Akhenaten (pronounced ), also spelled Echnaton, Akhenaton, ( egy,
ꜣḫ-n-jtn ''ʾŪḫə-nə-yātəy'', , meaning "Effective for the
Aten"), was an
ancient Egyptian
pharaoh
Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: '' pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until th ...
reigning or 1351–1334 BC, the tenth ruler of the
Eighteenth Dynasty. Before the fifth year of his reign, he was known as Amenhotep IV ( egy,
jmn-ḥtp, links=no, meaning "
Amun is satisfied",
Hellenized
Hellenization (other British spelling Hellenisation) or Hellenism is the adoption of Greek culture, religion, language and identity by non-Greeks. In the ancient period, colonization often led to the Hellenization of indigenous peoples; in th ...
as ''Amenophis IV'').
As a pharaoh, Akhenaten is noted for abandoning
Egypt's traditional polytheism and introducing
Atenism, or worship centered around
Aten. The views of
Egyptologists differ as to whether the religious policy was absolutely
monotheistic, or whether it was
monolatry,
syncretistic, or
henotheistic
Henotheism is the worship of a single, supreme god that does not deny the existence or possible existence of other deities. Friedrich Schelling (1775–1854) coined the word, and Friedrich Welcker (1784–1868) used it to depict primit ...
. This culture shift away from traditional religion was reversed after his death. Akhenaten's monuments were dismantled and hidden, his statues were destroyed, and his name
excluded from
lists of rulers
A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to:
People
* List (surname)
Organizations
* List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
* SC Germania List, German rugby union ...
compiled by later pharaohs. Traditional religious practice was gradually restored, notably under his close successor
Tutankhamun, who changed his name from Tutankhaten early in his reign. When some dozen years later, rulers without clear rights of succession from the Eighteenth Dynasty founded a
new dynasty, they discredited Akhenaten and his immediate successors and referred to Akhenaten as "the enemy" or "that criminal" in archival records.
Akhenaten was all but lost to history until the late-19th-century discovery of
Amarna, or Akhetaten, the new capital city he built for the worship of Aten. Furthermore, in 1907, a mummy that could be Akhenaten's was unearthed from the tomb
KV55 in the
Valley of the Kings by
Edward R. Ayrton
Edward Russell Ayrton (17 December 1882 – 18 May 1914) was an English Egyptologist and archaeologist.
Early life
Ayrton was the son of William Scrope Ayrton (1849-1904), a British consular official in China, and his wife Ellen Louisa McClat ...
.
Genetic testing has determined that the man buried in KV55 was Tutankhamun's father, but its identification as Akhenaten has since been questioned.
Akhenaten's rediscovery and
Flinders Petrie's early excavations at Amarna sparked great public interest in the pharaoh and his queen
Nefertiti. He has been described as "enigmatic", "mysterious", "revolutionary", "the greatest idealist of the world", and "the first individual in history", but also as a "heretic", "fanatic", "possibly insane", and "mad". Public and scholarly fascination with Akhenaten comes from his connection with Tutankhamun, the unique style and high quality of the pictorial
arts he patronized, and the religion he attempted to establish, foreshadowing monotheism.
Family
The future Akhenaten was born Amenhotep, a younger son of pharaoh
Amenhotep III and his
principal wife Tiye. Akhenaten had an elder brother,
crown prince
A crown prince or hereditary prince is the heir apparent to the throne in a royal or imperial monarchy. The female form of the title is crown princess, which may refer either to an heiress apparent or, especially in earlier times, to the w ...
Thutmose, who was recognized as Amenhotep III's heir. Akhenaten also had four or five sisters:
Sitamun,
Henuttaneb
Henuttaneb was an Ancient Egyptian princess of the Eighteenth Dynasty and daughter of pharaoh Amenhotep III and his Great Royal Wife, Queen Tiye.
Family
Henuttaneb was one of the daughters of ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Amenhotep III of the 18t ...
,
Iset,
Nebetah
Nebetah ( egy, nb.t-ꜥḥ) was one of the daughters of ancient Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III of the 18th Dynasty and his Great Royal Wife Tiye. She was a younger sister of Akhenaten.
Biography
Nebetah's name means ''Lady of the Palace''. H ...
, and possibly
Beketaten
Beketaten ( egy, bꜣk.t-itn)(14th century BCE) was an ancient Egyptian princess of the 18th Dynasty. Beketaten is considered to be the youngest daughter of Pharaoh Amenhotep III and his Great Royal Wife Tiye, thus the sister of Pharaoh Akhenate ...
. Thutmose's early death, perhaps around Amenhotep III's thirtieth regnal year, meant that Akhenaten was next in line for Egypt's throne.
Akhenaten was married to
Nefertiti, his
Great Royal Wife. The exact timing of their marriage is unknown, but inscriptions from the pharaoh's building projects suggest that they married either shortly before or after Akhenaten took the throne. For example, Egyptologist
Dimitri Laboury suggests that the marriage took place in Akhenaten's fourth regnal year. A secondary wife of Akhenaten named
Kiya is also known from inscriptions. Some Egyptologists theorize that she gained her importance as the mother of
Tutankhamun.
William Murnane proposes that Kiya is the colloquial name of the
Mitanni
Mitanni (; Hittite cuneiform ; ''Mittani'' '), c. 1550–1260 BC, earlier called Ḫabigalbat in old Babylonian texts, c. 1600 BC; Hanigalbat or Hani-Rabbat (''Hanikalbat'', ''Khanigalbat'', cuneiform ') in Assyrian records, or '' Naharin'' ...
princess
Tadukhipa
Tadukhipa, in the Hurrian language ''Tadu-Hepa'', was the daughter of Tushratta and his queen Juni, and niece of Artashumara. Tadukhipa's aunt Gilukhipa (sister of Tushratta) had married Pharaoh Amenhotep III in his 10th regnal year. Tadukhipa ...
, daughter of the Mitanni king
Tushratta who had married Amenhotep III before becoming the wife of Akhenaten. Akhenaten's other attested consorts are the daughter of the
Enišasi ruler
Šatiya and another daughter of the
Babylonian king
Burna-Buriash II.
Akhenaten could have had seven or eight children based on inscriptions. Egyptologists are fairly certain about his six daughters, who are well attested in contemporary depictions. Among his six daughters,
Meritaten was born in regnal year one or five;
Meketaten in year four or six;
Ankhesenpaaten, later queen of Tutankhamun, before year five or eight;
Neferneferuaten Tasherit in year eight or nine;
Neferneferure
Neferneferure ( egy, nfr-nfr.w-rꜥ "beautiful are the beauties of Re") (14th century BCE) was an ancient Egyptian princess of the 18th Dynasty. She was the fifth of six known daughters of Pharaoh Akhenaten and his Great Royal Wife Nefertiti.
...
in year nine or ten; and
Setepenre
Setepenre is an often-used title of Egyptian kings (pharaohs), meaning "Elect of Re". It was also used as a personal name in at least two instances. Pronunciation
In Akkadian records, the name (referring to Ramesses II) is rendered in cuneiform s ...
in year ten or eleven. Tutankhamun, born Tutankhaten, was most likely Akhenaten's son, with Nefertiti or another wife. There is less certainty around Akhenaten's relationship with
Smenkhkare, Akhenaten's coregent or successor and husband to his daughter Meritaten; he could have been Akhenaten's eldest son with an unknown wife or Akhenaten's younger brother.
Some historians, such as
Edward Wente and
James Allen, have proposed that Akhenaten took some of his daughters as wives or sexual consorts to father a male heir. While this is debated, some historical parallels exist: Akhenaten's father Amenhotep III married his daughter Sitamun, while
Ramesses II
Ramesses II ( egy, rꜥ-ms-sw ''Rīʿa-məsī-sū'', , meaning "Ra is the one who bore him"; ), commonly known as Ramesses the Great, was the third pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt. Along with Thutmose III he is often regarded a ...
married two or more of his daughters, even though their marriages might simply have been ceremonial. In Akhenaten's case, his oldest daughter Meritaten is recorded as Great Royal Wife to Smenkhkare but is also listed on a box from Tutankhamun's tomb alongside pharaohs Akhenaten and Neferneferuaten as Great Royal Wife. Additionally,
letters written to Akhenaten from foreign rulers make reference to Meritaten as "mistress of the house." Egyptologists in the early 20th century also believed that Akhenaten could have fathered a child with his second oldest daughter Meketaten. Meketaten's death, at perhaps age ten to twelve, is recorded in the
royal tombs at Akhetaten from around regnal years thirteen or fourteen. Early Egyptologists attribute her death to childbirth, because of the depiction of an infant in her tomb. Because no husband is known for Meketaten, the assumption had been that Akhenaten was the father.
Aidan Dodson believes this to be unlikely, as no Egyptian tomb has been found that mentions or alludes to the cause of death of the tomb owner. Further,
Jacobus van Dijk
A Jacobus is an English gold coin of the reign of James I, worth 25 shillings. The name of the coin comes from the Latin inscription surrounding the King's head on the obverse of the coin, IACOBUS D G MAG BRIT FRA ET HI REX ("James, by the grace o ...
proposes that the child is a portrayal of Meketaten's
soul
In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being".
Etymology
The Modern English noun '' soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest att ...
