Akhenaten.... The heretic king or the genius king?

All throughout the Egyptian history, the ancient Egyptians had many gods, but they believed in one main god, who was the sun god. He was worshipped under many names, the most well-known being Ra. This was until 1400 B.C., when Egypt was ruled by a very powerful wealthy king named Amenhotep III, who was married to a beautiful woman; queen Ti, who was not a member of the royal family; although she is believed to be a daughter of some of the nobles (Yuia & Tuia), who are buried in the valley of the kings. Amenhotep III, who is considered the second greatest builder of ancient Egypt after Ramses II, ruled from Luxor, when it was one of the largest cosmopolitan cities of the ancient world, if not the largest. Luxor was known as the city of one hundred gates, which indicated the size of the city.... The capital of a vast empire stretching from Iraq in the north to the land of Nubia in the south. This city was one of the early tourist attractions around 3500 years ago. 

In that very open, mixed environment, the son of the king was born and was given a name: Amenhotep IV. To prepare him to succeed his father, he was sent to the city of Oon (present-day Heliopolis, which is now part of greater Cairo). Oon was the center of the cult of the sun god Ra, who was known during the Old and the Middle Kingdoms as the main god of Egypt. Later the capital was moved to Luxor, and the god Amen, the local god of Luxor, was united with Ra and became Amen Ra, the most famous and powerful god until the end of the ancient civilization of Egypt.

The son Amenhotep IV was a kind of different person, not like the sons of the other kings, the descendants of the priests or even the locals. He was smart, sensitive, full of himself, and on top of it all, a dreamer. Amenhotep IV was strongly influenced by the priests of Oon (Heliopolis), and when he looked around him, he realized how powerful the priests were, especially those of Amen Ra in Luxor. He felt that his father, the king, was getting very weak and nearly losing control from those who were in charge of the kingdom, the priests. He also noticed that the locals had no chance of contacting the gods, and they were kept away from the temples, which was a very strong reason for losing faith. Amenhotep IV decided to change everything, and as he was very smart man, ambitious, and like his father, married to a very beautiful woman, Nefertiti (similar to and as powerful as his mother). He knew it would be very difficult, and it probably would not make it to the end, if not becoming his own end.

For one reason or another, and unlike the pharaohs, Amenhotep III decided to elevate his son to the throne next to him and gave him the royal titles. We can understand now that Amenhotep IV the son was the one in charge; he decided to start the revolution by changing his name to be Akhenaten (the messenger of Aten, the believer of Aten), and he diverted his faith to the god Aten, who was an old form of the sun god and not very famous. The god Aten was unlike the other gods of Egypt; very simple yet very complicated. He was not depicted in an animal form or even human form; he was simply the god Aten. He was everything and everywhere and the idea of the manifestation of god would not work for him. He was the hidden power behind the sun disk; he was the power in the sky, earth, mountains, stars, animals, humans.... Everything. It was a challenge to look at god, simply because you couldn't comprehend the power of god.... yet if you wanted to, look through the sun disk then you could see him!!! Nobody could, of course. Unlike the other religions, the faith of Aten did not stop the locals behind the outer walls of the temples. It invited and welcomed them to share and participate and act in the newly built temples. The temples were not roofed like the other temples, but widely opened to welcome the sun rays which were representing the power of the eternal universal god Aten. Akhenaten ruled from Luxor for about six years. This was considered a very difficult part of his rule, when he had a direct confrontation with the strong priests of Amen Ra. That was the time when he was building a new city, half way between Luxor and Cairo, to become his new capital, claiming that it should be built in a pure area where no other god has been worshipped before. During those six years, there was a lot of struggle in Thebes. The king ordered his subjects to destroy the images of the other gods, and to convert their temples to be temples of his new old god Aten. The royal family and the followers of the new religion, supported by the generals leading the Egyptian army, all moved to the new beautiful city of love, called Amarna. The city, which we can understand from the very little we found, and the descriptions about it, was a wonderful city. When Akhenaten reached his new capital, he promised his god Aten never to leave his city to the end of his life.

Art has been always the best way to express human ideas and thought; it is like a history book, reflecting social, religious and political life. As it was huge change of religion, a big move into a new capital, and a dramatic change in the political life, we expect art to follow and for it be different, to match all those big changes. Akhenaten, unlike people before or after him, believed that god didn't need to look at you to bring you back to the afterlife, or that you must be in good form to have a perfect shape in the afterlife. He believed god knows you very well and he looks straight into your heart. When we look at the statues of the king, he looks very different from the other kings before his time and after him as well. He never had the masculine body and the handsome face; on the contrary, his body looked more feminine and his long face, with thick lips, made him look more ugly than handsome. But if we look at other humans living at the same time, including the royal family, they all looked similar to him, which might reflect a fashion of art to match the changes happening in Egypt at that time. Not only art changed; Akhenaten noticed that the language (hieroglyphics) was very different from the actual spoken language used by the locals, and as he wanted to get the people involved, he started changing the language as well. This gave the locals the ability to better understand the religion and the history.

 Although Akhenaten and his royal family were supported by the army, it was not enough. The priests of Amen Ra, who had their own troops, were very strong, and gradually many members of the Egyptian army joined them. This was the beginning of the end, and the fall of that wonderful star, which shined in the sky of Egypt for a very short period of time, like a shooting star. Akhenaten was not just a king, a messenger of god; he was also a poet who left us many hymns, similar to and as beautiful as those of King David of the Israelites. The fact that the king and his beautiful queen Nefertiti were depicted with their children is very unusual in Egyptian history. Akhenaten was a leader of the ancient Egyptian renaissance.

Now! Was he a heretic king or a star in the sky of civilization?


Written by 


Hisham El Meniawy
Guest lecturer & Egyptologist
www.hegyptology.com