The Amarna Period

In his third year of rule, Amenhotep IV held aheb-sed, a traditional festival that re-affirmed his fitness to rule. Oddly, no gods except his favorite, the Aten, were included. The Aten, a winged sun disk, was an obscure god in whom Amenhotep’s parents had taken an interest, but only as one god among many. The heb-sed shrines featured only Amenhotep IV beneath the Aten disk. Even Amun-Re was excluded.

By his fifth year as ruler, Amenhotep had promoted the Aten to official state god. Support that used to flow to Amun-Re temples and priests went to the Aten cult, which quickly grew rich. Temples of Amun-Re closed for lack of funds. The king declared that the Aten was the one true god, and banned all others—a staggering change in a land where 2,000 gods were worshiped.

Amenhotep changed his name to Akhenaten (“Living Spirit of the Aten”) and moved his capital to a new city, Akhetaten (“Horizon of the Aten”) on the east bank of the Nile, halfway between Thebes and Memphis—modern Tell elAmarna. The brief era of Akhenaten’s radical religious upheaval is called the Amarna Period.

Within four years, Akhetaten, the city, was fully functional. It became both the religious and political capital of Egypt. Buildings were decorated with art in the new Amarna style, with charming scenes of Akhenaten, the king, his wife Nefertiti (which means “a beautiful woman has come”), and their six daughters.

The elite found it wise to swiftly convert. But almost everyone else continued to quietly wor- ship their traditional gods and goddesses. The Aten religion, actually a cult formed around the personality of the king, never caught on outside the king’s closed circle.

In the 12th year of Akhenaten’s reign, several members of his family died suddenly, possibly of plague. Nefertiti vanished. She may have died, or she may have been “retired” because she produced no sons. Akhenaten married at least one of his surviving daughters—but still got no sons. He became increasingly intolerant of the persistent interest in the old gods, traditional religion, and anybody who disagreed with his radical religious notions. After ruling for 17 years, he died.

Massive confusion followed. The identity of his immediate successor is a hot topic of scholarly controversy. Tutankhaten, the king who followed the mystery successor, changed his name to Tutankhamun and moved the capital back to Thebes. He demolished the Aten’s temples, and erased the names of Akhenaten and Nefertiti from monuments. Amun-Re ruled once more.

Akhetaten was abandoned. With its residents gone and valuables removed, it sank back into the desert sands, until it was rediscovered by archaeologists in the early 1800s.

The kings who followed Akhenaten tried to erase the heretic king, his wife, and the entire embarrassing episode from history. In spite of their efforts, Akhenaten and Nefertiti are among the best-known icons of ancient Egypt—and the Amarna Period is one of the most intensively studied and fascinating eras of Egyptian history.