. Finally, various monuments, originally for Kiya, were reinscribed for Akhenaten's daughters Meritaten and Ankhesenpaaten. The revised inscriptions list a Meritaten-tasherit ("junior") and an Ankhesenpaaten-tasherit. According to some, this indicates that Akhenaten fathered his own grandchildren. Others hold that, since these grandchildren are not attested to elsewhere, they are fictions invented to fill the space originally portraying Kiya's child.
Early life
Egyptologists know very little about Akhenaten's life as prince Amenhotep.
Donald B. Redford dates his birth before his father Amenhotep III's 25th regnal year, , based on the birth of Akhenaten's first daughter, who was likely born fairly early in his own reign. The only mention of his name, as "the King's Son Amenhotep," was found on a wine docket at Amenhotep III's
Malkata palace, where some historians suggested Akhenaten was born. Others contend that he was born at
Memphis, where growing up he was influenced by the worship of the
sun god Ra practiced at nearby
Heliopolis. Redford and
James K. Hoffmeier state, however, that Ra's cult was so widespread and established throughout Egypt that Akhenaten could have been influenced by solar worship even if he did not grow up around Heliopolis.
Some historians have tried to determine who was Akhenaten's tutor during his youth, and have proposed scribes
Heqareshu or
Meryre II, the royal tutor Amenemotep, or the
vizier Aperel
Aperel (sometimes written as Aperia) was a vizier of ancient Egypt, who served during the reigns of the 18th Dynasty kings Amenhotep III and Akhenaten. . The only person we know for certain served the prince was
Parennefer
The ancient Egyptian noble Parennefer was Akhenaten's close advisor before he came to the throne, and in later times served as his Royal Butler, an office which brought him into intimate contact with the king. His titles include "The King's Cup Be ...
, whose
tomb
A tomb ( grc-gre, τύμβος ''tumbos'') is a repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be called ''immureme ...
mentions this fact.
Egyptologist
Cyril Aldred
Cyril Aldred (19 February 1914 – 23 June 1991) was an English Egyptologist, art historian, and author.
Early life
Cyril Aldred was born in Fulham, London, the son of Frederick Aldred and Lilian Ethel Underwood, and the sixth of seven child ...
suggests that prince Amenhotep might have been a
High Priest of Ptah in Memphis, although no evidence supporting this had been found. It is known that Amenhotep's brother,
crown prince Thutmose, served in this role before he died. If Amenhotep inherited all his brother's roles in preparation for his accession to the throne, he might have become a high priest in Thutmose's stead. Aldred proposes that Akhenaten's unusual artistic inclinations might have been formed during his time serving
Ptah, the patron god of craftsmen, whose high priest were sometimes referred to as "The Greatest of the Directors of Craftsmanship."
Reign
Coregency with Amenhotep III
There is much controversy around whether Amenhotep IV ascended to Egypt's throne on the death of his father Amenhotep III or whether there was a
coregency, lasting perhaps as long as 12 years.
Eric Cline,
Nicholas Reeves,
Peter Dorman
Peter FitzGerald Dorman (born 1948) is an epigrapher, philologist, and Egyptologist. Recently a professor of history and archaeology at the American University of Beirut (AUB), he served as the 15th President of the university from 2008 to 2015. ...
, and other scholars argue strongly against the establishment of a long coregency between the two rulers and in favor of either no coregency or one lasting at most two years.
Donald B. Redford,
William J. Murnane,
Alan Gardiner, and
Lawrence Berman contest the view of any coregency whatsoever between Akhenaten and his father.
Most recently, in 2014, archaeologists found both pharaohs' names inscribed on the wall of the
Luxor tomb of vizier
Amenhotep-Huy
Amenhotep-Huy was a Vizier of Ancient Egypt during the reign of Amenhotep III. Besides being Amenhotep III's Vizier, Amenhotep-Huy was also director of Upper and Lower Egypt and overseer of all the works of the King in Upper and Lower Egypt.O'C ...
. The
Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities called this "conclusive evidence" that Akhenaten shared power with his father for at least eight years, based on the dating of the tomb. However, this conclusion has since been called into question by other Egyptologists, according to whom the inscription only means that construction on Amenhotep-Huy's tomb started during Amenhotep III's reign and ended under Akhenaten's, and Amenhotep-Huy thus simply wanted to pay his respects to both rulers.
Early reign as Amenhotep lV
Akhenaten took Egypt's throne as Amenhotep IV, most likely in 1353 or 1351 BC. It is unknown how old Amenhotep IV was when he did this; estimates range from 10 to 23. He was most likely crowned in
Thebes, or less likely at
Memphis or
Armant
Armant ( ar, أرْمَنْت; egy, jwn.w-n-mnṯ.w or ''jwn.w-šmꜥ.w''; Bohairic: ; Sahidic: ), also known as Hermonthis ( grc, Ἕρμωνθις), is a town located about south of Thebes. It was an important Middle Kingdom town, which was ...
.
The beginning of Amenhotep IV's reign followed established pharaonic traditions. He did not immediately start redirecting worship toward the
Aten and distancing himself from other gods. Egyptologist Donald B. Redford believes this implied that Amenhotep IV's eventual religious policies were not conceived of before his reign, and he did not follow a pre-established plan or program. Redford points to three pieces of evidence to support this. First, surviving inscriptions show Amenhotep IV worshipping several different gods, including
Atum
Atum (, Egyptian: ''jtm(w)'' or ''tm(w)'', ''reconstructed'' ; Coptic ''Atoum''), sometimes rendered as Atem or Tem, is an important deity in Egyptian mythology.
Name
Atum's name is thought to be derived from the verb ''tm'' which means 'to co ...
,
Osiris,
Anubis,
Nekhbet
Nekhbet (; also spelt Nekhebit) is an early predynastic local goddess in Egyptian mythology, who was the patron of the city of Nekheb (her name meaning ''of Nekheb''). Ultimately, she became the patron of Upper Egypt and one of the two patron ...
,
Hathor
Hathor ( egy, ḥwt-ḥr, lit=House of Horus, grc, Ἁθώρ , cop, ϩⲁⲑⲱⲣ, Meroitic: ) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity, she was the mother or consort of the sky ...
, and the
Eye of Ra
The Eye of Ra or Eye of Re is a being in ancient Egyptian mythology that functions as a feminine counterpart to the sun god Ra and a violent force that subdues his enemies. The eye is an extension of Ra's power, equated with the disk of the sun, ...
, and texts from this era refer to "the gods" and "every god and every goddess." The
High Priest of Amun was also still active in the fourth year of Amenhotep IV's reign. Second, even though he later moved his capital from Thebes to
Akhetaten, his initial
royal titulary honored Thebes—his
nomen was "Amenhotep, god-ruler of Thebes"—and recognizing its importance, he called the city "Southern Heliopolis, the first great (seat) of Re (or) the Disc." Third, Amenhotep IV did not yet destroy temples to the other gods and he even continued his father's construction projects at
Karnak
The Karnak Temple Complex, commonly known as Karnak (, which was originally derived from ar, خورنق ''Khurnaq'' "fortified village"), comprises a vast mix of decayed temples, pylons, chapels, and other buildings near Luxor, Egypt. Constru ...
's
Precinct of Amun-Re. He decorated the walls of the precinct's
Third Pylon with images of himself worshipping
Ra-Horakhty, portrayed in the god's traditional form of a falcon-headed man.
Artistic depictions continued unchanged early in Amenhotep IV's reign. Tombs built or completed in the first few years after he took the throne, such as those of
Kheruef,
Ramose, and
Parennefer
The ancient Egyptian noble Parennefer was Akhenaten's close advisor before he came to the throne, and in later times served as his Royal Butler, an office which brought him into intimate contact with the king. His titles include "The King's Cup Be ...
, show the pharaoh in the traditional artistic style. In Ramose's tomb, Amenhotep IV appears on the west wall, seated on a throne, with Ramose appearing before the pharaoh. On the other side of the doorway, Amenhotep IV and Nefertiti are shown in the window of appearances, with the Aten depicted as the sun disc. In Parennefer's tomb, Amenhotep IV and Nefertiti are seated on a throne with the sun disc depicted over the pharaoh and his queen.
While continuing the worship of other gods, Amenhotep IV's initial building program sought to build new places of worship to the Aten. He ordered the construction of temples or shrines to the Aten in several cities across the country, such as
Bubastis,
Tell el-Borg
Tell may refer to:
*Tell (archaeology), a type of archaeological site
*Tell (name), a name used as a given name and a surname
*Tell (poker), a subconscious behavior that can betray information to an observant opponent
Arts, entertainment, and m ...
,
Heliopolis, Memphis,
Nekhen,
Kawa, and
Kerma
Kerma was the capital city of the Kerma culture, which was located in present-day Sudan at least 5,500 years ago. Kerma is one of the largest archaeological sites in ancient Nubia. It has produced decades of extensive excavations and research, ...
. He also ordered the construction of a large temple complex dedicated to the Aten at Karnak in Thebes, northeast of the parts of the Karnak complex dedicated to Amun. The
Aten temple complex, collectively known as the Per Aten ("House of the Aten"), consisted of several temples whose names survive: the Gempaaten ("The Aten is found in the estate of the Aten"), the Hwt Benben ("House or Temple of the
Benben"), the Rud-Menu ("Enduring of monuments for Aten forever"), the Teni-Menu ("Exalted are the monuments of the Aten forever"), and the Sekhen Aten ("booth of Aten").
