460 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1939 



There is every evidence that religion in Egypt was a matter of 

 priestly manipulation. It is true that the pharaoh was considered 

 divine from first to last, but it is not true that he was free. Whether 

 or not he was sacrificed after the manner of a dying god is not yet 

 clear. But the modem African examples of sacrificed kings cer- 

 tainly cannot be considered a survival from early Egyptian times — 

 the one thing which doQs not distinguish Negro culture is social 

 continuities. 



The really tremendous innovations of Amenophis IV, better known 

 as Ikhenaton, resulted in a sun god who was the only god recog- 

 nized by the state. It was, I suppose, the world's first taste of 

 monotheism. The symbolism of the sun's rays ending in human hands 

 was an invention of Iklienaton. Tliis king according to a recent 

 commentator was "a revolutionary leader who took the temporal 

 and religious power into his hands, overthrew an age-old, absurdly 

 elaborate religion and founded a monotheistic cult of the Sun, as the 

 great central force of the human world." 



On a tomb at Amarna, the capital of this king, are written these 

 verses : 



Bright thou dawnest, my Father, 

 Thou life-teeming Sun, 

 Thou art the only one. 

 Yet thou art all life. 

 Thou art my life ! 



The beautiful Hymn to Aton, written, it seems, by Ikhenaton him- 

 self, has often been quoted. I give three passages: 



The daw-ning is beautiful on the horizon of heaven, O living Aton, Be- 

 ginning of Life ! When thou risest in the eastern horizon of heaven, thou 

 flilest every land vs^ith thy beauty ; for thou art beautiful, great, glittering high 

 over the earth ; thy rays they encompass the lands, even all thou hast 

 made • • * 



O thou sole god, whose power no other possesseth, thou didst create the earth 

 according to thy desire while thou wast alone; men, all cattle large and small, 

 all that are upon the earth, that go about upon their feet ; all that are on high, 

 that fly with their wings ♦ * * 



Thou makest the beauty of form through thyself alone, cities, towns, and 

 settlements on highway or river. All eyes see thee before them, for thou art 

 Aton of the day over the earth. Thou art in my heart, there is no other that 

 knoweth thee save thy son Ikhnaton. * * * 



The appeal of sun worship was in the example of resurrection 

 which the sun furnished. This is brought out in the wonderful 

 sarcophagus of Taho, son of Peteheka, a work of the Saite revival. 

 Of the purpose of the rich designs Boreux writes: "One gathers 

 that in order to assert that the deceased is as indestructible as the 

 Sun or, indeed, perhaps to make him so, every carving represents or 

 suggests the Sun's daily birth." One picture shows the sun disk being 



