Hello everyone, Dominic here. In episode 125 we briefly touched on a pair of

monuments which belonged to the Pharaoh's eldest daughter, Merit Aetin. Today I want to look at those monuments in depth. For those who are

interested, it's time for a guided tour of the Princess's house and a temple resort. Imagine we are sailing up the river Nile towards Aikat Ait-A-Tin, modern Amana.

The sun is high over the eastern horizon.

The current pushes against our boat, but the sail is full. Soon we round a bend in the

river and the Pharaoh's city appears before us. We will sail past the center

heading for something else. We park our boat at the southern end of the city, a few kilometers from the Great Temples.

We disembark heading east and make a short trek out into the desert.

We leave the lush farmland and cross wind-swept plains.

The air is hot, dusty, not particularly pleasant,

and up ahead the cliffs which surround the city rise like yellow-brown walls.

Just before us, a smaller set of walls mark a royal palace. We have come to a place called Maru A-Ten, which translates roughly as the viewing place of the A-Ten.

It is a walled enclosure covering about 3.2 hectares. The site resembles a fortress with high mud brick barriers and gates to control the entrance.

It's not a palace per se, more like a secret garden.

The Maru Aten in the southern end of a mana was a combination of temple and pleasure resort.

The site was dominated by a lake or basin,

probably dug and filled artificially.

This lake was large enough to support pleasure boating, and it even had a stone pier or key for tying up a royal barge.

The lake presumably supported reeds and palm trees around its edges, giving the space an air of wilderness in the middle of the desert.

This feeling was emphasized by the buildings within.

At one end of the Maru A-Ten, a special area was set aside for a purpose.

Here, in the northeast corner of the garden, an artificial island square-shaped rose out of a ditch.

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