Around regnal year two or three, Amenhotep IV organized a
Sed festival. Sed festivals were ritual rejuvenations of an aging pharaoh, which usually took place for the first time around the thirtieth year of a pharaoh's reign and every three or so years thereafter. Egyptologists only speculate as to why Amenhotep IV organized a Sed festival when he was likely still in his early twenties. Some historians see it as evidence for Amenhotep III and Amenhotep IV's coregency, and believed that Amenhotep IV's Sed festival coincided with one of his father's celebrations. Others speculate that Amenhotep IV chose to hold his festival three years after his father's death, aiming to proclaim his rule a continuation of his father's reign. Yet others believe that the festival was held to honor the Aten on whose behalf the pharaoh ruled Egypt, or, as Amenhotep III was considered to have become one with the Aten following his death, the Sed festival honored both the pharaoh and the god at the same time. It is also possible that the purpose of the ceremony was to figuratively fill Amenhotep IV with strength before his great enterprise: the introduction of the Aten cult and the founding of the new capital Akhetaten. Regardless of the celebration's aim, Egyptologists believe that during the festivities Amenhotep IV only made offerings to the Aten rather than the many gods and goddesses, as was customary.
Name change
Among the last documents that refer to Akhenaten as Amenhotep IV are two copies of a letter to the pharaoh from
Ipy, the
high steward of
Memphis. These letters, found in
Gurob and informing the pharaoh that the royal estates in Memphis are "in good order" and the temple of
Ptah is "prosperous and flourishing," are dated to regnal year five, day nineteen of the
growing season's third month. About a month later, day thirteen of the growing season's
fourth month, one of the
boundary stela at Akhetaten already had the name Akhenaten carved on it, implying that the pharaoh changed his name between the two inscriptions.
Amenhotep IV changed his
royal titulary to show his devotion to the Aten. No longer would he be known as Amenhotep IV and be associated with the god
Amun, but rather he would completely shift his focus to the Aten. Egyptologists debate the exact meaning of Akhenaten, his new
personal name. The word "akh" ( egy,
ꜣḫ) could have different translations, such as "satisfied," "effective spirit," or "serviceable to," and thus Akhenaten's name could be translated to mean "Aten is satisfied," "Effective spirit of the Aten," or "Serviceable to the Aten," respectively. Gertie Englund and
Florence Friedman arrive at the translation "Effective for the Aten" by analyzing contemporary texts and inscriptions, in which Akhenaten often described himself as being "effective for" the sun disc. Englund and Friedman conclude that the frequency with which Akhenaten used this term likely means that his own name meant "Effective for the Aten."
Some historians, such as
William F. Albright,
Edel Elmar
Edel is both a surname and a given name. Notable people with the name include:
Surname:
* Abraham Edel (1908–2007), North American philosopher and ethicist
* Alfred William Edel (c. 1930–2005), American television news presenter
* Apoula Edel ...
, and
Gerhard Fecht, propose that Akhenaten's name is misspelled and mispronounced. These historians believe "Aten" should rather be "Jāti," thus rendering the pharaoh's name Akhenjāti or Aḫanjāti (pronounced ), as it could have been pronounced in Ancient Egypt.
Founding Amarna
Around the same time he changed his royal titulary, on the thirteenth day of the
growing season's
fourth month, Akhenaten decreed that a new capital city be built: Akhetaten ( egy,
ꜣḫt-jtn, links=no, meaning "Horizon of the Aten"), better known today as Amarna. The events Egyptologists know the most about during Akhenaten's life are connected with founding Akhetaten, as several so-called
boundary stelae were found around the city to mark its boundary. The pharaoh chose a site about halfway between
Thebes, the capital at the time, and
Memphis, on the east bank of the
Nile
The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest riv ...
, where a
wadi and a natural dip in the surrounding cliffs form a silhouette similar to the "
horizon"
hieroglyph. Additionally, the site had previously been uninhabited. According to inscriptions on one boundary stela, the site was appropriate for Aten's city for "not being the property of a god, nor being the property of a goddess, nor being the property of a ruler, nor being the property of a female ruler, nor being the property of any people able to lay claim to it."
Historians do not know for certain why Akhenaten established a new capital and left Thebes, the old capital. The boundary stelae detailing Akhetaten's founding is damaged where it likely explained the pharaoh's motives for the move. Surviving parts claim what happened to Akhenaten was "worse than those that I heard" previously in his reign and worse than those "heard by any kings who assumed the
White Crown," and alludes to "offensive" speech against the Aten. Egyptologists believe that Akhenaten could be referring to conflict with the priesthood and followers of Amun, the
patron god of Thebes. The great temples of Amun, such as
Karnak
The Karnak Temple Complex, commonly known as Karnak (, which was originally derived from ar, خورنق ''Khurnaq'' "fortified village"), comprises a vast mix of decayed temples, pylons, chapels, and other buildings near Luxor, Egypt. Constru ...
, were all located in Thebes and the priests there achieved significant power earlier in the
Eighteenth Dynasty, especially under
Hatshepsut and
Thutmose III, thanks to pharaohs offering large amounts of Egypt's growing wealth to the cult of Amun; historians, such as
Donald B. Redford, therefore posited that by moving to a new capital, Akhenaten may have been trying to break with Amun's priests and the god.
Akhetaten was a planned city with the
Great Temple of the Aten,
Small Aten Temple
Small may refer to:
Science and technology
* SMALL, an ALGOL-like programming language
* Small (anatomy), the lumbar region of the back
* ''Small'' (journal), a nano-science publication
* <small>, an HTML element that defines smaller text
...
, royal residences,
records office, and government buildings in the city center. Some of these buildings, such as the Aten temples, were ordered to be built by Akhenaten on the boundary stela decreeing the city's founding.
The city was built quickly, thanks to a new construction method that used substantially smaller building blocks than under previous pharaohs. These blocks, called
talatats, measured by by 1
ancient Egyptian cubits (), and because of the smaller weight and standardized size, using them during constructions was more efficient than using heavy building blocks of varying sizes. By regnal year eight, Akhetaten reached a state where it could be occupied by the royal family. Only his most loyal subjects followed Akhenaten and his family to the new city. While the city continued to be built, in years five through eight, construction work began to stop in Thebes. The Theban Aten temples that had begun were abandoned, and a village of those working on
Valley of the Kings tombs was relocated to the workers' village at Akhetaten. However, construction work continued in the rest of the country, as larger cult centers, such as
Heliopolis and Memphis, also had temples built for Aten.
International relations
The
Amarna letters have provided important evidence about Akhenaten's reign and foreign policy. The letters are a cache of 382 diplomatic texts and literary and educational materials discovered between 1887 and 1979, and named after Amarna, the modern name for Akhenaten's capital Akhetaten. The diplomatic correspondence comprises
clay tablet
In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets (Akkadian ) were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age.
Cuneiform characters were imprinted on a wet clay tablet with a sty ...
messages between Amenhotep III, Akhenaten, and Tutankhamun, various subjects through Egyptian military outposts, rulers of
vassal state
A vassal state is any state that has a mutual obligation to a superior state or empire, in a status similar to that of a vassal in the feudal system in medieval Europe. Vassal states were common among the empires of the Near East, dating back t ...
s, and the foreign rulers of
Babylonia,
Assyria
Assyria ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the A ...
,
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
,
Canaan,
Alashiya,
Arzawa,
Mitanni
Mitanni (; Hittite cuneiform ; ''Mittani'' '), c. 1550–1260 BC, earlier called Ḫabigalbat in old Babylonian texts, c. 1600 BC; Hanigalbat or Hani-Rabbat (''Hanikalbat'', ''Khanigalbat'', cuneiform ') in Assyrian records, or '' Naharin'' ...
, and the
Hittites
The Hittites () were an Anatolian people who played an important role in establishing first a kingdom in Kussara (before 1750 BC), then the Kanesh or Nesha kingdom (c. 1750–1650 BC), and next an empire centered on Hattusa in north-cent ...
.
The Amarna letters portray the international situation in the
Eastern Mediterranean that Akhenaten inherited from his predecessors. In the 200 years preceding Akhenaten's reign, following the expulsion of the
Hyksos
Hyksos (; Egyptian '' ḥqꜣ(w)- ḫꜣswt'', Egyptological pronunciation: ''hekau khasut'', "ruler(s) of foreign lands") is a term which, in modern Egyptology, designates the kings of the Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt (fl. c. 1650–1550 BC).
T ...
from
Lower Egypt at the end of the
Second Intermediate Period, the kingdom's influence and military might increased greatly. Egypt's power reached new heights under
Thutmose III, who ruled approximately 100 years before Akhenaten and led several successful military campaigns into Nubia and Syria. Egypt's expansion led to confrontation with the Mitanni, but this rivalry ended with the two nations becoming allies. Slowly, however, Egypt's power started to wane. Amenhotep III aimed to maintain the balance of power through marriages—such as his marriage to
Tadukhipa
Tadukhipa, in the Hurrian language ''Tadu-Hepa'', was the daughter of Tushratta and his queen Juni, and niece of Artashumara. Tadukhipa's aunt Gilukhipa (sister of Tushratta) had married Pharaoh Amenhotep III in his 10th regnal year. Tadukhipa ...
, daughter of the Mitanni king
Tushratta—and vassal states. Under Amenhotep III and Akhenaten, Egypt was unable or unwilling to oppose the rise of the Hittites around Syria. The pharaohs seemed to eschew military confrontation at a time when the balance of power between Egypt's neighbors and rivals was shifting, and the Hittites, a confrontational state, overtook the Mitanni in influence.
