1400 B.C.

Fragments of dictionaries for the use of the scribes have also been
recovered from the _débris_ of the building, as well as the seal of a
servant of Samas-akh-iddin who looked after the cuneiform
correspondence. Like several of the Canaanitish governors, he bore a
Babylonian name. Even the brother of Amenophis III., who had been made
king of Nukhasse, had received the Babylonian name of Rimmon-nirari. No
stronger proof could be found of the extent and strength of Babylonian
influence in the West.

At Khut-Aten, as the "heretic" Pharaoh called his new capital, he was
surrounded by the adherents of the new faith. Many of them were
doubtless Egyptians, but many, perhaps the majority, were of Asiatic
extraction. Already under his father and grandfather the court had been
filled with Canaanites and other natives of Asia, and the great offices
of state had been occupied by them. Now under Khu-n-Aten the Asiatic
character of the government was increased tenfold. The native Egyptian
had to make way for the foreigner, and the rule of the Syrian stranger
which seemed to have been expelled with the Hyksos was restored under
another form. Canaan was nominally a subject province of Egypt, but in
reality it had led its conqueror captive. A semi-Asiatic Pharaoh was
endeavouring to force an Asiatic form of faith upon his subjects, and
entrusting his government to Asiatic officials; even art had ceased to
be Egyptian and had put on an Asiatic dress.

The tombs of Khu-n-Aten's followers are cut in the cliffs at the back of
the city, while his own sepulchre is towards the end of a long ravine
which runs out into the eastern desert between two lofty lines of
precipitous rock. But few of them are finished, and the sepulchre of the