In 17 years, this pharaoh uprooted religion and disposed of the pantheon, built a new capital and changed architectural methods, and introduced a wholly unique form of artistic expression.<\/p>\n
He has been variously labelled a heretic and a revolutionary, a despot and the world\u2019s first \u2018individual\u2019, and his reign \u2013 known as the Amarna period \u2013 is vigorously studied and debated. His name was Akhenaten.<\/p>\n
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- Read more | 5 of the most powerful pharaohs to rule ancient Egypt<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Who was Akhenaten?<\/h2>\n
Akhenaten was a pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty. Before he gave himself that name, however, he had been Amenhotep IV, son of the great Amenhotep III, who \u2013 along with the female pharaoh Hatshepsut<\/a> a century earlier \u2013 made this period a golden age for Egypt.<\/p>\n
Other famous Egyptian names associated with Akhenaten are his wife Nefertiti<\/a> (best known for being the subject of a famous bust in Berlin\u2019s Neues Museum), and the boy king thought to be his son, Tutankhamun<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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- Read more | Timeline: the age of the pharaohs<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
When did Akhenaten reign?<\/h2>\n
Akhenaten reigned from 1353 to 1336 BC, although there is some uncertainty about his dates.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also a question about whether he ruled alongside his father for a while. As the second son of Amenhotep III, he had not been expected to rule, but he became heir with his brother\u2019s early death.<\/p>\n
Initially, his rule followed Egypt\u2019s established traditions and practices: he continued his father\u2019s building projects, worshipped the usual gods, got married (to Nefertiti) and had children.<\/p>\n
Yet there were early signs of non-conformity. After only a few years on the throne, Amenhotep IV celebrated his sed festival, a form of jubilee normally reserved for a pharaoh\u2019s 30th year onwards.<\/p>\n
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- Listen | Joyce Tyldesley answers listener questions on ancient Egypt\u2019s royal rulers<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Why was Akhenaten known as the \u2018heretic king\u2019?<\/h2>\n
In his fifth year, he rejected the chief deity of the pantheon, Amun, in favour of the Aten. Unlike the other gods, the Aten was not anthropomorphic, but depicted as a solar disk shining down rays with hands at the ends.<\/p>\n
Although it wasn\u2019t new, its cult was far from widespread. Meanwhile, the priesthood of Amun held vast power, wealth and land, second only to the pharaoh.<\/p>\n
To show his loyalty to the Aten, Amenhotep changed his name to Akhenaten (meaning some variation of \u2018beneficial to the Aten\u2019) and announced his intention to build a new capital, and so move the religious centre of Egypt from Thebes, and its cultural centre from Memphis.<\/p>\n
By his ninth year, Akhenaten made unprecedented radical steps to establish his religion: he proscribed the old gods entirely, declaring the Aten to be the only god.<\/p>\n
For this, he has sometimes been described as one of the first ever to institute monotheism. References to Amun and the plural \u2018gods\u2019 were chiselled from monuments, temples were closed, and festivals that long held significant places in Egyptian social life no longer took place.<\/p>\n
Why did Akhenaten change Egypt\u2019s religion to Atenism?<\/h2>\n
Akhenaten\u2019s motives remain unknown, due to scant evidence. The beliefs of Atenism have to be surmised from the surviving iconography and the words of the Great Hymn to the Aten, a poem written by Akhenaten or one of his courtiers and found in inscriptions in a number of tombs.<\/p>\n
A key tenet of the religion was that Akhenaten alone knew the Aten and acted as the sole intermediary between the god and the people. Was this a sign of his piety or a cynical attempt to wrest power from the priests? That debate rages on.<\/p>\n
What was art like under Akhenaten?<\/h2>\n
Removing the old gods meant that Egyptians\u2019 connection with the spiritual world, most importantly the afterlife, had been lost. Instead, Atenist art focused on the pharaoh, the royal family and the solar disk only. And that art looked wildly different to anything that came before.<\/p>\n
People were given exaggerated features, such as elongated heads on thin necks, thick lips, angular eyes and protruding chins. Akhenaten was shown in wholly uncharacteristic fashion, with breasts, a paunch, wide hips and thighs, and spindly legs. Egyptologists of the past theorised that he may have had a physical condition, but his depiction is almost certainly an aesthetic style.<\/p>\n
The art underwent substantial thematic changes, too. Rather than depicting the pharaoh as all-powerful in battle or in communication with the gods, Akhenaten was shown in scenes of domesticity, of intimate personal life, sat with his wife and hugging their children or eating.<\/p>\n
What was Akhenaten and Queen Nefertiti\u2019s relationship like?<\/h2>\n
Thought to have been married around the time that Akhenaten came to the throne, Akhenaten and Nefertiti had six daughters. He also had at least three sons with his other wife, Kiya.<\/p>\n
Nefertiti, however, was undoubtedly his favourite \u2013 his Great Royal Wife \u2013 and shown in art to be of equal stature to the pharaoh and in positions of power, smiting Egypt\u2019s enemies herself.<\/p>\n
![\"Relief]( "\\"Relief")
\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>Relief showing Nefertiti and Akhenaten, along with Aten, the sun\u2019s disc, which they worshipped (Photo by Universal History Archive\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n Where did Akhenaten build his new capital?<\/h2>\n
The city of Akhetaten, which is now known as Amarna, was built on less-than ideal ground, an uninhabited desert plateau surrounded by cliffs.<\/p>\n
Yet according to its boundary stelae (a series of carved monuments at the perimeter of the city), the location had been selected by the Aten.<\/p>\n
Within a few years, construction had progressed enough for Akhenaten and his court to move to the city. The speed of the building was down to a new architectural method of using smaller and uniform-sized blocks of stone, known as talatat, rather than huge chunks of sandstone. The main features of Akhetaten were huge palaces and open-air temples, which made a change from the enclosed temples usually built to the gods.<\/p>\n
What else happened in Akhenaten\u2019s reign?<\/h2>\n
Discovered in the ruins of Amarna in the 19th and 20th centuries were hundreds of clay tablets, collectively called the Amarna letters, written in cuneiform<\/a> and relaying diplomatic relations between Egypt and its neighbours. They seemed to suggest that Akhenaten had little interest in foreign affairs, since he ignored numerous pleas for aid from the rulers of vassal states.<\/p>\n
When did Akhenaten die?<\/h2>\n
There is a lot of uncertainty about what occurred after Akhenaten\u2019s 17th year. Presuming that he died, he was apparently followed by a mysterious figure called Smenkhare, and then Neferneferuaten \u2013 though this sequence of succession is unlcear. One, or both, of these figures which could have been Nefertiti.<\/p>\n
Eventually, Tutankhaten \u2013 most likely Akhenaten\u2019s son \u2013 became pharaoh, and he set about restoring the old gods and distancing himself from the religious revolution. He changed his name to Tutankhamun, establishing the association with Amun once more.<\/p>\n
- Listen | Joyce Tyldesley answers listener questions on ancient Egypt\u2019s royal rulers<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- Read more | Timeline: the age of the pharaohs<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"Relief](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2024\/02\/Akhenaten-and-Nefertiti-113492896-2e0c716-e1708959625759.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413\" "\\"Relief")
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