Early in his reign, Akhenaten was evidently concerned about the expanding power of the
Hittite Empire under
Šuppiluliuma I. A successful Hittite attack on Mitanni and its ruler Tushratta would have disrupted the entire international balance of power in the Ancient Middle East at a time when Egypt had made peace with Mitanni; this would cause some of Egypt's vassals to switch their allegiances to the Hittites, as time would prove. A group of Egypt's allies who attempted to rebel against the Hittites were captured, and wrote letters begging Akhenaten for troops, but he did not respond to most of their pleas. Evidence suggests that the troubles on the northern frontier led to difficulties in
Canaan, particularly in a struggle for power between
Labaya of
Shechem and
Abdi-Heba of
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
, which required the pharaoh to intervene in the area by dispatching
Medjay troops northwards. Akhenaten pointedly refused to save his vassal
Rib-Hadda
Rib-Hadda (also rendered Rib-Addi, Rib-Addu, Rib-Adda) was king of Byblos during the mid fourteenth century BCE. He is the author of some sixty of the Amarna letters all to Akhenaten. His name is Akkadian in form and may invoke the Northwest Semiti ...
of
Byblos—whose kingdom was being besieged by the expanding state of
Amurru Amurru may refer to:
* Amurru kingdom, roughly current day western Syria and northern Lebanon
* Amorite, ancient Syrian people
* Amurru (god)
Amurru, also known under the Sumerian name Martu, was a Mesopotamian god who served as the divine perso ...
under
Abdi-Ashirta and later
Aziru, son of Abdi-Ashirta—despite Rib-Hadda's numerous pleas for help from the pharaoh. Rib-Hadda wrote a total of 60 letters to Akhenaten pleading for aid from the pharaoh. Akhenaten wearied of Rib-Hadda's constant correspondences and once told Rib-Hadda: "You are the one that writes to me more than all the (other) mayors" or Egyptian vassals in EA 124. What Rib-Hadda did not comprehend was that the Egyptian king would not organize and dispatch an entire army north just to preserve the political status quo of several minor city states on the fringes of Egypt's Asiatic Empire. Rib-Hadda would pay the ultimate price; his exile from Byblos due to a coup led by his brother
Ilirabih is mentioned in one letter. When Rib-Hadda appealed in vain for aid from Akhenaten and then turned to Aziru, his sworn enemy, to place him back on the throne of his city, Aziru promptly had him dispatched to the king of Sidon, where Rib-Hadda was almost certainly executed.
In a view discounted by the 21st century, several Egyptologists in the late 19th and 20th centuries interpreted the Amarna letters to mean that Akhenaten was a
pacifist who neglected foreign policy and Egypt's foreign territories in favor of his internal reforms. For example,
Henry Hall believed Akhenaten "succeeded by his obstinate doctrinaire love of peace in causing far more misery in his world than half a dozen elderly militarists could have done," while
James Henry Breasted said Akhenaten "was not fit to cope with a situation demanding an aggressive man of affairs and a skilled military leader." Others noted that the Amarna letters counter the conventional view that Akhenaten neglected Egypt's foreign territories in favour of his internal reforms. For instance,
Norman de Garis Davies praised Akhenaten's emphasis on diplomacy over war, while
James Baikie said that the fact "that there is no evidence of revolt within the borders of Egypt itself during the whole reign is surely ample proof that there was no such abandonment of his royal duties on the part of Akhenaten as has been assumed." Indeed, several letters from Egyptian vassals notified the pharaoh that they have followed his instructions, implying that the pharaoh sent such instructions. The Amarna letters also show that vassal states were told repeatedly to expect the arrival of the Egyptian military on their lands, and provide evidence that these troops were dispatched and arrived at their destination. Dozens of letters detail that Akhenaten—and Amenhotep III—sent Egyptian and Nubian troops, armies, archers, chariots, horses, and ships.
Only one military campaign is known for certain under Akhenaten's reign. In his second or twelfth year, Akhenaten ordered his
Viceroy of Kush Tuthmose to lead a military expedition to quell a rebellion and raids on settlements on the Nile by Nubian nomadic tribes. The victory was commemorated on two stelae, one discovered at
Amada and another at
Buhen. Egyptologists differ on the size of the campaign:
Wolfgang Helck considered it a small-scale police operation, while
Alan Schulman
Alan may refer to:
People
*Alan (surname), an English and Turkish surname
*Alan (given name), an English given name
** List of people with given name Alan
''Following are people commonly referred to solely by "Alan" or by a homonymous name.''
* ...
considered it a "war of major proportions."
Other Egyptologists suggested that Akhenaten could have waged war in Syria or the
Levant
The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is ...
, possibly against the Hittites. Cyril Aldred, based on Amarna letters describing Egyptian troop movements, proposed that Akhenaten launched an unsuccessful war around the city of
Gezer, while Marc Gabolde argued for an unsuccessful campaign around
Kadesh. Either of these could be the campaign referred to on Tutankhamun's Restoration Stela: "if an army was sent to
Djahy outhern Canaan and Syriato broaden the boundaries of Egypt, no success of their cause came to pass."
John Coleman Darnell and
Colleen Manassa also argued that Akhenaten fought with the Hittites for control of Kadesh, but was unsuccessful; the city was not recaptured until 60–70 years later, under
Seti I.
Overall, archeological evidence suggests that Akhenaten paid close attention to the affairs of Egyptian vassals in Canaan and Syria, though primarily not through letters such as those found at Amarna but through reports from government officials and agents. Akhenaten managed to preserve Egypt's control over the core of its Near Eastern Empire (which consisted of present-day Israel as well as the Phoenician coast) while avoiding conflict with the increasingly powerful and aggressive Hittite Empire of
Šuppiluliuma I, which overtook the Mitanni as the dominant power in the northern part of the region. Only the Egyptian border province of
Amurru Amurru may refer to:
* Amurru kingdom, roughly current day western Syria and northern Lebanon
* Amorite, ancient Syrian people
* Amurru (god)
Amurru, also known under the Sumerian name Martu, was a Mesopotamian god who served as the divine perso ...
in Syria around the
Orontes River was lost to the Hittites when its ruler
Aziru defected to the Hittites; ordered by Akhenaten to come to Egypt, Aziru was released after promising to stay loyal to the pharaoh, nonetheless turning to the Hittites soon after his release.
Later years
Egyptologists know little about the last five years of Akhenaten's reign, beginning in These years are poorly attested and only a few pieces of contemporary evidence survive; the lack of clarity makes reconstructing the latter part of the pharaoh's reign "a daunting task" and a controversial and contested topic of discussion among Egyptologists. Among the newest pieces of evidence is an inscription discovered in 2012 at a limestone quarry in
Deir el-Bersha, just north of Akhetaten, from the pharaoh's sixteenth regnal year. The text refers to a building project in Amarna and establishes that Akhenaten and Nefertiti were still a royal couple just a year before Akhenaten's death. The inscription is dated to Year 16, month 3 of
Akhet, day 15 of the reign of Akhenaten.
Before the 2012 discovery of the Deir el-Bersha inscription, the last known fixed-date event in Akhenaten's reign was a royal reception in regnal year twelve, in which the pharaoh and the royal family received tributes and offerings from allied countries and vassal states at Akhetaten. Inscriptions show tributes from
Nubia
Nubia () ( Nobiin: Nobīn, ) is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the first cataract of the Nile (just south of Aswan in southern Egypt) and the confluence of the Blue and White Niles (in Khartoum in central Sud ...
, the
Land of Punt,
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
, the
Kingdom of Hattusa, the islands in the
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...
, and
Libya. Egyptologists, such as
Aidan Dodson, consider this year twelve celebration to be the
zenith of Akhenaten's reign. Thanks to reliefs in the
tomb
A tomb ( grc-gre, τύμβος ''tumbos'') is a repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be called ''immureme ...
of courtier
Meryre II, historians know that the royal family, Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and their six daughters, were present at the royal reception in full. However, historians are uncertain about the reasons for the reception. Possibilities include the celebration of the marriage of future pharaoh
Ay to
Tey, celebration of Akhenaten's twelve years on the throne, the summons of king
Aziru of
Amurru Amurru may refer to:
* Amurru kingdom, roughly current day western Syria and northern Lebanon
* Amorite, ancient Syrian people
* Amurru (god)
Amurru, also known under the Sumerian name Martu, was a Mesopotamian god who served as the divine perso ...
to Egypt, a military victory at
Sumur in the
Levant
The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is ...
, a successful military campaign in Nubia, Nefertiti's ascendancy to the throne as coregent, or the completion of the new capital city Akhetaten.
Following year twelve,
Donald B. Redford and other Egyptologists proposed that Egypt was struck by an
epidemic, most likely a
plague
Plague or The Plague may refer to:
Agriculture, fauna, and medicine
*Plague (disease), a disease caused by ''Yersinia pestis''
* An epidemic of infectious disease (medical or agricultural)
* A pandemic caused by such a disease
* A swarm of pes ...
