egyptbc.com

Akhenaton was a Ruler of Egypt during the period known as the 18th Dynasty. He ascended to the throne as Amenhotep IV, succeeding his father Amenhotep III.

Akhenaton’s brief reign, of around 16 years, occured during a difficult time in Egyptian history and many Egyptologists and other commentators maintain that Akhenaton was primarily responsible for this decline, though there is some evidence to suggest that it had already begun before his reign.

The Aton

Akhenaton, possibly in a move designed to lessen the political power of the Priests, introduced the worship of one god, the Aton , or Sun disk. This meant that the Pharaoh, not the priesthood, was the sole link between the population and the Aton which effectively ended the power of the various temples.

This also signified the first known form of monotheism in known history. Interestingly, when Akhenaton’s successors, Ay and the general Horemheb re-established the temples of Amun they selected their priests from the military, enabling the Pharaoh to keep tighter controls over the religious orders.

Akhetaton

When Akhenaton established his new religion he built an entire city dedicated to the Aton, complete with a necropolis and royal tomb . This city was Akhetaton, the Horizon of the Ateon, and at the peak of Akhenaton’s reign over 20,000 people lived there.

This city was built in middle Egypt, perhaps chosen as it was an area not tainted by the worship of other gods. After the death of Akhenaton the city was abandoned, and the old religions which had been suppressed quickly re-established their control over Egypt. It is thought that this return was started by the shadowy figure of Smenkhkare, and completed by Tutankhaton who changed his name to Tutankhamon and moved his capital from Akhetaton to Memphis.

Akhenaton is, perhaps, unfairly depicted by history as not being a particularly successful Pharaoh. Records seem to indicate that he allowed true Egyptian influence to dwindle, but this may not be true.

These ideas come from famous Amarna letters found in Akhetaton, in which Egyptian vassal cities were pleading for assistance, however no replies remain intact. As there are no surviving records of Egyptian territory being lost at this time, it is quite possible that Akhenaton was a skilled politician who did not require the military might that some of his predecessors had found essential.

Erasure of Akhetaton

Later Pharaohs attempted to erase all memories of Akhenaton and his religion. Much of the distinctive art of the period was destroyed and the buildings dismantled to be reused. Many of the Talitat blocks from the Aton temples in Thebes were reused as rubble infill for later pylons where they were rediscovered during restoration work and reassembled.

It is interesting to note that this destruction was directed at Akhenaton personally and not the Aton itself which would return to it’s former place in the lower end of the Egyptian religious hierarchy.

The backlash against the religion of Akhenaton led to the widespread destruction of his palaces and temples. Work began on dismantling Akhetaton shortly after it was abandoned. Restoration work on the great pylons of Ramesses II at Karnak showed that they used ‘recycled’ Aton temples for the filling. This has left modern Archaeologists with the worlds biggest jigsaw puzzle. A section of a temple wall has now been restored and is on display in the Luxor Museum .

Ankhesenamun was probably only around 13 years of age when she married the 10 year old boy King, Tutankhamon.

The reason why Tutankhamon may have married at such an early age was a matter of tradition - the King would be expected to have a wife, or indeed many wives, to aid him in dispensing the religious aspects of his office.

Ankhesenamun was the daughter of Akhenaton, Tutankhamon’s father, and her mother was Nefertiti, his step-mother. This close blood relationship may, according to experts, explain why the only two children from the marriage were both born premature and died.

It is further believed that Ankhesenamun was previously married to Smenkhare but only for a year or two, prior to marrying Tutankhamon, who succeeded Smenkhare as Pharoah around 1333BC.

When Tutankhamon died, Ankhesenamun possibly became afraid of Horemhab who was growing in power and may, possibly, have had a hand in Tut’s death. At that time, the religion that Tutankhamon’s father had created, was much reviled amongst many of influence and Horemhab was one who was intent on ending worship of the god Aton.

Ankhesenamun sent word to the Hittites that she would give the throne of Egypt to one of the princes in return for marriage. Prince Zannanza took up the offer of what could have proved to be an interesting alliance, only to be murdered on Egypt’s borders, again possibly murdered by Horemhab or one of his agents.

Instead, she ended up marrying Ay who had been close to Tutankhamon and may have been her natural grandfather. They took the throne even before Tutankhamon was buried but Ankhesenamun disappeared from history shortly afterwards, replaced as Ay’s wife by Tey.

No-one knows for sure what Ankhesenamun’s fate was but it may be that Ay married her purely to legitimise his own position as Pharoah and then had her killed when he had cemented his position on the throne.

I’ve just read an interesting report from a Don Stewart that suggests that parts of the history of ancient Egyptian will, over the next century, be re-written.

This decision is based mainly upon the period of 2000 - 500 B.C. and rests upon the fact that the history we have recorded at this moment in time is, at best, chaotic.

“Egyptologists are now secretly admitting, but only amongst themselves in their inner cabals (colloquiums), that the chronology framework for ancient Egypt between 2000 and 500 BC is chaotic and that a ‘new political history for ancient Egypt will take another hundred years to establish’”. Mr Don Stewart, currently auditing the Egyptology Profession, and a former economist for the United States Department of Agriculture’s FAS, also former analyst for New Zealand Science Ministry ‘MoRST’, today announced these findings from an Egyptology colloquium he attended in 2002. He added, “Egyptologists at the Colloquium raised the possibility of considering a new process whereby they will in future ignore any evidence which is not found ‘in situ’ in archaeological investigations or anything that is not either pottery-, statue- or building- or any other physical object-based.”

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