[Illustration: 104.jpg PROFILE OF HEAD OF MUMMY (THEBES TOMBS.)]
[Illustration: 106.jpg TWO OF THE DAUGHTERS OF KHÛHI ATONÛ]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Petrie.
Although the tombs in which they worked differ from the generality of Egyptian burying-places, their originality does not arise from any effort, either conscious or otherwise, to break through the ordinary routine of the art of the time; it is rather the result of the extraordinary appearance of the sovereign whose features they were called on to portray, and the novelty of several of the subjects which they had to treat. That artist among them who first gave concrete form to the ideas circulated by the priests of Atonû, and drew the model cartoons, evidently possessed a master-hand, and was endowed with undeniable originality and power. No other Egyptian draughtsman ever expressed a childs grace as he did, and the portraits which he sketched of the daughters of Khûniatonû playing undressed at their mothers side, are examples of a reserved and delicate grace. But these models, when once composed and finished even to the smallest details, were entrusted for execution to workmen of mediocre powers, who were recruited not only from Thebes, but from the neighbouring cities of Hermopolis and Siût. These estimable people, with a praiseworthy patience, traced bit by bit the cartoons confided to them, omitting or adding individuals or groups according to the extent of the wall-space they had to cover, or to the number of relatives and servants whom the proprietor of the tomb desired should share in his future happiness. The style of these draughtsmen betrays the influence of the second-rate schools in which they had learned their craft, and the clumsiness of their work would often repel us, were it not that the interest of the episodes portrayed redeems it in the eyes of the Egyptologist.
Khûniatonû left no son to succeed him; two of his sons-in-law successively occupied the throne--Sâakerî, who had married his eldest daughter Marîtatonû, and Tûtankhamon, the husband of Ankhnasaton. The first had been associated in the sovereignty by his father-in-law;* he showed himself a zealous partisan of the Disk, and he continued to reside in the new capital during the few years of his sole reign.** The second son-in-law was a son of Amenôthes III., probably by a concubine. He returned to the religion of Amon, and his wife, abjuring the creed of her father, changed her name from Ankhnasaton to that of Ankhnasamon. Her husband abandoned Khûitatonû*** at the end of two or three years, and after his departure the town fell into decadence as quickly as it had arisen. The streets were unfrequented, the palaces and temples stood empty, the tombs remained unfinished and unoccupied, and its patron god returned to his former state, and was relegated to the third or fourth rank in the Egyptian Pantheon.