. Contemporary evidence suggests that a plague ravaged through the Middle East around this time, and ambassadors and delegations arriving to Akhenaten's year twelve reception might have brought the disease to Egypt. Alternatively, letters from the
Hattians might suggest that the epidemic originated in Egypt and was carried throughout the Middle East by Egyptian prisoners of war. Regardless of its origin, the epidemic might account for several deaths in the royal family that occurred in the last five years of Akhenaten's reign, including those of his daughters
Meketaten,
Neferneferure
Neferneferure ( egy, nfr-nfr.w-rꜥ "beautiful are the beauties of Re") (14th century BCE) was an ancient Egyptian princess of the 18th Dynasty. She was the fifth of six known daughters of Pharaoh Akhenaten and his Great Royal Wife Nefertiti.
...
, and
Setepenre
Setepenre is an often-used title of Egyptian kings (pharaohs), meaning "Elect of Re". It was also used as a personal name in at least two instances. Pronunciation
In Akkadian records, the name (referring to Ramesses II) is rendered in cuneiform s ...
.
Coregency with Smenkhkare or Nefertiti
Akhenaten could have ruled together with
Smenkhkare and
Nefertiti for several years before his death. Based on depictions and artifacts from the tombs of
Meryre II and Tutankhamun, Smenkhkare could have been Akhenaten's coregent by regnal year thirteen or fourteen, but died a year or two later. Nefertiti might not have assumed the role of coregent until after year sixteen, when a stela still mentions her as Akhenaten's
Great Royal Wife. While Nefertiti's familial relationship with Akhenaten is known, whether Akhenaten and Smenkhkare were related by blood is unclear. Smenkhkare could have been Akhenaten's son or brother, as the son of
Amenhotep III with
Tiye or
Sitamun. Archaeological evidence makes it clear, however, that Smenkhkare was married to
Meritaten, Akhenaten's eldest daughter. For another, the so-called
Coregency Stela The Coregency Stela is an ancient Egyptian stela dating from the late Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. It consists of seven limestone fragments, which were found in a tomb at Amarna. The tablet shows the figures of Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and Meritaten. ...
, found in a tomb at Akhetaten, might show queen
Nefertiti as Akhenaten's coregent, but this is uncertain as the stela was recarved to show the names of
Ankhesenpaaten and
Neferneferuaten. Egyptologist
Aidan Dodson proposed that both Smenkhkare and Neferiti were Akhenaten's coregents to ensure the Amarna family's continued rule when Egypt was confronted with an epidemic. Dodson suggested that the two were chosen to rule as Tutankhaten's coregent in case Akhenaten died and Tutankhaten took the throne at a young age, or rule in Tutankhaten's stead if the prince also died in the epidemic.
Death and burial
Akhenaten died after seventeen years of rule and was initially buried in a
tomb
A tomb ( grc-gre, τύμβος ''tumbos'') is a repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be called ''immureme ...
in the
Royal Wadi east of Akhetaten. The order to construct the tomb and to bury the pharaoh there was commemorated on one of the
boundary stela delineating the capital's borders: "Let a tomb be made for me in the eastern mountain
f Akhetaten Let my burial be made in it, in the millions of jubilees which the Aten, my father, decreed for me." In the years following the burial, Akhenaten's sarcophagus was destroyed and left in the Akhetaten necropolis; reconstructed in the 20th century, it is in the
Egyptian Museum in Cairo as of 2019. Despite leaving the sarcophagus behind, Akhenaten's mummy was removed from the royal tombs after Tutankhamun abandoned Akhetaten and returned to Thebes. It was most likely moved to tomb
KV55 in
Valley of the Kings near Thebes. This tomb was later desecrated, likely during the
Ramesside period.
Whether
Smenkhkare also enjoyed a brief independent reign after Akhenaten is unclear. If Smenkhkare outlived Akhenaten, and became sole pharaoh, he likely ruled Egypt for less than a year. The next successor was Nefertiti or Meritaten ruling as
Neferneferuaten, reigning in Egypt for about two years. She was, in turn, probably succeeded by Tutankhaten, with the country being administered by the
vizier and future pharaoh
Ay.
While Akhenaten—along with Smenkhkare—was most likely reburied in tomb KV55, the identification of the mummy found in that tomb as Akhenaten remains controversial to this day. The mummy has repeatedly been examined since its discovery in 1907. Most recently, Egyptologist
Zahi Hawass led a team of researchers to examine the mummy using medical and
DNA analysis, with the results published in 2010. In releasing their test results, Hawass's team identified the mummy as the father of Tutankhamun and thus "most probably" Akhenaten. However, the study's
validity has since been called into question. For instance, the discussion of the study results does not discuss that Tutankhamun's father and the father's siblings would share some
genetic markers; if Tutankhamun's father was Akhenaten, the DNA results could indicate that the mummy is a brother of Akhenaten, possibly Smenkhkare.
Legacy
With Akhenaten's death, the Aten cult he had founded fell out of favor: at first gradually, and then with decisive finality. Tutankhaten changed his name to Tutankhamun in Year 2 of his reign () and abandoned the city of Akhetaten. Their successors then attempted to erase Akhenaten and his family from the historical record. During the reign of Horemheb, the last pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty and the first pharaoh after Akhenaten who was not related to Akhenaten's family, Egyptians started to destroy temples to the Aten and reuse the building blocks in new construction projects, including in temples for the newly restored god Amun. Horemheb's successor continued in this effort.
Seti I restored monuments to Amun and had the god's name re-carved on inscriptions where it was removed by Akhenaten. Seti I also ordered that Akhenaten, Smenkhkare, Neferneferuaten, Tutankhamun, and Ay be excised from official lists of pharaohs to make it appear that Amenhotep III was immediately succeeded by Horemheb. Under the
Ramessides, who succeeded Seti I, Akhetaten was gradually destroyed and the building material reused across the country, such as in constructions at
Hermopolis
Hermopolis ( grc, Ἑρμούπολις ''Hermoúpolis'' "the City of Hermes", also ''Hermopolis Magna'', ''Hermoû pólis megálẽ'', egy, ḫmnw , Egyptological pronunciation: "Khemenu"; cop, Ϣⲙⲟⲩⲛ ''Shmun''; ar, الأشمون� ...
. The negative attitudes toward Akhenaten were illustrated by, for example, inscriptions in the tomb of scribe
Mose (or Mes), where Akhenaten's reign is referred to as "the time of the enemy of Akhet-Aten."
Some Egyptologists, such as
Jacobus van Dijk
A Jacobus is an English gold coin of the reign of James I, worth 25 shillings. The name of the coin comes from the Latin inscription surrounding the King's head on the obverse of the coin, IACOBUS D G MAG BRIT FRA ET HI REX ("James, by the grace o ...
and
Jan Assmann
Jan Assmann (born Johann Christoph Assmann; born 7 July 1938) is a German Egyptologist.
Life and works
Assmann studied Egyptology and classical archaeology in Munich, Heidelberg, Paris, and Göttingen. In 1966–67, he was a fellow of the G ...
, believe that Akhenaten's reign and the Amarna period started a gradual decline in the Egyptian government's power and the pharaoh's standing in Egyptian's society and religious life. Akhenaten's religious reforms subverted the relationship ordinary Egyptians had with their gods and their pharaoh, as well as the role the pharaoh played in the relationship between the people and the gods. Before the Amarna period, the pharaoh was the representative of the gods on Earth, the son of the god Ra, and the living incarnation of the god
Horus, and maintained the
divine order through rituals and offerings and by sustaining the temples of the gods. Additionally, even though the pharaoh oversaw all religious activity, Egyptians could access their gods through
regular public holidays, festivals, and processions. This led to a seemingly close connection between people and the gods, especially the
patron deity
A tutelary () (also tutelar) is a deity or a spirit who is a guardian, patron, or protector of a particular place, geographic feature, person, lineage, nation, culture, or occupation. The etymology of "tutelary" expresses the concept of safety an ...
of their respective towns and cities. Akhenaten, however, banned the worship of gods beside the Aten, including through festivals. He also declared himself to be the only one who could worship the Aten, and required that all religious devotion previously exhibited toward the gods be directed toward himself. After the Amarna period, during the
Nineteenth and
Twentieth Dynasties— following Akhenaten's death—the relationship between the people, the pharaoh, and the gods did not simply revert to pre-Amarna practices and beliefs. The worship of all gods returned, but the relationship between the gods and the worshipers became more direct and personal, circumventing the pharaoh. Rather than acting through the pharaoh, Egyptians started to believe that the gods intervened directly in their lives, protecting the pious and punishing criminals. The gods replaced the pharaoh as their own representatives on Earth. The god
Amun once again became king among all gods. According to van Dijk, "the king was no longer a god, but god himself had become king. Once Amun had been recognized as the true king, the political power of the earthly rulers could be reduced to a minimum." Consequently, the influence and power of the Amun priesthood continued to grow until the
Twenty-first Dynasty, , by which time the
High Priests of Amun effectively became rulers over parts of Egypt.
Akhenaten's reforms also had a longer-term impact on Ancient Egyptian language and hastened the spread of the spoken
Late Egyptian language
Late Egyptian is the stage of the Egyptian language that was written by the time of the New Kingdom of Egypt around 1350 BC (the Amarna Period). Texts written wholly in Late Egyptian date to the Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt and later. Late Egyptian ...
in official writings and speeches. Spoken and written Egyptian diverged early on in Egyptian history and stayed different over time. During the Amarna period, however, royal and religious texts and inscriptions, including the
boundary stelae at Akhetaten or the
Amarna letters, started to regularly include more
vernacular linguistic elements, such as the
definite article or a new
possessive form. Even though they continued to diverge, these changes brought the spoken and written language closer to one another more systematically than under previous pharaohs of the
New Kingdom. While Akhenaten's successors attempted to erase his religious, artistic, and even linguistic changes from history, the new linguistic elements remained a more common part of official texts following the Amarna years, starting with the
Nineteenth Dynasty.
