king himself, magnificent in its design, is incomplete and mutilated.
The sculptures on the walls have been broken, and the granite
sarcophagus in which the body of the great king rested has been
shattered into fragments before it could be lifted into the niche where
it was intended to stand. The royal mummy was torn into shreds, and the
porcelain figures buried with it dashed to the ground.

It is clear that the death of Khu-n-Aten must have been quickly followed
by the triumph of his enemies. His capital was overthrown, the stones of
its temple carried away to Thebes, there to adorn the sanctuary of the
victorious Amon, and the adherents of his reform either slain or driven
into exile. The vengeance executed upon them was national as well as
religious. It meant not only a restoration of the national faith, but
also the restoration of the native Egyptian to the government of his
country. The feelings which inspired it were similar to those which
underlay the movement of Arabi in our own time, and there was no English
army to stand in the way of its success. The rise of the nineteenth
dynasty represents the triumph of the national cause.

The cuneiform letters of Tel el-Amarna show that already before
Khu-n-Aten's death his empire and power were breaking up. Letter after
letter is sent to him from the governors in Canaan with urgent requests
for troops. The Hittites were attacking the empire in the north, and
rebels were overthrowing it within. "If auxiliaries come this year,"
writes Ebed-Tob of Jerusalem, "the provinces of the king my lord will be
preserved; but if no auxiliaries come the provinces of the king my lord
will be destroyed." To these entreaties no answer could be returned.
There was civil and religious war in Egypt itself, and the army was
needed to defend the Pharaoh at home.