Beyond this, there is really no evidence as to any events of importance during the reign, whose significance is not in itself, but in the fact that it marks the triumph of the forces of reaction and the reversion to the ancient customs and faith of the land. The early death of Tutankhamen left his wife, Ankh. s. en. Amen, in a very difficult position. She was the only representative in the direct line of the great XVIIIth Dynasty; but in all probability her own tenure of the throne was very uncertain, and almost impossible. For a woman to rule the land was a thing not unheard of, for Hatshepsut had ruled with vigour and success; but it was an unusual thing, though a woman could give to her husband a legitimate title to the royal dignity. Further, there was a point which rendered the reign of Ankh. s. en. Amen virtually an impossibility. She was deeply stained, in the eyes of the dominant priesthood of Amen, by the fact that she was the daughter of “that criminal of Akhetaten,” as her father was now called. Her husband had saved his throne, and probably his life, by his conformity to the old faith, and her conversion had accompanied his; but the daughter of Akhenaten can never have been _persona grata_ to the priests of Amen, and when her husband was gone she must have felt that her tenure of the crown, and her very life, hung by a very frail thread. Accordingly she took steps to place herself in a position of greater security. Curiously enough, there has come to light from Boghaz-Kyoi, the Hittite capital, a letter from one of the Hittite kings, probably Mursil II, telling of some of the events of the reign of his father Shubbiluliuma, which gives us our last glimpse of the poor widowed queen struggling in desperation to escape from the net of deadly danger which was drawing closer and closer around her. [Illustration: 24. DECORATION FROM A THEBAN TOMB--SOWING, REAPING, THE VINTAGE.]