Egyptian pharaoh akhenaten biography of rory

Religious reforms

The Egyptians had traditionally worshipped a whole pantheon of gods who were represented in human or animal form or as animal-headed humans. Some gods were specific to particular towns or places; others had broader appeal. From early periods solar gods such as Re had played an important role in Egyptian state religion because the distant but universal power of the sun fitted well with prevailing ideas of the supreme power of the king both within Egypt and beyond its borders.

In the New Kingdom, solar gods again became prominent, among them the Aten, the visible sun-disk which can be seen traversing the sky each day.

Akhenaten raised the Aten to the position of 'sole god', represented as a disk with rays of light terminating in hands which reach out to the royal family, sometimes offering the hieroglyphic sign for life. Akhenaten and his family are frequently shown worshipping the Aten or simply indulging in everyday activities beneath the disk.

Everywhere the close ties between the king and god are stressed through art and text. The king forms the link between the god and ordinary people whose supposed focus of worship seems to have been Akhenaten and the royal family rather than the Aten itself.

Relief showing Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti worshipping the Aten.

Egyptian pharaoh akhenaten biography of rory and ryan According to inscriptions on one boundary stela, the site was appropriate for Aten's city for "not being the property of a god, nor being the property of a goddess, nor being the property of a ruler, nor being the property of a female ruler, nor being the property of any people able to lay claim to it. Akhenaten pointedly refused to save his vassal Rib-Hadda of Byblos —whose kingdom was being besieged by the expanding state of Amurru under Abdi-Ashirta and later Aziru , son of Abdi-Ashirta—despite Rib-Hadda's numerous pleas for help from the pharaoh. The pharaohs seemed to eschew military confrontation at a time when the balance of power between Egypt's neighbors and rivals was shifting, and the Hittites, a confrontational state, overtook the Mitanni in influence. Englund and Friedman conclude that the frequency with which Akhenaten used this term likely means that his own name meant "Effective for the Aten".

Tel el Amarna, Aten Temple  © Akhenaten's religion is probably not strictly speaking monotheistic, although only the Aten is actually worshipped and provided with temples. Other gods still existed and are mentioned in inscriptions although these tend to be other solar gods or personifications of abstract concepts; even the names of the Aten, which are written in cartouches like king's names, consist of a theological statement describing the Aten in terms of other gods.

The majority of traditional gods were not tolerated, however, and teams of workmen were sent around the temples of Egypt where they chiselled out the names and images of these gods wherever they occurred.

A number of hymns to the Aten were composed during Akhenaten's reign and these provide a glimpse of what James Allen has described as the 'natural philosophy' of Akhenaten's religion.

The wonders of the natural world are described to extol the universal power of the sun; all creatures rejoice when the sun rises and nasty things come out at night when the sun is not present.

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Find out more

Read on

Akhenaten King of Egypt by Cyril Aldred (Thames and Hudson, )

The Royal Women of Amarna: Images of Beauty from Ancient Egypt by Dorothea Arnold (Metropolitan Museum of Art, )

Pharaohs of the Sun: Akhenaten, Nefertiti, Tutankhamun by Rita Freed, Yvonne Markowitz and Sue D'Auria (eds) (Museum of Fine Arts, )

Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization by Barry Kemp (Routledge, )

Akhenaten: History, Fantasy and Ancient Egypt by Dominic Monserrat (Routledge, )

Akhenaten: Egypt's False Prophet by Nicholas Reeves (Thames and Hudson, )

Women in Ancient Egypt by G Robins (London, )

The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt by I Shaw (ed) (Oxford, )

Places to visit

The British Museum.

Great Russell Street, London. Tel: The British Museum is free to everybody and opens at 10am every day.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street, New York, Tel: A varied collection from Egypt consisting of approximately 36, objects dating from the Palaeolithic to the Roman period.

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