Читать книгу The Life and Times of Akhnaton, Pharaoh of Egypt онлайн

3 страница из 29

During the last few years an extraordinary series of discoveries has been made in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes. In 1903 the tomb of Thothmes IV., the paternal grandfather of Akhnaton, was discovered; in 1905 the tomb of Yuaa and Tuau, the maternal grandparents of Akhnaton, was found; in 1907 Akhnaton’s body was discovered in the tomb of his mother, Queen Tiy; and in 1908 the tomb of the Pharaoh Horemheb, one of the immediate successors of Akhnaton, was brought to light. At all but the first of these discoveries the present writer had the pleasure of assisting; and a particular interest in the period was thus engendered, of which the following sketch, prepared during an Upper Egyptian summer, is an outcome. It must be understood, however, that a volume written at such times as the exigencies of official work allowed—partly in the shade of the rocks beside the Nile, partly at railway-stations or in the train, partly amidst the ruins of ancient temples, and partly in the darkened rooms of official quarters—cannot claim the value of a treatise prepared in an English study where books of reference are always at hand. It is hoped, however, that no errors have been made in the statement of the facts; and the deductions drawn therefrom are frankly open to the reader’s criticism. There will certainly be no two opinions as to the acknowledgment of the originality, the power, and the idealism of the Pharaoh whose life is now to be outlined.[6]