Akhenaten meaning is “Aten is on the horizon.” Akhenaten was the first known mono- theist in history. He believed there was only one god, the Aten. Soon after he was crowned king, he changed his name from Amenhotep IV to Akhenaten.In Ancient Egypt they Called Akhenaten the “heretic pharaoh” because he changed the religion of ancient Egypt, the new name he took early in his reign-ushered in a revolutionary period in Egyptian history.
The Amarna Interlude, as it is often called, saw the removal of the seat of government in an ephemeral city of new capital, Akhetaten (now el-Amarna), the introduction of a new art style, and rise of the cult of the sun disk, Aten, pre-eminent status in Egyptian religion. This last heresy in particular was to bring down on Akhenaten and his immediate successors the opprobrium of later kings. The young prince was at least the second son of Amenhotep III by his chief wife, Tiy: an elder brother, prince Tuthmosis, had died prematurely (strangely, a whip bearing his name was found in Tutankhamun's tomb) .
There is some controversy as to whether or not the old king took his son in a partnership on the throne in a co-regency there are quite strong arguments both for and against a point in favor of a co-regency is the emergence in recent years of Amenhotep III's reign of artistic styles which are then considered part of the 'revolutionary' Amarna art introduced by Akhenaten; other hand, the two styles of art "traditional" and "revolutionary" could easily have coexisted during the early years of Akhenaten's reign. Anyway, if there had been a co-regency, he would not have been longer than the short period before the new king took his preferred name of Akhenaten ("Servant of Aten") in the year 5.
The beginning of Akhenaten's reign marked no great discontinuity with that of his predecessors. Not only was he crowned at Karnak (temple of the god Amun) but, like his father, he married a lady of non-royal blood, Nefertiti, the daughter of the vizier Ay. Ay seems to have been a brother of Queen Tiye (Anen was another) and a son of Yuya and Tuya. Nefertiti's mother is not known, it may have died in childbirth or shortly thereafter, since Nefertiti seems to have been raised by another wife of Ay named Tey, who would then be her stepmother.
The beginning of Akhenaten's reign marked no great discontinuity with that of his predecessors. Not only was he crowned at Karnak (temple of the god Amun) but, like his father, he married a lady of non-royal blood, Nefertiti, the daughter of the vizier Ay. Ay seems to have been a brother of Queen Tiye (Anen was another) and a son of Yuya and Tuya. Nefertiti's mother is not known, it may have died in childbirth or shortly thereafter, since Nefertiti seems to have been raised by another wife of Ay named Tey, who would then be her stepmother.
The worship of Aten
The king-tenth of the 18th Dynasty was perhaps the most controversial because of its break with traditional religion. Some say it was the most remarkable king to sit on the throne of Egypt. There can be little doubt that the new king was more of a thinker and philosopher than his forebears. Akhenaten was traditionally raised by his parents, Amenhotep III and Queen Tiy (1382-1344 BC) by worshiping Amen. Akhenaten, however, preferred Aten, the sun god who was worshiped in ancient times. Amenhotep III had recognized the growing power of the priesthood of Amun and had sought to curb it, his son was to take the matter much further by introducing a new monotheistic cult of sun worship that was incarnate in the sun disk, Aten.
When at the beginning of his reign, he changed his name to Akhenaten, meaning "He who is of service to Aten", he also renamed his queen to Nefer-Nefru-Aten, which is "Beautiful is the beauty of Aten. " It was not in itself a new idea: as a relatively minor aspect of the sun god Re-Harakhte, Aten was worshiped in the Old Kingdom and a large scarab of Akhenaten IV grandfather Thutmose (now in the British Museum ) has a text that mentions the Aten. Instead, Akhenaten's innovation was to worship Aton in its own right.
Presented as a solar disc whose protective rays terminated in hands holding the ankh hieroglyph for life, the Aten was accessible only to Akhenaten, thereby eliminating the need for an intermediary priesthood. Initially, the king built a temple to his god Aten immediately outside the east gate of the temple of Amun at Karnak, but clearly the coexistence of two cults could not last. He therefore proscribed the cult of Amun, the god temples closed, took on the income. He then sent his officials around to destroy Amen statues and to desecrate places of worship.
