But the glory of Khut-Aten was short-lived. The latter years of the reign of its founder were clouded with religious and civil dissension. Religious persecution at home had been followed by trouble and revolt abroad in the Asiatic provinces of the Empire. When Khu-n-Aten died, his enemies were already pressing around him, and the perils that threatened him in Egypt obliged him to return no answer to the despairing appeals for help that came to him from his governors in Palestine. Hardly had the mummy of the king been deposited in the superb tomb that he had carved out of a mountain amid the desolation and solitude of a distant gorge, when the spoiler was at hand. The royal sarcophagus never reached the niche in which it was intended to be placed; the enemies of the ‘Heretic King’ hacked to pieces its granite sides as it lay upon the floor of the inner chamber, and scattered to the winds the remains of its occupant. The destruction of Khut-Aten soon followed; one or two princes of the family of Khu-n-Aten did indeed struggle for a brief while to maintain themselves upon his throne, but before long Amon triumphed over the Solar Disk. The great temple of Aten was razed to the ground, and its stones carried away to serve as materials for the sanctuaries of the victorious god of Thebes. The palace of Khu-n-Aten was destroyed, the religion he had essayed to force upon his subjects was forgotten, and the Asiatic officials who had filled his court were driven into exile. The city he had built was deserted, never to be inhabited again.