Akhenaten

Before the dig even began, the site was once again used in political struggles. In post-war Britain, regaining the concession to excavate from the Germans was yet another victory over them. Writing under the byline 'Wonder City of the Heretic Pharaoh' in The Illustrated London .News for 5 February 1921, the British archaeolo­gist D. G. Hogarth observed that 'objects of art of such singularity and value' were vulnerable at Amarna, and work needed to resume without delay. 'In view of what has happened since 1914, and in particular of what has happened in Egypt, the resumption of German activities on the Nile cannot but be deferred for some time yet - even in the field of archaeological excavation.' 'The Egypt Exploration Society will of course behave thoroughly decently, he reassures readers: 'it proposes to respect all German property'.

The Illustrated London News was to play a central part in creating and popularis­ing the Akhenaten myth in England in the 1920s and 1930s, and its legacy is still with us. Like quality television documentaries nowadays, it combined reliable information (usually from the excavators themselves) with plenty of exciting visuals. It had a reputation for covering scientific events, especially archaeological discoveries, but also covercd royal stories and political events from a personal angle - the latter certainly affecting its presentation of Amarna. The Egypt Exploration Society's excavations at Amarna received unprecedented coverage in its pages, especially when the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922 added an extra, and very saleable, angle. Now almost anything from Amarna could be presented as relevant to his boyhood. The famous stela of Tiye and Amunhotep III from Amarna, now in the British Museum, was reproduced in The Illustrated London .News of 6 September 1924 with the caption, 'Parents of Tutankhamen's Father-in-law: A New Discovery'. There were also double-page spreads combin­ing texts and images, describing Amarna art and life. These had appealing bylines like 'A 3000-years-old Egyptian portrait gallery: easts of the living and the dead from the "house of the sculptor" at Tell el-Amarna' (19 March 1927) or 'The New Tell el Amarna discoveries: interesting additions to the famous "Amarna letters"; art relics; and records of University life, Akhenaten's police system with its Flying Squad. Archaeology "rebuilds" the Heretic Pharaoh's Cap­ital - Akhenaten's city, the home of a Reformation' (15 September 1934). Nefer­titi even appeared twice as

The Illustrated London .News' cover girl. She is 'The Loveliest Woman of Antiquity? A Rival to Helen of Troy' (13 December 1924) and 'Ancient Egypt's Queen of Beauty' (6 May 1933): like a Hollywood star, her celebrity is such that her image needs no identification. Even though dead for over three thousand years, the Amarna royal family could still be the focus for a type of journalism increasingly reliant on photographs and fascination with celebrity.

Such coverage grew out of a reciprocal relationship between the Egypt Exploration Society and The Illustrated London .News. In return for granting exclusive rights to cover what it found at Amarna, the Egypt Exploration Society was able to advertise its exhibitions of finds and canvass for money. (See Figure 3.5.) The articles on Amarna in The Illustrated London .News often ended with plaintive pleas for financial support."¹

" Furthermore, because The Illustrated London .News was illustrated, the Egypt Exploration Society's activities at Amarna could be presented differently from earlier archaeological expeditions. Instead of reading descriptions, one could see photographs, scale models and drawings intended to bring Amarna to life. This concentration on life was further aided by Amarna's unique archaeology, with houses instead of tombs. The excavators of Amarna were able to show The Illustrated London .News' readers private homes and work­places. The articles accompanying their photographs, all written by the archae­ologists themselves, explicitly encouraged the reader/viewer to identify with the ancient inhabitants of Amarna, and the Egypt Exploration Society's activities were presented as an inverse to Carter's contemporaneous activities in Tut­ankhamun's tomb. Tutankhamun is associated with

death, strangeness, royal wealth and religious ritual, Amarna (and by association Akhenaten himself) with daily life, knowableness and bourgeois comforts. An article in the large-circulation newspaper The Daily Chronicle (18 June 1923) made this clear. Praising the fact that the publicity surrounding Tutankhamun's tomb had raised money for the dig at Amarna to resume, it went on to say:

LOAN EXHIBITION

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN JEWELLERY ALSO ANTIQUITIES FROM