Page:The Religion of Ancient Egypt.djvu/57

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42
LECTURE II.

successively; but her name and memory were persecuted by the latter, who resented her dominion over him during the years of his minority. Her name does not appear on the tablet of Abydos. There is also an interval between the reigns of Amenhotep III. and Hor-em-heb, which chronologically is filled up by the period of the sun-disk worshippers. Amenhotep III. was followed by a king, the fourth of the same name, who dropped it when he assumed that of Chut-en-Aten, as the founder of a new religion, which had but a very partial and short-lived success. His attempts at reformation led to his exclusion from the lists of the legitimate kings. There is monumental evidence of one or two reigns of short duration before that of Hor-em-heb, who broke up the monuments of Chut-en-Aten, and used them in the construction of his own. It is not out of place to mention the fact that the first information we obtained about this abortive attempt at the transformation of the Egyptian religion, was derived from blocks of one of the propyla of Karnak, which Mohammed Ali had brutally pulled down, that the stones might be broken up and roasted to quick-lime, in order to furnish stucco for his saltpetre works. Mr. Perring, an English architect, who was there, was surprised to find that the faces of the stones which had been placed inwards and covered with cement were sculptured with hieroglyphics of the same perfect execution as those which had been engraved on them after