claim the support of authentic history, while his attempt to find room for the atrocities of the wicked bailiffs elsewhere than at Altdorf consists only in suggesting an intricate series of possibilities, none of which are supported by any positive evidence.
In his pamphlet Die Sagen v. Tell a. Stauffacher (Basel, 1899) August Bernoulli, and in his elaborate Geschichte d. Schweiz. Politik (vol. i. Frauenfeld, 1906) J. Schollenberger, have applied the same sort of method, but without attaining any greater degree of historical success.
TELL EL AMARNA, the name now given to a collection of ruins and rock tombs in Upper Egypt near the east bank of the Nile, 58 m. by river below Assiut and 190 m. above Cairo. The ruins are those of Ekhaton (Akhet-Aton), a city built c. 1360 B.C. by Akhenaton (Amenophis IV.) as the new capital of his empire (in place of Thebes) when he abandoned the worship of Ammon and devoted himself to that of Aton, i.e. the sun (see Egypt:
History, § Ancient). Shortly after the death of Akhenaton the court returned to Thebes, and the city, after an existence of
perhaps only twenty years — of fifty years at the utmost — was abandoned. Not having been inhabited since, the lines of the streets and the ground-plans of many buildings can still be traced. The chief ruins are those of the royal palace and of the House of the Rolls; there are scanty remains of the great temple. In the palace are four pavements of painted stucco work in fair preservation. They were discovered in 1891-92 by Prof. Flinders Petrie (see his Tell el Amarna, 1894). In the Rolls House were discovered in 1887 by the fellahin some 300 clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform characters. They are letters and state documents addressed to Amenophis IV. and his
father, from the kings of Babylon, Assyria, &c., and from the
Egyptian governors in Syria and neighbouring districts. The
greater part of them were purchased for the Berlin Museum,
but a large number were secured for the British Museum.
Their contents proved invaluable for the reconstruction of the
history, social and political, of Egypt and Western Asia during
that period.
Hewn out of the sides of the hills which close in on the east the plain on which Ekhaton stood are two groups of tombs; one group lies 1½ m. N.E., and the other 3 m. S. of the city. The tombs, all of which belong to the time of Akhenaton, are full of interesting scenes in the peculiar style of the period, accompanied by hymns to the sun god. The most important tomb is, perhaps, that of Meri-Ra, high priest of the sun, which has a façade nearly 100 ft. long and two large chambers. On one of the walls of the main chamber is depicted the scene, now well known, in which a blind choir of harpists and singers celebrate the arrival of the court at the temple. In the early centuries of Moslem rule in Egypt the northern tombs were inhabited by Copts, one tomb, that of Pa-Nehesi, being turned into a church. In a ravine opening into the plain between the north and south tombs, and some seven miles from the city, is a tomb supposed to be that of Akhenaton.
The tombs and the great stelae sculptured on the cliffs which mark the bounds of the city of Akhet-Aton have been the object of special study by N. de G. Davies on behalf of the Archaeological Survey of Egypt. The results, with numerous plates and plans, are embodied in a series of memoirs, Rock Tombs of El Amarna (six parts, 1903-8).
For the tablets see Tell el Amarna Tablets in the British Museum (1892); C. Bezold, Oriental Diplomacy; the transliterated text of the Cuneiform Despatches discovered at Tell el Amarna (1893); The Tel el Amarna Letters (English translation by M. Winckler, Berlin, 1896); J. A. Knudtzon, Die El-Amarna Tafeln (Leipzig, 1907-9); W. M. F. Petrie, Syria and Egypt from the Tell el Amarna Letters (1898).