These actions were so contrary to the traditional opposition arose against him. Areas of the great temples of Thebes, Memphis, Heliopolis is back on the throne. Corruption is born of poor management of these large samples. To make a full break in year 6, the king and his queen, left Thebes behind and moved to a new capital in Middle Egypt, half way between Memphis and Thebes. It was a greenfield site, not dedicated to another god or goddess, and he called it Akhetaten-The Horizon of Aten. Today the site is known as el-Amarna.
A slab of limestone, with traces of the draftsman's grid still on it, found in the royal tomb at Amarna. His style is characteristic of the early period of Akhenaten's reign. The king is accompanied by Nefertiti and just two of their daughters, but that does not necessarily mean that they are older, since other six have been omitted Cairo Museum. In the tomb of Ay, the chief minister of Akhenaten (and later to become king after Tutankhamun's death) occurs rendering the longest and the best of a composition known as "Hymn to Aten" said to have been written by Akhenaten. Any movement itself as a piece of poetry, its resemblance, and the possible source of the term, Psalm 104 has long been noted.
It sums up the mindset of Aten cult and especially the concept that only Akhenaten had access to God: "You arisest just on the horizon of heaven, 0 living Aten, beginner of life ... there is nobody who knows thee save thy son Akhenaten. You made him wise in your plans and your power. " Nor is the call of the dead Osiris to guide them through the world after, so that through their adhesion to the king and his intercession on their behalf can they expect to live beyond the grave. Current data, however, it seems that it was only the upper echelons of society who have embraced the new religion with a fervor (and perhaps it was only skin deep).
These actions were so contrary to the traditional opposition arose against him. Areas of the great temples of Thebes, Memphis, Heliopolis is back on the throne. Corruption is born of poor management of these large samples. To make a full break in year 6, the king and his queen, left Thebes behind and moved to a new capital in Middle Egypt, half way between Memphis and Thebes. It was a greenfield site, not dedicated to another god or goddess, and he called it Akhetaten-The Horizon of Aten. Today the site is known as el-Amarna.
A slab of limestone, with traces of the draftsman's grid still on it, found in the royal tomb at Amarna. His style is characteristic of the early period of Akhenaten's reign. The king is accompanied by Nefertiti and just two of their daughters, but that does not necessarily mean that they are older, since other six have been omitted Cairo Museum. In the tomb of Ay, the chief minister of Akhenaten (and later to become king after Tutankhamun's death) occurs rendering the longest and the best of a composition known as "Hymn to Aten" said to have been written by Akhenaten. Any movement itself as a piece of poetry, its resemblance, and the possible source of the term, Psalm 104 has long been noted.
It sums up the mindset of Aten cult and especially the concept that only Akhenaten had access to God: "You arisest just on the horizon of heaven, 0 living Aten, beginner of life ... there is nobody who knows thee save thy son Akhenaten. You made him wise in your plans and your power. " Nor is the call of the dead Osiris to guide them through the world after, so that through their adhesion to the king and his intercession on their behalf can they expect to live beyond the grave. Current data, however, it seems that it was only the upper echelons of society who have embraced the new religion with a fervor (and perhaps it was only skin deep).
Excavations at Amarna have indicated that, even here in the old religion continued among ordinary people. On a wider scale, throughout Egypt, the new cult does not seem to have much effect to a common level except, of course, in dismantling the priesthood and closing the temples, but then the people usually had little to do with the religious establishment anyway, except on days when the big statue of the god was carried in procession from the sanctuary outside the great walls of the temple. The standard bureaucracy continued its efforts to run the country while the king courted his god.
Cracks in the Egyptian empire may have begun to appear in the final years of the reign of Amenhotep III, in any case they have become more evident as Akhenaten increasingly left government and diplomats for their own means. The civil and military authority came under two strong characters: Ay, who held "Father of God 'title (and was probably Akhenaten's father-in-law), and the general Horemheb (also Ay son-in-law since that 'he married Ay Mutnodjme daughter, the sister of Nefertiti). Both men were to become pharaoh before the 18th dynasty formidable pair ended.This closely related high officials no doubt kept everything under control in a discreet manner while Akhenaten pursued his own philosophical and religious interests.
