess of zeal that caused him to enter even his father's tomb and strike the "Amen" from his name, but it was the custom of the time to disfigure the monuments of a predecessor whose teachings were considered undesirable. Several leading Egyptologists have spoken in highest praise of him. Breasted calls him "the most remarkable of the Pharaohs," with whom "there died a spirit such as the world had never seen before . . . a brave soul undauntedly facing the momentum of immemorial tradition, and thereby stepping out from the long line of conventional and colorless Pharaohs that he might disseminate ideas far beyond and above the capacity of his age to understand ...the modem world has yet adequately to value or even acquaint itself with this man who in an age so remote and conditions so remote became the world's first idealist." "No such grand theology had ever before appeared in the world so far as we know," says Petrie. Arthur Weigall says: When the world reverberated with the noise of war he preached the first known doctrine of peace; when the glory of martial power swelled the hearts of his subjects, he deliberately turned his back upon heroics. He was the first man to preach simplicity, honesty, frankness, and sincerity, and he preached it from a throne. He was the first Pharaoh to be a humanitarian, the first man in whose heart there was no trace of barbarism. He has given us an example three thousand years ago that might be followed at the present day--an example of what a husband and father should be; of what an honest man should be; of what a poet should feel; of what a preacher should teach; of what a scientist should believe; of what a philosopher should think. Like all other great teachers, he sacrificed all to his principles and his life plainly shows, alas! the impracticability of his doctrine; yet there can be no question that his ideals will hold good 'till the swan turns black, and the crow turns white, 'till the hills rise up to travel, and the deeps rush into the rivers. His poems, as was said, bear a striking resemblance to certain of those of David, who came five centuries later: How manifold are Thy works. Thou didst create the earth according to Thy desires--men, all cattle--all upon the earth. The world is in darkness like the dead. Every lion cometh forth from his den, all serpents sting. Darkness reigns. When Thou riseth in the horizon the darkness is banished. Then all the world do Thy work. David speaks of God as a "tower of defense"; Akhenaton speaks of him as a "wall of brass of a million cubits." All of Akhenaton's psalms reflect joy: O Lord, how manifold are Thy works. The whole land is in joy and holiday because of Thee: They shout to the height of heaven; they receive joy and gladness when they see Thee. All that Thou hast made leaps before Thee. Thou makest the beauty of form through Thyself alone. This first Messiah of the West of whom there is any record uttered the words "The kingdom of God is within you," long before Christ did. On his golden coffin he had engraved: I breathe the sweet breath, which comes forth from Thy mouth: behold Thy beauty every day. It is my desire that I may hear Thy sweet voice, even the north wind that my limbs may be rejuvenated with life through love of Thee. Give me Thy hands, holding Thy spirit that I may receive it and live by it. Call Thou upon my name, and it shall never fail. His bust in the Louvre shows a face of extraordinary sweetness, gentleness, and refinement. It strongly resembles that of Toussaint L'Ouverture's, seen in profile. Judged by prevailing standards, Akhenaton was not handsome. His skull, which has been preserved, is what some scientists call that of a typical Negro. The jaw is exceedingly prognathous. His lips, as seen in profile, are so thick that they seem swollen. His father Amenophis was Negroid, and his mother Tiyi a fullblooded African. That his wife Nefertiti was a Negro cannot be denied. Howard Carter, discoverer of the tomb of Tutankhamen, says that he was especially struck by the resemblance that Tutankhamen bore to Akhenaton, and the latter's mother, Queen Tiyi. Several leading Egyptologists are inclined to believe that Tutankhamen, whose earlier name was Tutankhaton, was both the son and the son-in-law of Akhenaton. Tutankhamen addressed him as "father." Arthur Weigall has written a very fine life of Akhenaton, and both he and Professor Breasted have included a number of his poems in their works. Akhenaton's "Hymn to the Sun" is one of the most majestic and moving compositions of its kind. This is the first verse: Thy dawning is beautiful in the horizon of heaven, O living Aton, beginning of life. When Thou risest in the eastern horizon of the heavens Thou fillest every land with Thy beauty, For Thou art beautiful, great, glittering high over the earth, Thy rays they encompass the lands even all Thou hast made. Thou art Ra, and Thou hast carried them all away captive; Thou blindest them by Thy love. Though Thou art afar, Thy rays are on earth; Though Thou' art on high, Thy footprints are the day.
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