Akhenaten(Amenhotep IV)AIDAN DODSON

The second son of Amenhotep III and his

wife Tiye of the 18th Egyptian Dynasty

succeeded his father initially under the

name of Neferkheperure-waenre Amenhotep

(IV)-netjerheqawaset. There has been consid-

erable debate as to whether the succession

occurred on Amenhotep III’s death, or

whether the two kings ruled as co-regents for

up to a dozen years. The balance of evidence

currently seems to support the former option,

although the younger Amenhotep may have

been proclaimed heir in Year 30, on the death

of his elder brother, Thutmose (Dodson

2009b; Dorman 2009).

Amenhotep IV seems to have married

NEFERTITI shortly after his accession, and had

Meryetaten, the first of their six daughters,

not long afterwards. These girls – Meryetaten,

Meketaten, Ankhesenpaaten, Neferneferuaten-

tasherit, Neferneferure, and Setepenre – are

depicted on many contemporary monuments,

but there is only one potential mention of a

son. This is on one of a pair of blocks found at

Hermopolis Magna (ASHMUNIEN) but orig-

inally from Amarna; this names the prince,

Tutankhuaten, who ultimately became king as

Tutankhaten/amun (see TUTANKHAMUN). The

other block gave the name and titles of one of

Akhenaten’s daughters.

During his first years, the king was depicted

in the traditional manner, but by his Year 4 he

and his entourage were being shown in a

distorted revolutionary style that is expressly

stated in a text of his chief sculptor, Bak, to

have been directed by the king. This was

accompanied by a change of the iconography

of the sun-god Aten (see ATON/ATEN) from a

conventional anthropomorphic representation

to an abstract one comprising a sun-disk,

from which descended rays terminated in

hands, the latter holding the sign of “life” to

the nostrils of the royal family. This transition

was accompanied by a move to make the Aten

supreme, if not yet sole, god – the first known

experiment in MONOTHEISM. Whether this was

wholly a theological shift or had a political

aspect of reducing the power of the priest-

hoods of the traditional pantheon – especially

that of Amun – remains a matter for scholarly

debate. At some point the names and images of

a number of deities, especially those connected

with Amun, were destroyed on a wide variety

of monuments. This iconoclasm has been

variously dated to the earlier part of the reign

and to its very end, once again with a lack

of scholarly unanimity, something that

bedevils assessment of the whole reign and its

aftermath.

The earliest monument of this new style was

a large temple to the Aten that was built to the

east of the main temple complex at KARNAK. It

was apparently built in a hurry, using much

smaller blocks than those usually used in Egyp-

tian temple-building. Known as talatat, many

have been found reused in the filling of later

buildings at Karnak. Reliefs in this temple

commemorate at least one jubilee celebrated

in the very earliest years of the reign (Gohary

1990). It remains unclear whether this was

a jubilee of the king, of the king and the Aten,

or simply of the Aten itself.

Not long after the adoption of the new artis-

tic style, the king changed his personal name

from Amenhotep to Akhenaten, meaning

something like “Effective Spirit of the Aten” –

i.e., the god’s representative on Earth. Further-

more, a new city was founded at AMARNA,

roughly half way between the old capitals of

Memphis and Thebes, both as a dedicated

cult-center for the Aten and as a new capital

city for Egypt. The decision to build the city is

recorded on the boundary stelae of the site,

which date it to Year 4 (Murnane and van

Siclen 1993). Apart from Amarna and Thebes,

traces of buildings of Akhenaten’s reign have

been found at various sites around Egypt.

Somewhere around Year 9, there was a

fundamental change in the full name of the

Aten, which presumably reflected some kind

The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, First Edition. Edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine,

and Sabine R. Huebner.

© 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2012 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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of further theological reform. At some point

during the next four years, a second wife of

Akhenaten, Kiya, was disgraced; nothing is

known of the reasons for this, nor the fate of

her daughter. There is no substantive evidence

for the frequent suggestion that Kiya was the

mother of Tutankhuaten.

A major international festival was held in

Year 12, with gifts to the king being brought

by representatives from much of the known

world. Its significance is uncertain, one possi-

bility being that it could have marked the

formal completion of the city of Amarna.

Soon afterward, a number of deaths occurred

within the royal family, including Tiye and up

to three of the king’s daughters. It has been

suggested that a plague brought into Egypt by

the Year 12 delegatesmay have been responsible.

Information on Akhenaten’s foreign rela-

tions is provided by an archive of cuneiform

tablets found at Amarna and known as the

AMARNA LETTERS. These represent correspon-

dence between the kings of the contemporary

great powers and Egypt, as well between

Egypt’s Levantine vassals and the royal court

(Moran 1992). These have been variously

interpreted as indicating a decline in Egyptian

authority in Syria-Palestine resulting from

royal neglect, and as simply reflecting an

expected ebb and flow of affairs over a period

of some two decades. However, it does seem

clear that the reign saw increasing tensions in

northern Syria related to the respective spheres

of influence of Egypt and the empire of the

Hittites.

Soon after Year 12, Akhenaten appointed a

co-ruler, Ankhkheperure Smenkhkare, of

uncertain antecedents, but certainly a member

of the wider royal family. He married

Meryetaten, and is named on a number of

inscribed items and monuments, but appears

to have been short-lived. He was replaced

as co-ruler by a woman, Ankhkheperure-

merywaenre Neferneferuaten, who was almost

certainly none other than Nefertiti.

Akhenaten died in his Year 17 and was buried

in his tomb at Amarna, which had previously

received the interments of a number of his

family. He was succeeded by Tutankhaten/

amun, but steps were soon taken to reverse

Akhenaten’s religious revolution. As a result

the king’s buildings around Egypt began to

be dismantled, and after the death of

Tutankhamun, Akhenaten’s names and images

were mutilated on the monuments, and by the

19th Dynasty he and his immediate successors

were being omitted from official lists of

the kings of Egypt. The fate of Akhenaten’s

mummy is uncertain; one possibility is that

it was removed from the royal tomb at

Amarna to tomb KV55 in the VALLEY OF THE

KINGS during Tutankhamun’s reign, but was

removed and destroyed soon after the

latter’s death.

Nevertheless, in modern times Akhenaten

has become one of the best-known pharaohs,

albeit with his career frequently distorted and

manipulated for political, social, artistic, and

religious reasons (Montserrat 2000). There is

also a significant lack of scholarly consensus

concerning many aspects of the reign, covering

such aspects as chronology, genealogy, and the

broader significance of events (compare

Figure 14 Carving from Amarna, depiciting

Amenhotep IV and his family presenting offerings

to Aton. Egyptian Museum, Cairo. © Photo Scala,

Florence.

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Aldred 1968, 1988; Dodson 2009a; Redford

1984; