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By Root 618 0

in those of the courtiers—the elongated skull and slender throat, the narrow, sloping shoulders and heavy hips. There are stages of development in Amarna art, signs of a growing maturity and skill even in the brief years of its efflorescence. The most exaggerated art forms have been described as caricatures, and so they are, if we understand that the deliberate exaggeration of a caricature is not always intended to be insulting or comic. These exaggerated features appear at the beginning of Akhenaton’s reign, even before he left Thebes. But when German archaeologists excavated at Tell el Amarna before the First World War, they found the ruins of the studio of a sculptor named Thutmose which contained some portrait heads of fantastic beauty—Amarna art at its latest, and highest, point of achievement. The most famous of these heads, the lovely painted bust of Nefertiti, is world-famous—an idealization of exotic feminine beauty and queenly pride.

It is hard to describe Amarna art objectively. Scholars speak of the increased sense of motion, and of the greater use of curved lines, but none of these criteria explains why the Amarna portraits catch at the imagination as they do. There is certainly a heightened sense of the individual; Khafre is a divinity, and Senusert III is a man of heavy responsibility, but Nefertiti is Nefertiti, and we feel that we would recognize her anywhere and anytime.

The subject matter of sculpture and relief becomes more candid and more natural. Intimate family relations are shown with freedom and charm. The king’s devotion to his beautiful wife is a favorite theme. He is shown with his arm around her, kissing her, holding her on his lap. To appreciate how daring this choice of subject really was, one must study the long series of stiff, formal representations of earlier kings and queens.

Akhenaton’s six little daughters were, one suspects, badly spoiled by their doting parents. They accompanied the king and queen on drives and excursions, sat on their laps and ate from their tables at banquets. In one scene a small princess is shown slyly tickling the flanks of the horses her father is driving. The picture is one of family affection and peace which strikes the viewer with plea sure in spite of the exaggerated artistic techniques.

Innovations in art, religion, and language—for it is at this time that the dialect known as Late Egyptian is first used in official texts—all these and other changes add up to a genuinely revolutionary spirit. But was the worship of Aton true mono the ism, as Breasted believed?

Some scholars prefer to call Atonism “henotheism”—the worship of one god without denying the existence of others. They point out that Akhenaton never relinquished the traditional claim of the Egyptian king to divinity; that his followers worshiped not Aton, but Akhenaton. They say also that Aton’s titulary included the names of other gods—all sun-gods, to be sure, but separate gods nonetheless. And to crown their argument, they maintain that Akhenaton’s savage attack upon the name of Aton’s archenemy, Amon-Re, was in itself a tacit admission of Amon’s reality. One does not fight an enemy who does not exist.

Religious dogma is a labyrinth of subtleties, even to the initiate, and it is certainly dangerous to try to impose modern concepts upon an ancient people. But some modern parallels may be illuminating. Akhenaton called himself the son of Aton, and claimed to be the only one who really knew his god; he may have been the first, but he was certainly not the last prophet to make these claims. The Aton titulary does equate the god with Shu and Re and Atum, all solar gods; but this, to Akhenaton, may have had no more effect upon Aton’s uniqueness than the concept of the Trinity has upon the mono the ism of Christianity. As for the last argument, Akhenaton’s attack on the old gods, this too has historic parallels. When Cortez flung the Aztec idols down from before their bloody altars, he was trying to destroy their supremacy in the hearts of their followers, not admitting their reality to him. Proscription