It probably took at least two years to build Akhetaton. It was during the sixth year of Akhenaton’s reign that he ordered all Egyptians and subject peoples—Nubians and Asiatics—to serve Aton alone. Statues of the old gods were ordered destroyed; their reliefs were to be erased, and their names blotted out. Two years later—Akhenaton’s eighth—the transfer of the capital from Thebes to Akhetaton was complete. There are evidences of great haste in the construction of the buildings. Often naturalistic pictures of birds and vegetation painted on plaster walls and floors cover shoddy workmanship. Houses were built of mud brick, but palaces and temples were built of stone. An inscription attributed to the architect Bek at Aswan states that stone was quarried there “for the great and mighty monuments of the king in the house of Aton in Akhetaton.” The Plan of the City Paralleling the Nile, the city had three north-south streets which crossed the more numerous east-west streets at right angles. The principal north-south street, the King’s Way, served the city’s more important buildings. At its southern end was the pleasure palace, Meru Aton, with its artificial pools, flower beds, and groves of trees. Meru Aton is thought to have served as a summer palace. It had a reception hall, a small chamber, guard houses, and various other buildings. The inner rooms were gaily decorated with colored columns and pavements painted with flying birds, playing animals, and a variety of plant life. Farther north the King’s Way passed between the palace and the royal house, where it was spanned by a bridge. In the center of the bridge was the “window of appearing” where the royal family appeared on special occasions to greet the populace assembled on the street below. The palace was fourteen hundred feet long and four to five hundred feet wide, with an impressive hall of pillars. The pavements of painted stucco, discovered by Flinders Petrie during his expedition at Amarna in 1891, were maliciously destroyed by a disgruntled guard in 1912, and the portions that were salvaged are now in the Cairo Museum. The royal house was a vast walled compound containing the king’s apartment, a nursery for the princesses, and vast gardens and storehouses. The rooms were ornamented with colorful paintings and inlays of colored stone.