Message #15294

[Bianca]

                 


The remaining boundary stelae are dated exactly a year later, on the same date in year 6; three of them delineate a broad district on the west bank of the Nile, though nothing was ever built on it.  The entire extended district was solemnly dedicated to the new god, "with (its) hills, deserts, fields and towns, with (its) people, animals and vegetation", as the texts  of the stelae put it. 

This presentation to the god was reinforced by a solemn oath that the king swore by the life of the Aten, and also by that of his wife and his children.

He dedicated the new capital to the Aten "as a monument to his name for all time"-thanks to divine inspira-
tion, for the god himself had shown him this place, that fulfilled his ideal requirements. 

No god and no goddess, no ruler of olden times, could lay claim to this place, which was entirely unspoiled,
a pure environment for the rays of the Aten.

This was a place where the Aten and his beloved son and preacher could rule alone, where its inhabitants could devote themselves entirely to the service of the pharaoh and his god, unburdened by any traces of the past.  Here, the perfect realization of the new religion was at last possible; in the years that followed,
it would become ever purer, but also ever more extreme.