Cromwell Of Ancient Egypt

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 75, 30 July 1948, Page 5

Cromwell Of Ancient Egypt

PHAROAH WHO DETHRONED SUN GOD. There is nothing; new in the idea of the brotherhood of man. But in these days the optimists hope that those in high places might be more ready to do something practical about it than the “higher-ups” were back in ancient Egypt when one Amenhotep 111, a Pharoah with a fair dose of the milk of human kindness in his veins, decided to ditch the hard-boiled sun-wor-shipping religion of the day and establish something softer, more ennobling. He died young. And, so far as archaeologists can find out, no-one made much of a iiiss about disposing of the remains. The story, as pieced together by the experts on that sort of thing, was told to the Whakatane Rotary Club on Tuesday evening by Rotarian C. Kingsley-Smith, who held his hearers all the way with the human interest he infused into a grand tale well told. This Amenhotep was the grandson of the great conqueror, Amenhotep I, who brought about the union . of the Upper and Lower Nile kingdoms and was virtually ruler of the known world. Mr Kinsley-Smith approached his subject by giving a brief outline of'the tremendous nature of the ancient Egyptian civilisation, the first known to recorded history and going’bgck 10,000 years. Amenhotep 111, called by the speaker “the Cromwell of Ancient Egypt,” during a brief reign of 17

years revolutionised the whole of the religious and traditional community life • that had stood unchallenged for 2,000 years. A lover of peace and harmony, this Pharoah decided to change the established system of worship of the sun-god (Amen Ra) and make the top diety the softer, more serene motif, the moon (Atan). He dropped his own name and called himself Anknatan, Son of the Moon. Impact of the new religion on Egyptian social life was terrific. It was’ welcomed by the serf classes as something that would free them from their bondage of sweated toil for the aristocrats. Naturally, the. priesthood of the Sun-worshippers took it badly. Up to that time they had wielded undisputed power, and they opposed the new religion by every means at their command. Crux of the feud was reached when a spot of fifth column work at the Palace persuaded Anknatan’s wife, Nefertiti, to walk out on him, with their seven daughters, to join the ranks of Sun-god’s priesthood at Thebes.

Anknatan took it like a man, and went right ahead building a new capital, new temples, and a new, priesthood of his own choice. Since the new religion recognised that the under-dog had some human rights, he had the masses with him. However, the reactionary forces were strong, and when Anknatan died,' his i successor re-established the old religion, allowing the Moonworshippers to be ruthlessly weeded out, and Anknatan, unlike his ancestors, was buried in a tomb he had prepared for himself almost without the flourish of a trumpet. In conclusion of his talk, Mr King-sley-Smith pointed out that, in spite of all the efforts to smother it in the old the ideal of brotherhood Anknatan tried to establish in his new religion had raised a dauntless head again and again until today it was being brought out and interpreted by hundreds of organisations, including the Rotary movement.