n-gleams_, and it is _her_ private
artist who is responsible for one of the first examples of the new style
of art which begins to appear at this period. Egyptian art was bound
down by conventions jealously guarded by the priesthood, and the slight
tendency to break away from these, which now becomes apparent, is
another sign of the broadening of thought under the reign of Amenhotep
III. and Tiy.

King Amenhotep III. does not seem to have been a man of strong
character, and in the changes which took place at this time he does not
appear to have taken so very large a part. He always showed the most
profound respect for, and devotion to, his Queen; and one is inclined to
regard him as a tool in her hands. According to some accounts he reigned
only thirty years, but there are contemporary monuments dated in his
thirty-sixth year, and it seems probable that for the last few years he
was reigning only in name, and that in reality his ministers, under the
regency of Queen Tiy, governed the land. Amenhotep III. was perhaps
during his last years insane or stricken with some paralytic disease,
for we read of an Asiatic monarch sending a miracle-working image to
Egypt, apparently for the purpose of attempting to cure him. It must
have been during these six years of absolute power, while Akhnaton was a
boy, that the Queen pushed forward her reforms and encouraged the
breaking down of the old traditions, especially those relating to the
worship of Amon-Ra.

Amenhotep III. died in about the forty-ninth year of his age, after a
total reign of thirty-six years; and Akhnaton, who still bore the name
of Amenhotep, ascended the throne. One must picture him now as an
enthusiastic boy, filled with the new thought of the age, and burning to
assert the broad doctrines which he had learned from his mother and her
friends, in defiance of the priests of Amon-Ra. He was already married
to a Syrian named Nefertiti, and certainly before he was fifteen years
of age he was the father of two daughters.

The new Pharaoh's first move, under the guidance of Tiy, was to proclaim
Aton the only true god, and to name himself high priest of that deity.
He then began to build a temple dedicated to Aton at Karnak; but it must
have been distasteful to observe how overshadowed and dwarfed was this
new temple by the mighty buildings in honour of the older gods which
stood there. Moreover, there must have been very serious opposition to
the new religion in Theb