Amenhotep IV: AkhenatenRebecca Taggart

What I Look Like Physiognomy:

• Hanging chin• Thick lips• Sunken cheeks• Slanty eyes

“Effeminate” body• Narrow shoulders• Fleshy chest• Swelling thighs• Pendulous abdomen• Full buttocks• Spindly limbs• Scrawny neck

Family Life ?Succeeded? Father Amenhotep III Mother Queen Tiye (The Great Royal

Wife) Principal wife Nefertiti

• 6 Daughters Union with Kiya

• 1 Daughter Mystery Women

• ?Son? Tutankamen

The Heretic King (r.1372-1355 BCE) – 18 years 10th king of the 18th dynasty, New

Kingdom Art (Amarna style), Architecture, and

Religion of Egypt were marked by rapid change

Amarna Letters• Neglected foreign policy and allowed the

Egyptian “empire” in the western Asia erode away

Theban phase: The Beginning 1st year: Ambitious building project at

Karnak temple• Cult center for Aten (solar deity)• He had a penchant for novelty and display

2 crucial and iconoclastic decisions• Led to name change from Amenhotep “Amun

is satisfied” to Akhenaten “Beneficial for Aten” • New capital city called Akhetaten “Horizon of

the Aten” (site known as Al-Amarna in Middle Egypt)

Aten and his “Perfect little man-child” Solar religion not

new to Egypt• Father’s reign: Aten

was significant Spirited promotion

of the worship of Aten• Reliefs and Steles

showing the family worshipping and making offerings

Akhetaten: The City New Capital “revolution from above” aimed at reasserting

the pharaoh’s absolute authority over the elite

Swept away old cults eliminating their priests and with this established families who supplied the officials of the bureaucracy

Supposed to be the resting place of Akhenaten, Nefertiti and their eldest daughter

Later Reign Year 12: major

international festival Soon after family deaths:

mother and up to 3 of my daughters (?plague?)

Foreign Relations: • Amarna Letters

Also in Year 12• coregency with

Ankhkheperure Smenkhkare (married daughter Meryetaten)

Year 17 dies

Aftermath Disappearance of the family’s bodies During King Tutankhamen's reign:

• Went back to Memphis• Officially sanctioned of uprooting everything

of Akhenaten• Works at Karnak• Official buildings and Akhetaten• Names hacked off reliefs• His reign excised from public record/King’s

Lists

Bibliography Aldred, Cyril. Akhenaten: King of Egypt. London: Thames and

Hudson Ltd, 1988. Dodson, Aidan. “Akhenaten” Pages 260-261 in The

Encyclopedia of Ancient History. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.

Eaton-Krauss, Marianne, ed. Pages 48-51 in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Kuhrt, Amelie. The Ancient Near East, 3000-330 BC. Vol. 1. London and New York: Routledge, 1995.

Martin, G.T, et.al. The Princeton Dictionary of Ancient Egypt. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2008. Print.

Rice, Michael. “Akhenaten” Pages 5-6 in Who’s Who in Ancient Egypt. New York: Routledge, 1999.