onstructed a great lake or
basin, more than a mile long and a thousand feet broad, to be made use
of for religious purposes on the queen's special festival day. It was
proper on that festival day that "the barge of the most beautiful Disk"
should perform a voyage on a sheet of water in the presence of his
worshippers--a voyage probably representing the course of the sun
through the heavens during the year. There is evidence that this
festival was kept on the sixteenth day of the month Athor, in the
eleventh year of Amenhotep III., and that the king himself took part in
it.

So far, Queen Taia succeeded in introducing her religion into Egypt
while her husband was alive. At his death she found herself regent for
her son, or, at any rate, associated with him upon the throne, and saw
that a fresh opportunity for pushing her religious views offered itself.
Amenhotep IV. was of a most extraordinary _physique_ and physiognomy.
His appearance was rather that of a woman than of a man; he had a
slanting forehead, a long aquiline nose, a flexible projecting mouth,
and a strongly developed chin. His neck, which is represented as most
unusually long, seems scarcely equal to the support of his head; and his
spindle shanks seem ill adapted to sustain the weight of his
over-corpulent frame. He readily yielded himself to his mother's
influence, and completed her work in the manner which has been already
described. As Thebes opposed itself to his reforms, he deserted it,
withdrew his court to Tel-el-Amarna, and there raised the temples,
palaces, and other monuments, in a "very advanced" style of art, which
may be seen at the present day.

[Illustration: HEAD OF AMENHOTEP IV. (KHUENATEN).]

Amenhotep also introduced certain changes into the court ceremonial. He
surrounded himself with officials of foreign race, probably kinsmen of
his mother, and required from them an open display of submission and
servility which Egyptian courts had not witnessed previously. An abject
prostration was enforced on all, while the king posed before his
courtiers as a benevolent god, who showered down his gifts upon them
from a superior sphere, since his greatness did not permit a closer
contact. He was himself the "Light of the Solar Disk," an _apaugasma_,
or "Light proceeding from Light;" it behoved him to imitate the Sun-god,
and perpetually bestow his gifts on men, but it behoved them to veil
their faces from his radiance and receive his bounty prostra