It is now nearly twenty years ago since the archæological world was startled, not to say revolutionized, by the discovery of the cuneiform tablets of Tel el-Amarna in Upper Egypt. Nor was it the archæological world only which the discovery affected. The historian and the theologian have equally had to modify and forsake their old ideas and assumptions, and the criticism of the Old Testament writings has entered upon a new and altogether unexpected stage. The archæologist, the historian and the Biblical critic alike can never again return to the point of view which was dominant before 1887, or regard the ancient world of the East with the unbelieving eyes of a Grote or a Cornewall Lewis. A single archæological discovery has upset mountains of learned discussion, of ingenious theory and sceptical demonstration. At the risk of repeating a well-worn tale, I will describe briefly the nature of the discovery. In the ruins of a city and palace which, like the palace of Aladdin, rose out of the desert sands into gorgeous magnificence for a short thirty years and then perished utterly, some 300 clay tablets were found, inscribed, not with the hieroglyphics of Egypt, but with the cuneiform characters of Babylonia. They were, in fact, the contents of the Foreign Office of Amon-hotep IV., the “Heretic King” of Egyptian history, who endeavoured to reform the old religion of Egypt and to substitute for it a pantheistic monotheism. This was about 1400 years before the birth of Christ, and a full century before the Israelitish Exodus. The attempt failed in spite of the fanatical efforts of its royal patron to force it upon his people, and of his introduction of religious persecution for the first time into the world. The Eighteenth dynasty, to which he belonged, and which had conquered Western Asia, went down in civil and religious war; the Asiatic Empire of Egypt was lost, and a new dynasty sat on the throne of Thebes.