Amarna Egypt

The cult of the sun god Ra becomes increasingly important during the New Kingdom until it evolves into the uncompromising monotheism of Pharaoh Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV, 1364-1347 BCE).

According to the cult, Ra created himself from a primeval mound in the shape of a pyramid and then created all other gods.

Thus, Ra is not only the sun god, he is also the universe, having created himself from himself.

Ra is invoked as Aten or the Great Disc that illuminates the world of the living and the dead.

The effect of these doctrines can be seen in the sun worship of Pharaoh Akhenaten, who becomes an uncompromising monotheist.

Aldred has speculated that monotheism was Akhenaten's own idea, the result of regarding Aten as a self-created heavenly king whose son, the pharaoh, was also unique.

Akhenaten makes Aten the supreme state god, symbolized as a rayed disk with each sunbeam ending in a ministering hand.

Other gods are abolished, their images smashed, their names excised, their temples abandoned, and their revenues impounded.

The plural word for god is suppressed.

Sometime in the fifth or sixth year of his reign, Akhenaten moves his capital to a new city called Akhetaten (present-day Tall al Amarinah, also seen as Tell al Amarna).

At this time, the pharaoh, previously known as Amenhotep IV, adopts the name Akhenaten.

His wife, Queen Nefertiti, shares his beliefs.

Amenhotep III had maintained extensive diplomatic contacts with other Near Eastern states, especially Mitanni and Babylonia.

His humbly born wife Tiye, his Chief Queen, had been prominently associated with him during his long and peaceful reign over the Egyptian empire (now at its most powerful).

The couple’s younger son, who had not originally been designated as the successor to the throne until the untimely death of his older brother, Thutmose, had in 1353 or 1351 BCE succeeded his father as Amenhotep IV after the latter’s death at the end of his thirty-eight-year reign, possibly after a coregency lasting between either one to two or twelve years.

Amenhotep IV soon prohibits the worship of other gods, especially of the state god Amen, or Amon, of Thebes, and institutes Aton, represented by the solar disk, as the only god.

Amenhotep is thus the first to introduce a monotheistic religion.

His form of monotheism is tempered, however, by Amenhotep’s retention of divine status, if secondary to that of Aton, for himself.

His religious reformation appears to have begun with his decision to celebrate a Sed festival in his third regnal year—a highly unusual step, since a Sed-festival, a sort of royal jubilee intended to reinforce the Pharaoh's divine powers of kingship, was traditionally held in the thirtieth year of a Pharaoh's reign.

His Year Five marks the beginning of his construction of a new capital, Akhetaten ('Horizon of Aten'), at the site known today as Amarna.

Amenhotep IV in the same year officially changes his name to Akhenaten ('Effective Spirit of Aten') as evidence of his new worship.

Very soon afterward, he centralizes Egyptian religious practices in Akhetaten, though construction of the city seems to have continued for several more years.

In honor of Aten, Akhenaten also oversees the construction of some of the most massive temple complexes in ancient Egypt, including one at Karnak, close to the old temple of Amun.

In these new temples, Aten is worshipped in the open sunlight, rather than in dark temple enclosures, as had been the previous custom.

Akhenaten is also believed to have composed the Great Hymn to the Aten.

He had originally presented Aten as a variant of the familiar supreme deity Amun-Ra (itself the result of an earlier rise to prominence of the cult of Amun, resulting in Amun becoming merged with the sun god Ra), in an attempt to put his ideas in a familiar Egyptian religious context.

However, by Year Nine of his reign Akhenaten declares that Aten is not merely the supreme god, but the only god, and that he, Akhenaten, is the only intermediary between Aten and his people.

He orders the defacing of Amun's temples throughout Egypt, and in a number of instances inscriptions of the plural 'gods' are also removed.

Akhenaten fosters new styles in Egyptian literature.

Contemporary art exaggerates the physical abnormalities of Akhenaten, portraying the king as having swollen limbs and an elongated head.

Akhenaten loses Egyptian-held territory in Syria and Canaan but maintains Egypt's status as a great power.

Akhenaten's religious ideas do not survive his death.

His ideas are abandoned in part because of the economic collapse that ensues at the end of his reign.

To restore the morale of the nation, Akhenaten's successor, Tutankhamen, appease the offended gods whose resentment would have blighted all human enterprise.

Temples are cleaned and repaired, new images made, priests appointed, and endowments restored.

Akhenaten's new city is abandoned to the desert sands.

Pharaoh Akhenaten of Egypt’s Eighteenth Dynasty has implemented Atenism, a form of monotheism, wherein Aten is the sole deity and Akhenaten his prophet and sole intermediary.

His followers regard him as eternally revitalized by Aton's rays.

His monotheism, however, is apparently genuine and innovative.

A strange figure, spiritually and physically, he had in the fifth year of his reign changed his name from Amenhotep (Amon Is Satisfied) to Akhenaten (One Useful to Aten), thus formally declaring his new religion.

Moving his capital from Thebes more than two hundred miles north to a desert bay on the east side of the Nile River, he has built a new city, which he calls Akhetaten (Place of the Aton's Effective Power), the present Tell Amarna.

Akhenaten fosters new styles in Egyptian literature, and his reign sees the first (and only) open rejection of the rigidities in frontal and lateral poses and gestures, as can be seen in a remarkably naturalistic portrait statue of him.

Contemporary art exaggerate his physical abnormalities, portraying the king as having swollen limbs and an elongated head.

He pays little attention to the military, neglecting the army commanders and high commissioners in Palestine and Syria.

Without a strong army and navy, foreign trade begins to diminish and internal taxes begin to disappear into the pockets of local officials, finally causing the discontented priesthood and civil officials to combine with the army to discredit the new movement.

The local princes, who had seen their advantage in trading with Egypt, become despondent when Egypt does not answer their appeals for support.

Hostile forces arise: ambitious princes in Palestine and Syria, invaders from the eastern desert, and the venturesome Hittites to the north; loyal princes are forced to flee their cities.

Aggressors, aided by the Hittites, capture territory from the Egyptian army.

It may be that Egypt loses all of its holdings except the southwest corner of Palestine.

Akhenaton's preoccupation with ideas and ideals has cost Egypt its proud empire.

Most Egyptians apparently detest Akhenaten’s monotheistic religious reforms.

Following Akhenaten’s death in 1336 or 1334, Smenkhakare succeeds him, but dies in three years, whereupon Akhenaten’s nine-year-old son by his sister, known as the “Younger Lady,” takes the throne as Tutankhaten.

Tutankhaten’s vizier Ay skillfully replaces Akhenaten's monotheistic cult of Aten (Aton) with the traditional Egyptian cults of the state god Amen (Amon) and other gods.

The government abandons Tell el-Amarna, the monotheistic center, and returns the capital to Thebes.

The Aten temples are demolished, and Akhenaten comes to be called "the Enemy."

Reflecting Egypt’s return to traditional polytheism, the king himself changes his name from Tutankhaten ("living image of Aten") to Tutankhamen ("living image of Amen").

Egyptian sculptors meanwhile revert to the ancient pharaonic tradition of representation.