Akehnaten is also recognized as a
Prophet
In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings from the ...
in the
Druze faith.
Atenism
Egyptians worshipped a sun god under several names, and solar worship had been growing in popularity even before Akhenaten, especially during the
Eighteenth Dynasty and the reign of Amenhotep III, Akhenaten's father. During the
New Kingdom, the pharaoh started to be associated with the sun disc; for example, one inscription called the pharaoh
Hatshepsut the "female
Re shining like the Disc," while Amenhotep III was described as "he who rises over every foreign land, Nebmare, the dazzling disc." During the Eighteenth Dynasty, a religious hymn to the sun also appeared and became popular among Egyptians. However, Egyptologists question whether there is a causal relationship between the cult of the sun disc before Akhenaten and Akhenaten's religious policies.
Implementation and development
The implementation of Atenism can be traced through gradual changes in the
Aten's iconography, and Egyptologist
Donald B. Redford divided its development into three stages—earliest, intermediate, and final—in his studies of Akhenaten and Atenism. The earliest stage was associated with a growing number of depictions of the sun disc, though the disc is still seen resting on the head of the falcon-headed sun god
Ra-Horakhty, as the god was traditionally represented. The god was only "unique but not exclusive." The intermediate stage was marked by the elevation of the Aten above other gods and the appearance of
cartouches around his inscribed name—cartouches traditionally indicating that the enclosed text is a royal name. The final stage had the Aten represented as a sun disc with sunrays like long arms terminating in human hands and the introduction of a new
epithet for the god: "the great living Disc which is in jubilee, lord of heaven and earth."
In the early years of his reign, Amenhotep IV lived at Thebes, the old capital city, and permitted worship of Egypt's traditional deities to continue. However, some signs already pointed to the growing importance of the Aten. For example, inscriptions in the Theban
tomb of Parennefer from the early rule of Amenhotep IV state that "one measures the payments to every (other) god with a level measure, but for the Aten one measures so that it overflows," indicating a more favorable attitude to the cult of Aten than the other gods. Additionally, near the
Temple of Karnak, Amun-Ra's great cult center, Amenhotep IV erected several massive buildings including temples to the Aten. The new Aten temples had no roof and the god was thus worshipped in the sunlight, under the open sky, rather than in dark temple enclosures as had been the previous custom. The Theban buildings were later dismantled by his successors and used as infill for new constructions in the Temple of Karnak; when they were later dismantled by archaeologists, some 36,000 decorated blocks from the original Aten building here were revealed that preserve many elements of the original relief scenes and inscriptions.
One of the most important turning points in the early reign of Amenhotep IV is a speech given by the pharaoh at the beginning of his second regnal year. A copy of the speech survives on one of the
pylons
Pylon may refer to:
Structures and boundaries
* Pylon (architecture), the gateway to the inner part of an Ancient Egyptian temple or Christian cathedral
* Pylon, a support tower structure for suspension bridges or highways
* Pylon, an orange mar ...
at the
Karnak Temple Complex
The Karnak Temple Complex, commonly known as Karnak (, which was originally derived from ar, خورنق ''Khurnaq'' "fortified village"), comprises a vast mix of decayed temples, pylons, chapels, and other buildings near Luxor, Egypt. Construct ...
near Thebes. Speaking to the royal court, scribes or the people, Amenhotep IV said that the gods were ineffective and had ceased their movements, and that their temples had collapsed. The pharaoh contrasted this with the only remaining god, the sun disc Aten, who continued to move and exist forever. Some Egyptologists, such as
Donald B. Redford, compared this speech to a proclamation or manifesto, which foreshadowed and explained the pharaoh's later religious reforms centered around the Aten. In his speech, Akhenaten said:
The temples of the gods fallen to ruin, their bodies do not endure. Since the time of the ancestors, it is the wise man that knows these things. Behold, I, the king, am speaking so that I might inform you concerning the appearances of the gods. I know their temples, and I am versed in the writings, specifically, the inventory of their primeval bodies. And I have watched as they he gods
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
have ceased their appearances, one after the other. All of them have stopped, except the god who gave birth to himself. And no one knows the mystery of how he performs his tasks. This god goes where he pleases and no one else knows his going. I approach him, the things which he has made. How exalted they are.
In Year Five of his reign, Amenhotep IV took decisive steps to establish the Aten as the sole god of Egypt. The pharaoh "disbanded the priesthoods of all the other gods... and diverted the income from these
thercults to support the Aten." To emphasize his complete allegiance to the Aten, the king officially changed his name from Amenhotep IV to Akhenaten ( egy,
ꜣḫ-n-jtn, links=no, meaning "Effective for the Aten"). Meanwhile, the Aten was becoming a king itself. Artists started to depict him with the trappings of pharaohs, placing his name in
cartouches—a rare, but not unique occurrence, as the names of Ra-Horakhty and Amun-Ra had also been found enclosed in cartouches—and wearing a
uraeus, a symbol of kingship. The Aten may also have been the subject of Akhenaten's royal
Sed festival early in the pharaoh's reign. With Aten becoming a sole deity, Akhenaten started to proclaim himself as the only intermediary between Aten and his people, and the subject of their personal worship and attention—a feature not unheard of in Egyptian history, with
Fifth Dynasty pharaohs such as
Nyuserre Ini
Nyuserre Ini (also Niuserre Ini or Neuserre Ini; in Greek known as Rathurês, ''Ῥαθούρης'') was an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh, the sixth ruler of the Fifth Dynasty during the Old Kingdom period. He is credited with a reign of 24 to 35 ...
proclaiming to be sole intermediaries between the people and the gods
Osiris and
Ra.
By Year Nine of his reign, Akhenaten declared that Aten was not merely the supreme god, but the only worshipable god. He ordered the defacing of Amun's temples throughout Egypt and, in a number of instances, inscriptions of the plural 'gods' were also removed. This emphasized the changes encouraged by the new regime, which included a ban on
images, with the exception of a rayed solar disc, in which the rays appear to represent the unseen spirit of Aten, who by then was evidently considered not merely a sun god, but rather a universal deity. All life on Earth depended on the Aten and the visible sunlight. Representations of the Aten were always accompanied with a sort of hieroglyphic footnote, stating that the representation of the sun as all-encompassing creator was to be taken as just that: a representation of something that, by its very nature as something transcending creation, cannot be fully or adequately represented by any one part of that creation. Aten's name was also written differently starting as early as Year Eight or as late as Year Fourteen, according to some historians. From "Living
Re-Horakhty
Ra (; egy, rꜥ; also transliterated ; cuneiform: ''ri-a'' or ''ri-ia''; Phoenician: 𐤓𐤏, CIS I 3778 romanized: rʿ) or Re (; cop, ⲣⲏ, translit=Rē) was the ancient Egyptian deity of the sun. By the Fifth Dynasty, in the 25th ...
, who rejoices in the horizon in his name
Shu-
Re who is in Aten," the god's name changed to "Living Re, ruler of the horizon, who rejoices in his name of Re the father who has returned as Aten," removing the Aten's connection to Re-Horakhty and Shu, two other solar deities. The Aten thus became an amalgamation that incorporated the attributes and beliefs around Re-Horakhty, universal sun god, and Shu, god of the sky and manifestation of the sunlight.
Akhenaten's Atenist beliefs are best distilled in the
Great Hymn to the Aten. The hymn was discovered in the tomb of
Ay, one of Akhenaten's successors, though Egyptologists believe that it could have been composed by Akhenaten himself. The hymn celebrates the sun and daylight and recounts the dangers that abound when the sun sets. It tells of the Aten as a sole god and the creator of all life, who recreates life every day at sunrise, and on whom everything on Earth depends, including the natural world, people's lives, and even trade and commerce. In one passage, the hymn declares: "O Sole God beside whom there is none! You made the earth as you wished, you alone." The hymn also states that Akhenaten is the only intermediary between the god and Egyptians, and the only one who can understand the Aten: "You are in my heart, and there is none who knows you except your son."
Atenism and other gods
Some debate has focused on the extent to which Akhenaten forced his religious reforms on his people. Certainly, as time drew on, he revised the names of the Aten, and other religious language, to increasingly exclude references to other gods; at some point, also, he embarked on the wide-scale erasure of traditional gods' names, especially those of Amun. Some of his court changed their names to remove them from the patronage of other gods and place them under that of Aten (or Ra, with whom Akhenaten equated the Aten). Yet, even at Amarna itself, some courtiers kept such names as Ahmose ("child of the moon god", the owner of tomb 3), and the sculptor's workshop where the famous
Nefertiti Bust and other works of royal portraiture were found is associated with an artist known to have been called
Thutmose ("child of Thoth"). An overwhelmingly large number of
faience
Faience or faïence (; ) is the general English language term for fine tin-glazed pottery. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major ...
amulets at Amarna also show that talismans of the household-and-childbirth gods Bes and Taweret, the eye of Horus, and amulets of other traditional deities, were openly worn by its citizens. Indeed, a cache of royal jewelry found buried near the Amarna royal tombs (now in the
National Museum of Scotland
The National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, Scotland, was formed in 2006 with the merger of the new Museum of Scotland, with collections relating to Scottish antiquities, culture and history, and the adjacent Royal Scottish Museum (opene ...
