256 



DISCOVERY 



grounds. In tlic summrr the West Loggia would be 

 insufferably lu)t during two-thirds of the day, while in 

 the winter the North Loggia would on many days, as 

 anyone who has lived in Kgypt will testify, be very 

 uncomfortably cold. With two loggias all extremes of 

 climate could be met. The entrances to the house, 

 usually two, lay through the loggias, which were 

 approached from outside up a few shallow steps and 

 through a small anteroom. 



South and cast of the Central Hall lay the domestic 

 quarters, and the bathroom, which was always present 

 in a good house. The bath was precisely similar to the 

 ablution slab in the Central Hall, but it was often fi.xed 

 in a corner with side-slabs of stone to protect the mud 

 walls from the splashing. The only other feature of the 

 house which demands notice is the flight of steps which 



KING AKHEKATON AND HIS QUEEN, HEFERTITI, IN 



THEIR CHARIOT, WITH THE RAYS OF THE SUN'S 



DISK SHINING ON THEM. 



(Reproduced by courtesy 0/ the Egypt Exploration Society.) 



invariably led up from the Central Hall to the roof, where 

 it appears that much of the domestic business was done. 



Outside the house the most striking features are the 

 well, which has a narrow winding flight of steps leading 

 to a platform halfway down, where the girls stood to 

 draw up the water from below, and the granaries, round 

 brick structures, sunk about three feet into the ground, 

 and rising six feet above it, with domed tops. In the 

 gardens were found deep pockets of Nile mud sunk 

 in the sand in order to give sustenance to the trees 

 which provided the noble with shade in the heat of the 

 day. A small summer-house beside the well was a 

 feature of many of the larger gardens. 



Many houses carried on their door-posts short hymns 

 of praise to the Disk, followed by the names and titles 

 of their owners. Thus the finest house found was in 

 this way identified as that of the Master of the King's 

 Horse, Ranefcr. Among the numerous objects dis- 

 co\'ercd in the houses were three silver vases and three 

 bottles of beautiful variegated glass, one of which was 

 in the form of a fish. 



The search for tombs was begun in a groun of low 

 sandy hills at the foot of the desert cliffs, two miles 

 east of the town. Some brick structures visible in the 

 surface of the sand were excavated and found to be not, 

 as was expected, tomb-shafts, but rooms of small 

 houses. The extension of this excavation resulted 

 in the discovery of a small village completely surrounded 

 by a thick wall. It is difficult to guess the purpose 

 of such a fortified place in this spot. There are, it is 

 true, outlying fortresses to the north and south of 

 Akhetaton, commanding the two narrow passages 

 between the cliffs and the Nile which are the sole 

 entrances into the El .\mama plain ; but it is hard to 

 believe that such a fortress could have been built to 

 the east, attack from the desert being unhkely, and the 

 village being in a very unsuitable position for defence. 

 The complete excavation has been left for the next 

 campaign. The main interest of the place, apart from 

 the fact of its being fortified, lies in the fact that, unlike 

 the main town site, it has not been visited bv the white 

 ant, and thus practically all the wooden portions of the 

 houses are in almost perfect preservation. Among the 

 most interesting objects found were portions of hand- 

 looms, which, when further excavation has added to 

 their number, may tell us much about the Egj^^tian 

 system of weaving. But the most striking find was 

 that of a kitchen, left untouched since its last use thirty- 

 three centuries ago, with unused»fuel, water-jar, bread 

 oven, cooking-pot, roasting-place, and poker complete. 



In the hills overlooking this village there were at 

 the same time discovered a number of small buildings 

 at once recognised as tomb-chapels. An Egj-ptian 

 tomb always consisted of two parts, a burial chamber in 

 which the body lay, and a chapel in which the daily 

 offerings to the dead owner were made. In this case 

 the tombs lay behind the chapels, farther up the 

 slope. They were vertical shafts cut in the soft rock, 

 with chambers opening off the bottom. Many were 

 unfinished, and from those which had been used the 

 bodies had been removed in antiquity, probably when 

 the court abandoned Akhetaton and returned to 

 Thebes. In one of these chapels a surprise awaited 

 the excavators. On the wall was a fmierary prayer, 

 not to the Disk, but to Amon, and in the innennost 

 shrine was a gravestone or stela set up by one Ptahmay, 

 who calls himself " the approved one of the Disk," 

 and who yet makes his prayers for offerings in the tomb 

 not to the Aton, but to the deities Shed and Isis. We 

 must not regard these facts as evidence of Akhcnaton's 

 polytheism. This chapel almost certainly dates from 

 the period when the " heresj' " of the Disk was nearing 

 its fall, and the good citizens of .\khetaton, seeing wliich 

 way the wind blew, were anxious to propitiate the old 

 gods whose restoration they already foresaw. And 

 they were shrewd calculators. Within a very few years 



