CHAPTER 4
The Sacred Egg of RaBy the time Tutankhamun was sixteen the court had long since left Akhetaten, the Horizon of the Sun’s Disc, and Akhenaten’s beautiful city was falling into ruin. From the palaces and the great houses of the officials and nobles everything had been stripped, either by the owners themselves when they moved away following the court of Tutankhamun, or by looters who moved in as soon as the flotilla of ships carrying the King left the quayside. Within moments of the palaces and houses being left they became like dead carcasses, prey to scavengers. As surely as a man’s soul leaves his body at death, so does the life-force, the soul, of a building depart as soon as a decision is made to desert it. Nothing was left of Akhetaten — the vibrant, musical, happy city — bu
