18 The Fundamentals. at Thebes. But in his anxiety to introduce a religious reform he changed his name to Aken-Aten,—Aten being the name of the deity worshiped at Heliopolis, near Cairo, where Joseph got his wife. The efforts of Aken-Aten to transform the re ligious worship of Egypt were prodigious. The more perfectly to accomplish it, he removed his capital from Thebes to Tel el- Amarna, and there collected literary men and artists and archi tects in great numbers and erected temples and palaces, which, after being buried in the sand with all their treasures for more than three thousand years, were discovered by some wander ing Arabs twenty-two years ago. A number of the longest and most interesting of the let ters are those which passed between the courts of Egypt and those of Babylonia. It appears that not only did Aken-Aten marry a daughter of the Babylonian king, but his mother and grandmother were members of the royal family in Babylonia, and also that one of the daughters of the king of Egypt had been Sent to Babylonia to become the wife of the king. All this comes out in the letters that passed back and forth relat ing to the dowry to be bestowed upon these daughters and relating to their health and welfare. From these letters we learn that, although the king of Baby lon had sent his sister to be the wife of the king of Egypt, that was not sufficient. The king of Egypt requested also the daughter of the king of Babylon. This led the king of Babylon to say that he did not know how his sister was treated; in fact, he did not know whether she was alive, for he could not tell whether or not to believe the evidence which came to him. In response, the king of Egypt wrote: “Why don’t you send some one who knows your sister, and whom you can trust?” Whereupon the royal correspondents break off into discussions concerning the gifts which are to pass between the two in consideration of their friendship and intimate relations. Syria and Palestine were at this time also, as at the pres ent day, infested by robbers, and the messengers passing be-
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