Pharaoh’s recently completed City of the Sun stretched at some length along both sides of the Nile, about sixty miles north of the ancient city of Siut, sacred to the Wolf-god.
To-day, fronting its white quay, a fleet of barges swung idly at anchor. From the high poop of one, a large temple-barge by its decoration, Merira, High Priest of Aton, was about to disembark. At the landward end of its gangplank, which had been stretched to the well-built limestone wall of the quay, a knot of white-robed priests of Aton bowed a fawning welcome to their portly brother hierophant. Sixteen stalwart lay-brothers stood expectantly beside the dignitary’s hooded-chair. Soon, Merira, High Priest of Aton, high above the gleaming heads of his chanting followers, vanished down the avenue of criosphinxes which led toward the massive pylons of the imposing Aton Temple.
Parallel with the well-planted gardens and vineyards of the Temple of the Sun ran the northern wall of Pharaoh’s new palace. The southern wall divided it from the gardens which hedged in the home of the General Mei, a favorite of Pharaoh. Both the grounds about the Aton Temple, the palace, villa, and library of Pharaoh and the house of Mei, ran backward from the Nile bank to the first rise of the low hills to the east.
Pharaoh’s gardens, both of villa, library and palace, were already thickly planted with the rarest of native trees and vines, but myrrh, sandalwood, dôm-palm and young Lebanus cedar from the terraces, might be seen both in the gardens of the monarch and in those of his favorites.
At this moment the huge limestone palace glowed in the heat of midafternoon like a piece of painted ivory. The sun’s rays turned to fire the gold caps of the lofty cedar flag-posts which towered above the walls.
At the end of a long avenue of young acacias one could distinguish the archers-of-the-guard, as they paced to and fro before the palace gates. A pair of Syrian horses, harnessed to a light chariot, pawed the sandstone flagging before the entrance-pylon, or reared high in air, did the iron-wristed _katana_ show the least sign of relaxing his grip upon the gilded reins.
Queen Noferith was about to visit the hillset tomb of one of her daughters, who had died shortly after the royal family had taken up its residence in the new city. The royal-nurse, Thuya, and the three sisters of the dead Princess, were already well on their way to the tomb, bearing offerings of food, flowers and cosmetics for the use of the _ka_.