By Prof. Flinders Petrie Queen Tii or Thiy is surmised to have been of Armenian origin (see Budge, iv, 96-98, as to her being "Mesopotamian"); and Prof. Petrie, like Mr. Breasted, has inferred that she brought with her the cult of which her son became the devotee. (So also Brugsch, p. 214.) Messrs. King and Hall recognize that the cult had made some headway before Akhunaton took it up; but deny that there is any reason for supposing Queen Tii to have been of foreign origin; adding: "It seems undoubted that the Aten cult was a development of pure Egyptian religious thought." Certainty on such an issue seems hardly possible; but it may be said, as against the theory of a foreign importation, that there is no evidence whatever of any high theistic cult of Adonis in Syria at the period in question. Adonis was primarily a Vegetation-God; and the older view that Aten simply means "the sun's disk" is hardly disposed of. It is noteworthy that under Akhunaton's patronage Egyptian sculpture enjoyed a term of freedom from the paralyzing convention which reigned before and after (King and Hall, as cited, pp. 383-84). This seems to have been the result of the innovating taste of the king (Budge, Hist. iv, 124-26). As the centuries lapsed the course of popular religion was rather downward than upward, if it can be measured by the multiplication of superstitions. [254] When under the Ramesside dynasty the high-priests of Amen became by marriage with the royal family the virtual rulers, sacerdotalism went from bad to worse. [255] The priests, who held the allegorical key to mythology, seem to have been the main multipliers of magic and fable, mummery, ceremonial, and symbol; and they jealously guarded their specialty against lay competition. [256] Esoteric and exoteric doctrine flourished in their degrees side by side, [257] the instructed few apparently often accepting or acting upon both; and primitive rites all the while flourished on the level of the lowest savagery, [258] though the higher ethical teaching even improves, as in India.