) includes a finger ring referring to Mut, the wife of Amun. Such evidence suggests that though Akhenaten shifted funding away from traditional temples, his policies were fairly tolerant until some point, perhaps a particular event as yet unknown, toward the end of the reign.
Archaeological discoveries at Akhetaten show that many ordinary residents of this city chose to gouge or chisel out all references to the god Amun on even minor personal items that they owned, such as commemorative scarabs or make-up pots, perhaps for fear of being accused of having Amunist sympathies. References to Amenhotep III, Akhenaten's father, were partly erased since they contained the traditional Amun form of his name: Nebmaatre Amunhotep.
After Akhenaten
Following Akhenaten's death, Egypt gradually returned to its traditional
polytheistic religion, partly because of how closely associated the Aten became with Akhenaten. Atenism likely stayed dominant through the reigns of Akhenaten's immediate successors,
Smenkhkare and
Neferneferuaten, as well as early in the reign of Tutankhaten. For some years the worship of Aten and a resurgent worship of Amun coexisted.
Over time, however, Akhenaten's successors, starting with Tutankhaten, took steps to distance themselves from Atenism. Tutankhaten and his wife
Ankhesenpaaten dropped the Aten from their names and changed them to Tutankhamun and Ankhesenamun, respectively. Amun was restored as the supreme deity. Tutankhamun reestablished the temples of the other gods, as the pharaoh propagated on his Restoration Stela: "He reorganized this land, restoring its customs to those of the time of Re. ... He renewed the gods' mansions and fashioned all their images. ... He raised up their temples and created their statues. ... When he had sought out the gods' precincts which were in ruins in this land, he refounded them just as they had been since the time of the first primeval age." Additionally, Tutankhamun's building projects at
Thebes and
Karnak
The Karnak Temple Complex, commonly known as Karnak (, which was originally derived from ar, خورنق ''Khurnaq'' "fortified village"), comprises a vast mix of decayed temples, pylons, chapels, and other buildings near Luxor, Egypt. Constru ...
used
talatat's from Akhenaten's buildings, which implies that Tutankhamun might have started to demolish temples dedicated to the Aten. Aten temples continued to be torn down under Ay and
Horemheb, Tutankhamun's successors and the last pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Horemheb might also have ordered the demolition of Akhetaten, Akhenaten's capital city. Further underlining the break with Aten worship, Horemheb claimed to have been chosen to rule by the god
Horus. Finally,
Seti I, the second pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty, ordered the name of Amun to be restored on inscriptions where it had been removed or replaced by Aten.
Artistic depictions
Styles of art that flourished during the reigns of Akhenaten and his immediate successors, known as
Amarna art
Amarna art, or the Amarna style, is a style adopted in the Amarna Period during and just after the reign of Akhenaten (r. 1351–1334 BC) in the late Eighteenth Dynasty, during the New Kingdom. Whereas Ancient Egyptian art was famously slow t ...
, are markedly different from the
traditional art of ancient Egypt. Representations are more
realistic,
expressionistic
Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it r ...
, and
naturalistic, especially in depictions of animals, plants and people, and convey more action and movement for both non-royal and royal individuals than the traditionally static representations. In traditional art, a pharaoh's divine nature was expressed by repose, even immobility.
The portrayals of Akhenaten himself greatly differ from the depictions of other pharaohs. Traditionally, the portrayal of pharaohs—and the Egyptian ruling class—was idealized, and they were shown in "stereotypically 'beautiful' fashion" as youthful and athletic. However, Akhenaten's portrayals are unconventional and "unflattering" with a sagging stomach; broad hips; thin legs; thick thighs; large, "almost feminine breasts;" a thin, "exaggeratedly long face;" and thick lips.
Based on Akhenaten's and his family's unusual artistic representations, including potential depictions of
gynecomastia and
androgyny, some have argued that the pharaoh and his family have either suffered from
aromatase excess syndrome and
sagittal craniosynostosis syndrome, or
Antley–Bixler syndrome. In 2010, results published from genetic studies on Akhenaten's purported mummy did not find signs of gynecomastia or Antley-Bixler syndrome, although these results have since been questioned.
Arguing instead for a symbolic interpretation,
Dominic Montserrat in ''Akhenaten: History, Fantasy and Ancient Egypt'' states that "there is now a broad consensus among Egyptologists that the exaggerated forms of Akhenaten's physical portrayal... are not to be read literally". Because the god Aten was referred to as "the mother and father of all humankind," Montserrat and others suggest that Akhenaten was made to look
androgynous in artwork as a symbol of the androgyny of the Aten. This required "a symbolic gathering of all the attributes of the creator god into the physical body of the king himself", which will "display on earth the Aten's multiple life-giving functions". Akhenaten claimed the title "The Unique One of Re", and he may have directed his artists to contrast him with the common people through a radical departure from the idealized traditional pharaoh image.
Depictions of other members of the court, especially members of the royal family, are also exaggerated, stylized, and overall different from traditional art. Significantly, and for the only time in the history of Egyptian royal art, the pharaoh's family life is depicted: the royal family is shown mid-action in relaxed, casual, and intimate situations, taking part in decidedly naturalistic activities, showing affection for each other, such as holding hands and kissing.
Nefertiti also appears, both beside the king and alone, or with her daughters, in actions usually reserved for a pharaoh, such as "smiting the enemy," a traditional depiction of male pharaohs. This suggests that she enjoyed unusual status for a queen. Early artistic representations of her tend to be indistinguishable from her husband's except by her regalia, but soon after the move to the new capital, Nefertiti begins to be depicted with features specific to her. Questions remain whether the beauty of Nefertiti is portraiture or idealism.
Speculative theories
Akhenaten's status as a religious revolutionary has led to much
speculation, ranging from scholarly hypotheses to non-academic
fringe theories. Although some believe the religion he introduced was mostly monotheistic, many others see Akhenaten as a practitioner of an Aten
monolatry, as he did not actively deny the existence of other gods; he simply refrained from worshiping any but the Aten.
Akhenaten and monotheism in Abrahamic religions
The idea that Akhenaten was the pioneer of a monotheistic religion that later became
Judaism
Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in th ...
has been considered by various scholars. One of the first to mention this was
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts i ...
, the founder of
psychoanalysis
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might ...
, in his book ''
Moses and Monotheism''. Basing his arguments on his belief that the Exodus story was historical, Freud argued that
Moses had been an Atenist priest who was forced to leave Egypt with his followers after Akhenaten's death. Freud argued that Akhenaten was striving to promote monotheism, something that the biblical Moses was able to achieve. Following the publication of his book, the concept entered popular consciousness and serious research.
Freud commented on the connection between
Adonai
Judaism considers some names of God so holy that, once written, they should not be erased: YHWH, Adonai, El ("God"), Elohim ("God," a plural noun), Shaddai ("Almighty"), and Tzevaot (" fHosts"); some also include Ehyeh ("I Will Be").This is th ...
, the Egyptian Aten and the Syrian divine name of
Adonis as stemming from a common root; in this he was following the argument of Egyptologist
Arthur Weigall.
Jan Assmann
Jan Assmann (born Johann Christoph Assmann; born 7 July 1938) is a German Egyptologist.
Life and works
Assmann studied Egyptology and classical archaeology in Munich, Heidelberg, Paris, and Göttingen. In 1966–67, he was a fellow of the G ...
's opinion is that 'Aten' and 'Adonai' are not linguistically related.
There are strong similarities between Akhenaten's
Great Hymn to the Aten and the
Biblical Psalm 104, but there is debate as to relationship implied by this similarity.
Others have likened some aspects of Akhenaten's relationship with the Aten to the relationship, in Christian tradition, between
Jesus Christ
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...
and God, particularly interpretations that emphasize a more monotheistic interpretation of Atenism than a henotheistic one.
Donald B. Redford has noted that some have viewed Akhenaten as a
harbinger of Jesus. "After all, Akhenaten did call himself the son of the sole god: 'Thine only son that came forth from thy body'."
James Henry Breasted likened him to Jesus,
Arthur Weigall saw him as a failed precursor of Christ and
Thomas Mann
Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...
saw him "as right on the way and yet not the right one for the way".
Although scholars like Brian Fagan (2015) and Robert Alter (2018) have re-opened the debate, in 1997, Redford concluded:
Before much of the archaeological evidence from Thebes and from Tell el-Amarna became available, wishful thinking sometimes turned Akhenaten into a humane teacher of the true God, a mentor of Moses, a christlike figure, a philosopher before his time. But these imaginary creatures are now fading away as the historical reality gradually emerges. There is little or no evidence to support the notion that Akhenaten was a progenitor of the full-blown monotheism that we find in the Bible. The monotheism of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament had its own separate development—one that began more than half a millennium after the pharaoh's death.
Possible illness
The unconventional portrayals of Akhenaten—different from the traditional athletic norm in the portrayal of pharaohs—have led Egyptologists in the 19th and 20th centuries to suppose that Akhenaten suffered some kind of genetic abnormality. Various illnesses have been put forward, with
Frölich's syndrome or
Marfan syndrome being mentioned most commonly.