Amarna style A new artistic style
It is obvious from the art of the Amarna period as the court officially emulated the king's unusual physical characteristics. Thus, individuals as young princesses are endowed with elongated skulls and excessive adiposity, while Bek-the Chief Sculptor and master of himself to work depicts the image of his king with pendulous breasts and 'protruding stomach. On a stele now in Berlin Bek states that he was taught by His Majesty and the court sculptors were instructed to represent what they saw. The result is a realism that breaks away from the rigid formality of earlier official representations, although naturalism is very evident in earlier, unofficial art.
The power behind the throne?
Although the famous bust of Nefertiti in Berlin, the queen is not subject to quite the same extremes as others in Amarna art, by virtue of being elegantly female.Indeed, there are several curious aspects representations of Nefertiti. In the early years of Akhenaten's reign, for instance, Nefertiti was an unusually high figure in official art, dominating the scenes carved on blocks of the temple of Aten at Karnak. Such block shows her in the posture of ancient warrior pharaoh grasping captives by the hair and beating them with a mass just the epitome of peaceful queen and mother of six girls. Nefertiti evidently played a far greater role in the rule of her husband that this was the norm.
The sandstone slab (talatat) shows Akhenaten wearing the Red Crown and offering disk Aten, whose rays extend down the Ankh sign of life for him. Private Collection tragedy seems to have hit the royal family in about Year 12 with the death in childbirth of Nefertiti's second daughter, Mekytaten and is probably the one that is shown in a relief of the royal tomb with her grief-stricken parents beside his body supine, and a nurse standing nearby holding a baby. The child's father was possibly Akhenaten, since he is also known for marrying two other girls, Merytaten (not to be confused with Mekytaten) and Akhesenpaaten (later to become Tutankhamun's wife).
Nefertiti would have died shortly after the year 12, although some suggest that she was disgraced because her name was replaced several times by her daughter, who succeeded him as Merytaten "Great Royal Wife ' . It was a girl named Merytaten-tasherit (Merytaten the Younger), perhaps generated by Akhenaten. Merytaten would become the wife of Smenkhkare, Akhenaten's brief successor. Nefertiti was buried in the royal tomb at Amarna, judging by the evidence of a fragment of an alabaster figure of shabti bears his cartouche found there in early 1930.
Nefertiti would have died shortly after the year 12, although some suggest that she was disgraced because her name was replaced several times by her daughter, who succeeded him as Merytaten "Great Royal Wife ' . It was a girl named Merytaten-tasherit (Merytaten the Younger), perhaps generated by Akhenaten. Merytaten would become the wife of Smenkhkare, Akhenaten's brief successor. Nefertiti was buried in the royal tomb at Amarna, judging by the evidence of a fragment of an alabaster figure of shabti bears his cartouche found there in early 1930.
Resting place of King
Akhenaten died c. 1334, probably in his 16th year.Evidence reignal found by Professor Geoffrey Martin during re-excavation of the royal tomb at Amarna showed that blocking had been put in place in the burial chamber, suggesting that Akhenaten was buried there first. Others do not believe that the tomb was used, however, given the broken fragments of his sarcophagus and very canopic jars recovered from it, and also the examples of his broken-ushabtis found not only in the grave but also by Petrie in the city. Amongst the distinctly 18th Dynasty jewelry found cached outside the royal tomb at Amarna the small gold ring cartridge Nefertiti is particularly significant.
What is almost certain is that his body does not remain at Amarna. A burnt mummy seen outside the royal tomb in the 1880s, and associated with jewelry from the tomb (including a small gold ring cartridge Nefertiti, was probably Coptic, as was other jewelry nearby . Members Akhenaten would not have left his body to be despoiled by his enemies after his death and the return to orthodoxy unleashed a reaction of destruction. They drove him to a place of safety and what better place to hide that in the old cemetery ground Royal Thebes where enemies would never think to research it? It was suggested that he was buried in tomb KV55, though other possibilities are equally probable.