nts of countless thousands of wine-jars and blue
fayence drinking-vessels have been found in the ruins of the palace;
and contemporary objects and paintings show us some of the exquisitely
wrought bowls of gold and silver which must have graced the royal
tables, and the charming toilet utensils which were to be found in the
sleeping apartments.

While the luxurious Court rejoiced at the birth of this Egypto-Asiatic
prince, one feels that the ancient priesthood of Amon-Ra must have stood
aloof, and must have looked askance at the baby who was destined one day
to be their master. This priesthood was perhaps the proudest and most
conservative community which conservative Egypt ever produced. It
demanded implicit obedience to its stiff and ancient conventions, and it
refused to recognise the growing tendency towards religious speculation.
One of the great gods of Syria was Aton, the god of the sun; and his
recognition at the Theban Court was a source of constant irritation to
the ministers of Amon-Ra.

Probably they would have taken stronger measures to resist this foreign
god had it not been for the fact that Atum of Heliopolis, an ancient god
of Egypt, was on the one hand closely akin to Ra, the associated deity
with Amon, and on the other hand to Aton of Syria. Thus Aton might be
regarded merely as another name for Ra or Amon-Ra; but the danger to the
old _regime_ lay in the fact that with the worship of Aton there went a
certain amount of freethought. The sun and its warm rays were the
heritage of all mankind; and the speculative mind of the Asiatic,
always in advance of the less imaginative Egyptian, had not failed to
collect to the Aton-worship a number of semi-philosophical teachings far
broader than the strict doctrines of Amon-Ra could tolerate.

[Illustration: PL. XIX. Toilet-spoons of carved wood, discovered in
tombs of the Eighteenth Dynasty. That on the
right has a movable lid.
--CAIRO MUSEUM.]

[_Photo by E. Brugsch Pasha._

There is much reason to suppose that Queen Tiy was the prime factor in
the new movement. It may, perhaps, be worth noting that her father was a
priest of the Egyptian god Min, who corresponded to the North Syrian
Aton in his capacity as a god of vegetation; and she may have imbibed
something of the broader doctrines from him. It is the barge upon _her_
pleasure-lake which is called _Ato