Cyril Aldred
Cyril Aldred (19 February 1914 – 23 June 1991) was an English Egyptologist, art historian, and author.
Early life
Cyril Aldred was born in Fulham, London, the son of Frederick Aldred and Lilian Ethel Underwood, and the sixth of seven child ...
, following up earlier arguments of
Grafton Elliot Smith
Sir Grafton Elliot Smith (15 August 1871 – 1 January 1937) was an Australian- British anatomist, Egyptologist and a proponent of the hyperdiffusionist view of prehistory. He believed in the idea that cultural innovations occur only once a ...
and
James Strachey
James Beaumont Strachey (; 26 September 1887, London25 April 1967, High Wycombe) was a British psychoanalyst, and, with his wife Alix, a translator of Sigmund Freud into English. He is perhaps best known as the general editor of '' The Standa ...
, suggested that Akhenaten may have suffered from Frölich's syndrome on the basis of his long jaw and his feminine appearance. However, this is unlikely, because this disorder results in
sterility and Akhenaten is known to have fathered numerous children. His children are repeatedly portrayed through years of archaeological and iconographic evidence.
Burridge suggested that Akhenaten may have suffered from Marfan syndrome, which, unlike Frölich's, does not result in mental impairment or sterility. Marfan sufferers tend towards tallness, with a long, thin face, elongated skull, overgrown ribs, a funnel or pigeon chest, a high curved or slightly cleft palate, and larger pelvis, with enlarged thighs and spindly calves, symptoms that appear in some depictions of Akhenaten. Marfan syndrome is a dominant characteristic, which means sufferers have a 50% chance of passing it on to their children. However, DNA tests on Tutankhamun in 2010 proved negative for Marfan syndrome.
By the early 21st century, most Egyptologists argued that Akhenaten's portrayals are not the results of a genetic or medical condition, but rather should be interpreted as stylized portrayals influenced by Atenism. Akhenaten was made to look androgynous in artwork as a symbol of the androgyny of the Aten.
Cultural depictions
Akhenaten's life, accomplishments, and legacy have been preserved and depicted in many ways, and he has figured in works of both
high
High may refer to:
Science and technology
* Height
* High (atmospheric), a high-pressure area
* High (computability), a quality of a Turing degree, in computability theory
* High (tectonics), in geology an area where relative tectonic uplift t ...
and
popular culture
Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a ...
since his rediscovery in the 19th century AD. Akhenaten—alongside
Cleopatra and
Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II to ...
—is among the most often popularized and fictionalized ancient historical figures.
On page, Amarna novels most often take one of two forms. They are either a ''
Bildungsroman
In literary criticism, a ''Bildungsroman'' (, plural ''Bildungsromane'', ) is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood (coming of age), in which character change is import ...
'', focusing on Akhenaten's psychological and moral growth as it relates to establishing Atenism and Akhetaten, as well as his struggles against the Theban Amun cult. Alternatively, his literary depictions focus on the aftermath of his reign and religion. A dividing line also exists between depictions of Akhenaten from before the 1920s and since, when more and more archeological discoveries started to provide artists with material evidence about his life and times. Thus, before the 1920s, Akhenaten had appeared as "a ghost, a spectral figure" in art, while since he has become realistic, "material and tangible." Examples of the former include the
romance novel
A romance novel or romantic novel generally refers to a type of genre fiction novel which places its primary focus on the relationship and Romance (love), romantic love between two people, and usually has an "emotionally satisfying and optimis ...
s ''In the Tombs of the Kings'' (1910) by
Lilian Bagnall—the first appearance by Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti in fiction—and ''A Wife Out of Egypt'' (1913) and ''There Was a King in Egypt'' (1918) by
Norma Lorimer. Examples of the latter include ''Akhnaton King of Egypt'' (1924) by
Dmitry Merezhkovsky, ''
Joseph and His Brothers'' (1933–1943) by
Thomas Mann
Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...
, ''Akhnaton'' (1973) by
Agatha Christie, and ''
Akhenaten, Dweller in Truth
''Akhenaten, Dweller in Truth'' is a novel written and published by Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Prize-winning Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz in 1985. It was translated from Arabic language, Arabic into English in 1998 by Tagreid Abu-Hassabo. ...
'' (1985) by
Naguib Mahfouz
Naguib Mahfouz Abdelaziz Ibrahim Ahmed Al-Basha ( arz, نجيب محفوظ عبد العزيز ابراهيم احمد الباشا, ; 11 December 1911 – 30 August 2006) was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature. M ...
. Akhenaten also appears in ''
The Egyptian'' (1945) by
Mika Waltari, which was adapted into the movie ''
The Egyptian'' (1953). In this movie, Akhenaten, portrayed by
Michael Wilding, appears to represent
Jesus Christ
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...
and his followers proto-
Christians
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρ� ...
.
A sexualized image of Akhenaten, building on early Western interest in the pharaoh's
androgynous depictions, perceived potential
homosexuality, and identification with
Oedipal storytelling, also influenced modern works of art. The two most notable portrayals are ''Akenaten'' (1975), an unfilmed screenplay by
Derek Jarman, and ''
Akhnaten'' (1984), an opera by
Philip Glass. Both were influenced by the unproven and scientifically unsupported theories of
Immanuel Velikovsky, who equated
Oedipus with Akhenaten, although Glass specifically denies his personal belief in Velikovsky's Oedpius theory, or caring about its historical validity, instead being drawn to its potential theatricality.
[ Glass, Philip (1987) ''Music by Philip Glass'' New York: Harper & Row. p.137-138. ]
In the 21st century, Akhenaten appeared as an antagonist in comic books and video games. For example, he is the major antagonist in
limited comic-book series ''
Marvel: The End'' (2003). In this series, Akhenaten is abducted by an alien order in the
14th century BC
The 14th century BC was the century that lasted from the year 1400 BC until 1301 BC.
Events
* 1350 – 1250 BC: The Bajío phase of the San Lorenzo site in Mexico; large public buildings are constructed.
* Pastoral nomadism develops in the stepp ...
and reappears on modern Earth seeking to restore his kingdom. He is opposed by essentially all of the other superheroes and supervillains in the Marvel comic book universe and is eventually defeated by
Thanos
Thanos is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He was created by writer-artist Jim Starlin, and first appeared in '' The Invincible Iron Man'' #55 ( cover date February 1973). An Eternal– Deviant warl ...
. Additionally, Akhenaten appears as the enemy in the ''
Assassin's Creed Origins The Curse of the Pharaohs''
downloadable content
Downloadable content (DLC) is additional content created for an already released video game, distributed through the Internet by the game's publisher. It can either be added for no extra cost or it can be a form of video game monetization, enabli ...
(2017), and must be defeated to remove his curse on Thebes. His afterlife takes the form of 'Aten', a location that draws heavily on the architecture of the city of Amarna.
American
death metal band
Nile
The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest riv ...
depicted Akhenaten's judgement, punishment, and erasure from history at the hands of the
pantheon
Pantheon may refer to:
* Pantheon (religion), a set of gods belonging to a particular religion or tradition, and a temple or sacred building
Arts and entertainment Comics
*Pantheon (Marvel Comics), a fictional organization
* ''Pantheon'' (Lone St ...
that he replaced with Aten, in the song ''Cast Down the Heretic'', from their 2005 album
Annihilation of the Wicked
''Annihilation of the Wicked'' is the fourth studio album by American technical death metal band Nile. The album was released on May 23, 2005, by Relapse Records. This is the first Nile album to feature George Kollias on drums, replacing Tony La ...
.
Ancestry
See also
*
Pharaoh of the Exodus
*
Osarseph
Osarseph or Osarsiph ( grc-koi, Ὀσαρσίφ) is a legendary figure of Ancient Egypt who has been equated with Moses. His story was recounted by the Ptolemaic Egyptian historian Manetho in his ''Aegyptiaca'' (first half of the 3rd century B ...
Notes and references
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* Gestoso Singer, Graciela (2008)
''El Intercambio de Bienes entre Egipto y Asia Anterior. Desde el reinado de Tuthmosis III hasta el de Akhenaton'' Free Access Ancient Near East Monographs, Volume 2. Buenos Aires, Society of Biblical Literature – CEHAO.
* Holland, Tom (1998). ''The Sleeper in the Sands'' (novel), Abacus – a fictionalised adventure story based closely on the mysteries of Akhenaten's reign
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* Najovits, Simson. Egypt, Trunk of the Tree, Volume I, The Contexts, Volume II, The Consequences, Algora Publishing, New York, 2003 and 2004. On Akhenaten: Vol. II, Chapter 11, pp. 117–73 and Chapter 12, pp. 205–13
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Redford, Donald B. (1984). ''Akhenaten: The Heretic King''. Princeton University Press
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External links
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The City of AkhetatenM.A. Mansoor Amarna CollectionGrim secrets of Pharaoh's cityBBC
Ancestry and Pathology in King Tutankhamun's FamilyHawass
The Long Coregency Revisited: the Tomb of Kheruefby Peter Dorman,
University of Chicago
Royal Relations, Tut's father is very likely Akhenaten. National Geographic 09. 2010
{{Authority control
14th-century BC Pharaohs
Pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt
14th-century BC births
1330s BC deaths
Atenism
Egyptian religious leaders
Founders of religions
Historical negationism in ancient Egypt
Children of Amenhotep III
Tutankhamun
14th-century BC religious leaders
City founders