Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV)

Background

Akhenaten was a king of Egypt's 18th Dynasty, during the New Kingdom. He came to the throne around 1353 BCE under the name Amenhotep, "Amun is content," honouring Amun, the god of Thebes whose temples and priesthood had grown immensely wealthy. The UCL Petrie Museum notes that although he is one of the best-known pharaohs, little about him is firmly established.

Religious change

Early in his reign the king turned his devotion to the Aten, the visible disc of the sun. Around his fifth regnal year he changed his name to Akhenaten, usually translated as "effective for" or "serviceable to" the Aten. The Aten was raised above all other deities, and the temples and cults of other gods were closed or set aside. The Petrie Museum observes that, while radical, his reforms built on ideas that already existed in Egyptian religion.

Scholars still debate how to describe this change. Some call it the first true monotheism; others see it mainly as the suppression of rival cults in favour of one royal god. Some historians suggest a political motive, a struggle with the powerful priesthood of Amun, but Akhenaten never explained his reasons in surviving texts.

Akhetaten

In his fifth regnal year Akhenaten founded a new capital, Akhetaten, "Horizon of the Aten," on unoccupied land on the east bank of the Nile roughly midway between Memphis and Thebes. Boundary stelae carved into the cliffs on both sides of the river recorded his decrees and marked out the city's lands. The modern site is known as Amarna. According to the Amarna Project, the British mission working at the site, the city may have housed around 30,000 people or more, and it was built and abandoned within about 15 years. It is now the best-preserved ancient Egyptian city.

His reign also produced the Amarna letters, cuneiform tablets of diplomatic correspondence found at Amarna in 1887, which show Egypt's relations with the kingdoms of the Near East. His queen, Nefertiti, appears prominently beside him in art and worship.

Art

The Amarna period brought a striking new artistic style, with elongated faces, necks and limbs and scenes of the royal family worshipping beneath the rays of the Aten. Flinders Petrie called it "a revolution in art, in religion and in ethics." Egyptologist Zahi Hawass has linked the unusual body shapes to Marfan syndrome; others, including World History Encyclopedia's Joshua Mark, read the style as a religious statement rather than a record of illness.

Aftermath

Akhenaten died in his seventeenth regnal year, around 1336 BCE. After a brief, unclear succession, Tutankhamun became king, moved the court away from Akhetaten and restored the old cults. The city was largely abandoned, and later rulers, especially Horemheb, dismantled its temples for stone and erased Akhenaten's name from monuments. Rediscovered in modern times, he has been described both as a "heretic pharaoh" and as the first individual in history.