The Project Gutenberg eBook, There was a King in Egypt, by Norma Lorimer

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Title: There was a King in Egypt

Author: Norma Lorimer

Release Date: December 26, 2007 [eBook #23994]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THERE WAS A KING IN EGYPT***

E-text prepared by Al Haines

THERE WAS A KING IN EGYPT

by

NORMA LORIMER

Author of
"Catherine Sterling,"
"By the Waters of Germany,"
"By the Waters of Sicily,"
"The Second Woman,"
"The Gods' Carnival,"
"A Wife Out of Egypt"
"On Desert Altars,"
"On Etna," Etc. Etc.

London
Stanley Paul & Co
31 Essex Street, Strand, W.C.2

First published in 1918

PREFACE

The monarch indicated in _There was a King in Egypt_ is Akhnaton, the
heretic Pharaoh, first brought home to the English reader by the well
known Egyptian archaeologist, Mr. Arthur Weigall. Akhnaton, or
Amenhotep IV., has an interest for the whole world as the first
Messiah. Like Our Lord, he was of Syrian parentage--on the mother's
side. Interest in him is undying, because underlying his Sun-symbolism
we have the first foreshadowings of the altruism of Christianity.

The book is not directly devoted to Akhnaton. It is about a young
English Egyptologist, who is excavating the tomb of Akhnaton's mother,
in which the Pharaoh's exhumed body found its final repose; his sister;
and an Irish mystic, who copies the tomb-paintings excavated before
their freshness fades. Aton-worship and Mohammedanism have an almost
equal fascination for this Irishman, and the romance is permeated with
their mysticism. The prophecies of a Mohammedan saint who has attained
the light by a life of abstinence and self-discipline, influence the
current of the romance no less than the visions of the Pharaoh Messiah,
whose pure religion threatened his country with disasters like the
Russian revolution.

For the historical facts I am indebted to the brilliant _Akhnaton,
Pharaoh of Egypt_,[1] of Mr. Weigall, late Chief Inspector of Monuments
in Upper Egypt. The character of the Egyptian Messiah has fascinated
me ever since I began to read Egyptian hist