On the eastern bank of the Nile, about midway between Minieh and Assiout, the traveller from Cairo to Assouan passes a line of mounds which are known by the name of Tel el-Amarna. _Tel_ is the name given to the artificial mounds which cover the remains of ancient cities, while _el-Amarna_ denotes the Bedouin tribe of Beni-Amran whose descendants inhabit the district in which the line of mounds is found. Between the mounds and the Nile is a fertile strip of bank, green with corn in the winter and spring, and shaded with groves of lofty palms. On the other side of them is a tawny desert plain, shut in by an amphitheatre of hills. The limestone cliffs of the latter are broken in three places, where ravines lead through them to the Arabian plateau beyond. The central ravine is short and rugged; that to the north, however, though its lofty walls of rock seem at times almost to meet, eventually carries the explorer by a slow ascent into the heart of the Arabian desert. About three miles from its mouth, and in a side-valley, the tomb has lately been discovered of the founder of the city, of which the mounds of Tel el-Amarna are now the sole representatives. The tomb is worthy of the monarch for whom it was intended. In the distant solitude of the desert gorge, it is cut deep into the solid rock. Steps first convey the visitor downwards to the huge door of the sepulchre. Within is a broad sloping passage, to the right of which are the sculptured chambers in which the body of one of the Pharaoh’s daughters once rested, while at the end of it is a vast columned hall, within which the sarcophagus of the Pharaoh himself was placed. The Pharaoh had been named by his father, Amenôphis III., after himself, but Amenôphis IV. had not long mounted the throne before he gave himself a new name, and was henceforth known as Khu-n-Aten, “the Glory of the Solar Disk.” The change of name was the outward sign and token of a religious revolution. The king publicly renounced the ancient religion of Egypt, of which he was the official representative, and declared himself a convert to an Asiatic form of faith. The very name of Amon, the supreme god of Thebes and of the royal family to which Khu-n-Aten belonged, was proscribed, and erased from the monuments wherever it occurred. In the temples and tombs and quarries alike it was defaced; even the name of the king’s own father, which contained it, was not spared. When the arm of the persecutor was thus extended to the written and sculptured monument, we cannot suppose that the adherents of the ancient cult would be treated with a gentle hand. It was not long before the Pharaoh and the powerful hierarchy of Thebes were at open war. But the priesthood proved too strong for the king. He quitted the capital of his fathers and built himself a new city farther north. It is the site of this city which is now covered by the mounds of Tel el-Amarna.