" and every effort was made to
extirpate the state religion, of which he was himself the official head.
But the ancient priesthood of Thebes proved too strong for the king. He
left the city of his fathers, and built a new capital farther north,
where its ruins are now known as Tel el-Amarna. Here he lived with the
adherents of the new creed, and here he erected a temple to the god of
his worship and a stately palace for himself.

Along with the reformation in religion had gone a reformation in art.
The old conventionalised art of Egypt was cast aside, and an attempt was
made to imitate nature, exactly, even to the verge of caricature. The
wall and floor paintings that have been discovered at Tel el-Amarna are
marvels of realistic art. Plants and animals and birds are alike
represented in them with a spirit and faithfulness to nature which is
indeed astonishing. Like the houses of his followers, the palace of the
king was adorned with similar frescoes. But it was also decorated with a
lavish profusion of precious materials; its walls and columns were
inlaid with gold and bronze and precious stones, statues almost Greek in
their type stood within it, and even its stuccoed floors were covered
with costly paintings. Roads were made in the desert eastward of the
city, where its wealthier inhabitants took their morning drives, and the
king occupied the earlier part of the clay in giving lectures or sermons
on the articles of his faith.

The archives of the empire had been transferred from Thebes to the new
capital. Among them was the foreign correspondence, written upon clay
tablets in the cuneiform characters, and (for the most part) in the
language of Babylonia. We have learnt from it that the Babylonian
language and script were the common means of intercommunication from the
Euphrates to the Nile in the century before the Exodus. It proves how
long and how profound must have been the influence and rule of Babylonia
in western Asia. Throughout the civilised world of Asia the educated
classes were compelled to learn a foreign writing and language, and when
the empire passed from Babylonia to Egypt, Egypt itself, whose script
and literature went back to immemorial times, was forced to do the same.
The correspondence was active and far-reaching. There are letters in it
from the kings of Babylonia and Assyria, of Mitanni and Cappadocia, as
well as from the Egyptian governors in Canaan. Even Bedawin shekhs take
part in it, and