• DOI:10.1177/030751332100700105
• Corpus ID: 192247058

Egypt and the External World in the Time of Akhenaten 1

@article{HallEgyptAT,
  title={Egypt and the External World in the Time of Akhenaten 1},
  author={H. R. . Hall},
  journal={The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology},
  volume={7},
  pages={39 - 53}
}

• H. R. Hall
• Published 1 April 1921
• History
• The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology

T H E Egypt Exploration Society has taken up the task of the German Orient-Gesellschaft in the excavation of the town of Akhetaten, the capital of the heretical king Amenophis I V or Akhenaten, at el-Amarna. Attention was drawn long ago to the remarkable art of the tombs and boundary-stelae at Amama by Wilkinson and Lepsius, and stray antiquities in our museums were early identified as belonging to the " Disk-Worshippers." An influential Australian member of the Egypt Exploration Fund in its early days, the late Sir William Nicholson, was specially interested as an amateur of Egyptology in this curious period of Egyptian history, and devoted much time to its elucidation. The Fund, however, never bent its steps in the direction of Amama until the present time. Professor Petrie excavated there in 1891, but ;it that time he was not commissioned by the Fund. No doubt his work there, the first important excavation attempted at Amama, was prompted by the remark­ able discovery in 1887 of the famous "Te l l el-Amarna Tablets," that deeply interesting collection of cuneiform tablets, containing letters and despatches in Babylonian from the Egyptian court to the kings and governors of Western Asia, and from these last to one another, that have told us so much of the history of the times of Akhenaten and his con­ temporaries. Sir Ernest Budge 1ms recently, in his book By Nile and Tigris, described the circumstances of the find, and how the precious tablets suffered from careless handling and destruction by the native finders, until eventually they found their way in three distinct batches to the museums of Berlin, London, and Cairo. At first considered for a moment to be forgeries (a common fate for unexpected finds), they were soon seen to be genuine antiquities of extraordinary historical importance, and we can only deplore the fate that decreed their discovery by ignorant and careless hands. Professor Petrie was no doubt in hopes of finding another deposit of tablets, nor was he altogether unsuccessful, as he recovered ten more, which are now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. Other sporadic tablets are in a few other collections, and one has been discovered recently by the German excavators. We are therefore not without hope that the excavators of the Egypt Exploration Society may, if not this year then perhaps in the next, find more, which may still further increase our knowledge of the foreign relations of Egypt in Akhenaten's time. We may also hope that further illumination as to the relations between Mycenaean Greece and Egypt at this time may be derived from our excavations. Professor Petrie found a number of fragments of pottery that are of Cyprian and mainland Greek origin, belonging to the Third Late Minoan period of Evans, and we know that precisely at this date the Bronze Age Greeks imported various kinds of Egyptian objets d'art into their own country. At Mycenae itself, as well as at Ialysos on Rhodes, have been found contemporary scarabs of the parents of Akhenaten, Amenophis I I I and Teie; and similar finds on a larger scale, including Egyptian necklaces of gold and fine stones, were discovered by the British Museum expedition at