TELLER, WILHELM ABRAHAM (1734-1804), German
Protestant divine, was born at Leipzig on the 9th of January
1734. His father, Romanus Teller (1703-1750), was a pastor at
Leipzig, and afterwards became professor of theology in the
university. He edited the earlier volumes of a Bibelwerk
(19 vols., 1749-70) which was designed as an adaptation for
German readers of the exegetical works of Andrew Willet,
Henry Ainsworth, Symon Patrick, Matthew Poole, Matthew
Henry and others. Wilhelm Abraham studied philosophy
and theology in the university of his native town. Amongst
the men whose influence mainly determined his theological
position and line of work was J. A. Ernesti. Teller's writings
present rationalism in its course of development from biblical
supernaturalism to the borders of deistical naturalism. His
first learned production was a Latin translation of Benjamin
Kennicott's Dissertation on the State of the Printed Hebrew Text
of the Old Testament (1756), which was followed the next year by
an essay in which he expounded his own critical principles. In
1761 he was appointed pastor, professor of theology and general
superintendent in the university of Helmstedt. Here he
pursued his exegetical, theological and historical researches, the
results of which appeared in his Lehrbuch des christlichen Glaubens
(1764). This work caused some commotion, as much by the
novelty of its method as by the heterodoxy of its matter, and
more by its omissions than by its positive teaching, though
everywhere the author seeks to put theological doctrines in a
decidedly modern form. In 1767 Teller, whose attitude had
made his position at Helmstedt intolerable, was glad to accept
an invitation from the Prussian minister for ecclesiastical
affairs to the post of provost of Kölln, with a seat in the supreme
consistory of Berlin. Here he found himself in the company of
the rationalistic theologians of Prussia — F. S. G. Sack
(1738-1817), Johann Joachim Spalding (1714-1804) and others
and became one of the leaders of the rationalistic party,
— and one of the chief contributors to C. F. Nicolai's Allgemeine
Deutsche Bibliothek. Teller was not long in making use of his
freer position in Berlin. In 1772 appeared the most popular of his
books, Wörterbuch des Neuen Testamentes zur Erklärung der christlichen
Lehre (6th ed., 1805). The object of this work was to recast
the language and ideas of the New Testament and give them the
form of 18th-century illuminism. The author maintains that the
Graeco-Hebraic expressions must not be interpreted literally,
but explained in terms intelligible to the modern mind. By this
lexicon Teller had put himself amongst the most advanced
rationalists, and his opponents charged him with the design
of overthrowing positive Christianity altogether. In 1786 the
author became a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences.
The “Wöllner edict” of July 9, 1788, for the enforcement of
Lutheran orthodoxy, and Teller's manly action, as member of
the consistorial council, in defiance of it (cf. his Wohlgemeinte
Erinnerungen, 1788), led the Prussian government to pass upon
him the sentence of suspension for three months, with forfeiture
of his stipend. He was not, however, to be moved by such
means, and (1792) issued his work Die Religion der
Vollkommeneren, an exposition of his theological position, in which he
advocated at length the idea, subsequently often urged, of
“the perfectibility of Christianity,” — that is, of the ultimate
transformation of Christianity into a scheme of simple morality,
with a complete rejection of all specifically Christian ideas and
methods. This book represents the culminating point of
German illuminism, and is separated by a long process of
development from the author's Lehrbuch. In the same year
he published his Anleitung zur Religion überhaupt und zum
Allgemeinen des Christenthums besonders; für die Jugend höherer
und gebildeter Stünde aller Religionsparteien. Teller died on the
9th of December 1804. Besides his contributions to the
Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek, he edited a popular and practically
useful Magazin für Prediger (1792-1801).
See W. Gass, Geschichte der protestantischen Dogmatik, iv. pp. 206-222; P. Wolff, art. in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie (ed. 1907); Heinrich Döring, Deutsche Kanzelredner des 18ten und 19ten Jahrh., p. 506 seq.; Edward Pusey, Causes of the Late Rationalistic Character of German Theology (1828), p. 150; and cf. the article in the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie.
TELLICHERRY, a seaport of British India, in the Malabar district of Madras, between Cannanore and the French settlement of Mahe. Pop. (1901) 27,883. It is a healthy and picturesque town, built upon a group of Wooded hills running down to the sea, and is protected by a natural breakwater of rock. The town with its suburbs occupies about 5 sq. m., and was at one time defended by a strong mud wall. The old fort
