Akhenaten

A few years earlier, in 1922, the pharamaceutical industry magnate Henry Wellcome had been planning a new symbol for his Museum of Medical History at 54 Wigmore Street in the exclusive Marble Arch district, only three miles away from where the Essex Road cinema would eventually stand. This symbol was to appear not only over the door of the institution but also on its letterheads, tickets, invitations and on the covers of its publications. Instead of the conventional classical motifs used earlier, he chose a winged Aten-disc with the characteristic rays terminating in hands, but made an interesting addition: an eye of Horus in the centre of the disc. A large bronze and enamel version was commissioned for the portal of the Wigmore Street building, and when it moved to its present site in Euston Road in 1932, the Aten-disc moved with it. It can still be seen there, striking an incongruous note in the otherwise severe Greek facade. The reason for Wellcome's choice of this motif is unclear. It may be connected with the symbolism of the eye of the hawk in Masonic lore (Wellcome himself had been a Freemason but had long since cut his ties with Masonry by 1922). In the context of the history of medicine, it is more likely to have something to do with the (mistaken) belief that the eye of Horus was the precursor of the medical abbrevi­ation for prescription, Rc. Wellcome was certainly interested in Amarna and had close links with the Egypt Exploration Society's digs there. In its Wigmore Street premises, his museum hosted the Society's annual exhibitions of finds from Amarna. This was in the later 1920s, after the composite Aten-disc/eye of Horus symbol had been adopted. It must have seemed appropriate to walk under the Aten-disc on one's way to visit the show of Amarna finds. At the Wellcome exhibitions, Amarna was packaged in a way that seems strikingly up to date, in the hope of making money for the Egypt Exploration Society. A set of postcards was produced, showing exciting moments in the dig and picturesque scenes on site, with captions such as 'Christmas Day, A Trick Rider (Tell el Amarna 1931— 1932)' (number 9 in the series) or 'Reconstructing a Doorway in Hatiay's House' (number 6). There were even plaster casts of the more attractive pieces of sculp­ture for sale, bringing a little piece of the glamour that was Amarna within the reach of ordinary Londoners.

Amarna after Pendlebury

The excavation of Amarna was again curtailed by war, and in a very real sense for John Pendlebury, who joined the army in 1939 and was shot in German- occupied Crete two years later. Official work ceased at the site until the 1960s, when the Egyptian Antiquities Organisation dug in the Kom el-Nana and el- Hagg Qandil areas, but no publication seems to have resulted.

In 1977 the Egypt Exploration Society's concession at Amarna was renewed, under the directorship of Barry Kemp of the University of Cambridge. The programme of survey, excavation and conservation resumed and is still ongoing. Kemp brought to Amarna the rigorous methods of modern archaeology. He also brought an archaeological philosophy very different from earlier ones. Pendle- bury's fascination with the Amarna celebrities has mostly gone, along with the desire to interpret the site in terms of their biographies. In a lecture to the Egypt Exploration Society in December 1997, Kemp pointed out that he was not inter­ested in Akhenaten and his reign, but in the society which produced the patterns of living discernible at Amarna. Amarna itself attracts him because it is the only site from Egypt preserving the archaeological evidence to investigate urban life across the full social and environmental spectrum, from palace to slum. Kemp is also interested in economic life at Amarna - the production of commodities like pottery and faience, and how the city was provisioned. He pays attention to the less glamorous aspec ts of the city, such as its animal pens, bakeries, and sectors of the workmen's village where foodstuffs and water were delivered from the main city. This seems to me like an attempt, conscious or otherwise, to forget Pendle- bury's white-painted, pristine Amarna. True, some of the houses at Amarna did have basic indoor plumbing and were regularly swept - but, as Kemp points out, there were no sewers to take away human waste, and household rubbish was dumped in the street, accumulating large piles of rubbish which must have caused problems with vermin. Large-scale excavations of undug parts of Amarna are not a priority; the focus lies more towards consolidating and integrating information from earlier excavations, much of which remained unpublished or, when published, contained errors. For instance, the small Aten temple, examined by Peet, Pendlebury and others, has been being re-examined since 1987.