The officials of Akhetaton were for the most part new appointments of the king, and many seem to have been chosen from among commoners who were sympathetic with Akhenaton’s program. The mayor of the city bore the revealing name, “Akhenaton created me.” Other officials include a captain of police, an overseer of the treasury, the king’s standard bearer, the commander of the army, overseers of the royal harem, the chief physician, and priests of the various temples. Eye, who had been a counselor of Akhenaton from boyhood, bore the impressive title, “Superintendent of the King’s Horses,” implying a responsibility for the chariots of the royal army. Second only to Akhenaton himself was the vizier, a man named Nakht. A royal butler, Parennufe, was one of the few officials who had served Akhenaton earlier in Thebes. The Rock Tombs The third north-south street was the East Road, located nearest to the desert and the rock tombs. As the earlier Pharaohs in Thebes prepared tombs for themselves in the nearby Valley of the Kings, so Akhenaton and his courtiers cut rock tombs into the hillside east of Akhetaton. There are twenty-five of these tombs with decorated walls honoring Aton and his son, Akhenaton. Davies in his _Rock Tombs of El Amarna_ says, The scenes in the tombs of El-’Amarna, though abundant and detailed, yield us very limited information concerning men and things in Akhetaten. Taken together, they only reveal one personality, one family, one home, one career, and one mode of worship. This is the figure, family, palace and occupations of the king, and the worship of the sun—which also was his, and perhaps, in strictness, of no one else. Into whatever tomb we enter, as soon as the threshold is past we might fancy ourselves in the royal sepulchre. The king’s figure, family, and retinue dominate everything. It is his wife and children, his family affection, his house and treasures which are here portrayed in detail, and it is with difficulty sometimes that we discover among the crowd of courtiers the official whose tomb it is, distinguished by a little hieroglyphic label.[6] The family tomb which Akhenaton built in the eastern desert, four miles from the city, was used for the burial of his daughter, the princess Meketaton. Most of the rock tombs, however, were never occupied. Within a short time of the death of Akhenaton, his capital was abandoned and Thebes again became the center of government. Everything of value was removed from Akhetaton—even the wooden pillars of the houses! The very stones of the Aton temple were dragged away to be used in the reconstruction of temples desecrated in the days of Akhenaton’s reform movement. Thus the priests of Amon had their revenge. IV ATONISM