Message #7394

[Bianca]

THE DISCOVERY OF AKHENATEN                                                              continued



There was also, however, a certain prevailing mystery.  The royal figures in the scenes were drawn in a style that differed markedly from what was generally
accepted as the ancient Egyptian mode.  The king and, to a lesser extent, the
queen, was represented as though his head were deformed, with a long nose, thick
lips, a hanging chin and  a long serpentine neck.  His physique, too, was distincti-
vely feminine, with its heavy breasts, swelling hips and ample thighs.  The question arose of whether a king and his consort were in question at Amarna, or two queens, one masquereding as a pharaoh.  This enigma, so far from discouraging
visitors, only enhanced the appeal of the place.

Despite such attractions, the tombs lying open on the northern hill terraces were in a sorry condition.  Most of them were badly damaged and polluted by the attentions of generations of squatters in early Christian times, and colonies of bats ever since.  The Christians had damaged the walls and built their rude houses in the forecourts: some of the innermost chambers had been used as burial places.  The tomb of Pinhas had even been extensively remodelled as a Coptic church, with a deep font for total immersion before the apse.  But, apart from such desecration, it was apparent to early visitors, that the reliefs had also suffered from the hammers of iconoclasts who had defaced the figures of the king and queen and removed their names from the inscriptions.  So throughly had this destruction been wrought , that it was not easy to find an intact cartouche bearing the name of the king or queen, and still less was it possible to come upon an undamaged portrait of the royal pair.  Nevertheless, there were oversights, in places difficult of access or evidently inaccessible by the time that the work of defacement began.