Beyond the palace, the King’s Way passed the spiritual center of the royal city, the Great Temple to Aton, comprising a series of open courts and halls, connected by pylons in which altars were set up to receive offerings. The chief altar was located in the center of the largest court. Here Akhenaton, usually accompanied by Nofretete, offered prayers and consecrated offerings to Atom. Throughout the city there were numerous smaller shrines built to honor the kings of Egypt’s past, or to serve members of the royal family. Nofretete presided at a shrine with the colorful name, “The House of Putting the Aton to Rest.” The queen mother Tiy had a temple, and there were shrines for Baktaton, the king’s younger sister, and Meritaton, his oldest daughter. Shrines were built in memory of Amenhotep II and Thutmose IV. Beyond the Great Temple, the King’s Way becomes the main street of modern El Till. It disappears for a time in the fields, but emerges at the North Palace which had walls decorated with lively paintings of bird life in a papyrus swamp. A royal aviary and a zoo were part of the palace complex. After another break, the lines of the ancient King’s Way appear again in the northern city with its numerous mansions. A second important north-south thoroughfare is High Priest Street from which the estates of many of the nobles in Akhenaton’s court could be entered. The standard of living was one of luxury, for the houses of the nobles contained large reception halls, living rooms, and bedrooms. Each had a well-kept garden, at one end of which an avenue of trees led to a pool. Besides the spacious living quarters there were separate buildings to serve as stables for the flocks and herds belonging to the family, storage buildings, and servant’s quarters. The largest such estate, belonging to the vizier Nakht, measured ninety-five by eighty-five feet. Interspersed among these palatial homes were humbler cottages, belonging to the working class, each of which had a front hall, a living room, bedroom, and kitchen. Every house—both of nobles and of commoners—had a bathroom with running water and a lavatory. There was evidently no conscious city planning, for it seems that the nobles laid claim to extensive patches of land, only to surrender parts of their property to commoners at a later time. Perhaps unintentionally, Akhetaton has marks of democracy in this mixture of ruling and working classes. [Illustration: The Estate of a Nobleman. The model of the estate of one of Akhenaton’s nobles at Akhetaton. Restoration by Seton Lloyd.]