The closing years of the lives of Nofretete and Akhenaton are largely a blank. Their third daughter Meritaton married Smenkhkare, a young architect who was much favored by Akhenaton and occupied the throne for a short time after his death. Another daughter Ankhsenpaton, married Tutankhaton, a loyal follower of her father. His brief reign left no impress on Egyptian history. The discovery of his tomb, however, in the Valley of the Kings, has made him the best known of all Pharaohs. [Illustration: A Princess at Akhetaton. A limestone relief showing one of the daughters of Akhenaton and his wife Nofretete discovered at Amarna.] [Illustration: Princess Manyet-aton. A representation of the princess was adapted for use as the lid of a canopic jar used in the burial of Akhenaton. Discovered in the tomb of Smenkhkare in the Valley of the Kings, Thebes.] The circumstances concerning the deaths of Nofretete and Akhenaton are not known, although we do know that Akhenaton died in the seventeenth year of his reign, when he was but thirty years of age. Atonism did not long survive its most loyal adherents. Meritaton became Meritamon, and the famed King Tut is known by his later name, Tutankhamon, rather than the earlier Tuntankhaton. In many ways Akhenaton seems to have been a man whose life was a failure. All for which he stood was quickly obliterated during the scant generation after his death. Yet this judgment is too hasty. Even the priests of Amon could not wholly turn back the reforms in art and literature which Akhenaton encouraged. While such terms as “monotheist” and “pacifist” when applied to him bear a different connotation from their meaning in contemporary life, still his meditation upon the Aton bringing blessing to all men has within it the seed of something that finds its highest expression in the prophetic spokesmen of ancient Israel. Akhenaton went too far for his own generation in Egypt, but the Biblical affirmation of God as creator of heaven and earth and redeemer of mankind was hardly apprehended by Akhenaton. [Illustration: King Tutankhamon. Under the famed “King Tut” the religious reforms of Akhenaton were renounced and Amon was restored to his place as the principal god of Egypt. Statue from Medinet Habu.] III THE HORIZON OF ATON