Probably they would have taken stronger measures to resist this foreign god had it not been for the fact that Atum of Heliopolis, an ancient god of Egypt, was on the one hand closely akin to Ra, the associated deity with Amon, and on the other hand to Aton of Syria.  Thus Aton might be regarded merely as another name for Ra or Amon-Ra; but the danger to the old regime lay in the fact that with the worship of Aton there went a certain amount of freethought.  The sun and its warm rays were the heritage of all mankind; and the speculative mind of the Asiatic, always in advance of the less imaginative Egyptian, had not failed to collect to the Aton-worship a number of semi-philosophical teachings far broader than the strict doctrines of Amon-Ra could tolerate.

[Illustration:  PL.  XIX.  Toilet-spoons of carved wood, discovered in
                        tombs of the Eighteenth Dynasty.  That on the
                        right has a movable lid. 
                        —­CAIRO MUSEUM.]

[Photo by E. Brugsch Pasha.

There is much reason to suppose that Queen Tiy was the prime factor in the new movement.  It may, perhaps, be worth noting that her father was a priest of the Egyptian god Min, who corresponded to the North Syrian Aton in his capacity as a god of vegetation; and she may have imbibed something of the broader doctrines from him.  It is the barge upon her pleasure-lake which is called Aton-gleams, and it is her private artist who is responsible for one of the first examples of the new style of art which begins to appear at this period.  Egyptian art was bound down by conventions jealously guarded by the priesthood, and the slight tendency to break away from these, which now becomes apparent, is another sign of the broadening of thought under the reign of Amenhotep III. and Tiy.

King Amenhotep III. does not seem to have been a man of strong character, and in the changes which took place at this time he does not appear to have taken so very large a part.  He always showed the most profound respect for, and devotion to, his Queen; and one is inclined to regard him as a tool in her hands.  According to some accounts he reigned only thirty years, but there are contemporary monuments dated in his thirty-sixth year, and it seems probable that for the last few years he was reigning only in name, and that in reality his ministers, under the regency of Queen Tiy, governed the land.  Amenhotep III. was perhaps during his last years insane or stricken with some paralytic disease, for we read of an Asiatic monarch sending a miracle-working image to Egypt, apparently for the purpose of attempting to cure him.  It must have been during these six years of absolute power, while Akhnaton was a boy, that the Queen pushed forward her reforms and encouraged the breaking down of the old traditions, especially those relating to the worship of Amon-Ra.