ton. It was,
therefore, not a surprise when a passing doctor declared the much broken
bones to be those of a woman--that is to say, those of Queen Tiy. For
reasons which will presently become apparent, it had been difficult to
believe that Akhnaton could have been buried in this Valley, and one was
very ready to suppose that the coffin bearing his name had but been
given by him to his mother.

The important discovery was now announced, and considerable interest and
excitement. At the end of the winter the various archaeologists departed
to their several countries, and it fell to me to despatch the
antiquities to the Cairo Museum, and to send the bones, soaked in wax to
prevent their breakage, to Dr Elliot Smith, to be examined by that
eminent authority. It may be imagined that my surprise was considerable
when I received a letter from him reading--"Are you sure that the bones
you sent me are those which were found in the tomb? Instead of the bones
of an old woman, you have sent me those of a young man. Surely there is
some mistake."

There was, however, no mistake. Dr Elliot Smith later informed me that
the bones were those of a young man of about twenty-eight years of age,
and at first this description did not seem to tally with that of
Akhnaton, who was always thought to have been a man of middle age. But
there is now no possibility of doubt that the coffin and mummy were
those of this extraordinary Pharaoh, although the tomb and funeral
furniture belonged to Queen Tiy. Dr Elliot Smith's decision was, of
course, somewhat disconcerting to those who had written of the mortal
remains of the great Queen; but it is difficult to speak of Tiy without
also referring to her famous son Akhnaton, and in these articles he had
received full mention.

About the year B.C. 1500 the throne of Egypt fell to the young brother
of Queen Hatshepsut, Thutmosis III., and under his vigorous rule the
country rose to a height of power never again equalled. Amenhotep II.
succeeded to an empire which extended from the Sudan to the Euphrates
and to the Greek Islands; and when he died he left these great
possessions almost intact to his son, Thutmosis IV., the grandfather of
Akhnaton. It is important to notice the chronology of this period. The
mummy of Thutmosis IV. has been shown by Dr Elliot Smith to be that of a
man of not more than twenty-six years of age; but we know that his son
Amenhotep III. was old enough to hunt lions at about the tim