of the
disk, the lord of heaven, the lord of earth, the living disk which
lights up the two worlds, the living Harmakhis who rises on the horizon
bearing his name of Shu, which is disk, the eternal infuser of life."
His priests exercised the same functions as those of Heliopolis, and his
high priest was called "Oirimau," like the high priest of Ra in Aunu.
This functionary was a certain Marirl, upon whom the king showered his
favours, and he was for some time the chief authority in the State after
the Pharaoh himself. Atonu was represented sometimes by the ordinary
figure of Horus,* sometimes by the solar disk, but a disk whose rays
were prolonged towards the earth, like so many arms ready to lay
hold with their little hands of the offerings of the faithful, or to
distribute to mortals the _crux ansata_, the symbol of life. The other
gods, except Amon, were sharers with humanity in his benefits. Atonu
proscribed him, and tolerated him only at Thebes; he required, moreover,
that the name of Amon should be effaced wherever it occurred, but he
respected Ra and Horus and Harmakhis--all, in fact, but Amon: he was
content with being regarded as their king, and he strove rather to
become their chief than their destroyer.**

* It was probably this form of Horus which had, in the
temple at Thebes, the statue called "the red image of Atonu
in Paatoml."

** Prisse d'Avennes has found at Karnak, on fragments of the
temple, the names of other divinities than Atonu worshipped
by Khuniatonu.

His nature, moreover, had nothing in it of the mysterious or ambiguous;
he was the glorious torch which gave light to humanity, and which
was seen every day to flame in the heavens without ever losing its
brilliance or becoming weaker. When he hides himself "the world rests in
darkness, like those dead who lie in their rock-tombs, with their heads
swathed, their nostrils stuffed up, their eyes sightless, and whose
whole property might be stolen from them, even that which they have
under their head, without their knowing it; the lion issues from his
lair, the serpent roams ready to bite, it is as obscure as in a dark
room, the earth is silent whilst he who creates everything dwells in his
horizon." He has hardly arisen when "Egypt becomes festal, one awakens,
one rises on one's feet; when thou hast caused men to clothe themselves,
they adore thee with outstretched hands, and the whole earth attends
to its work, t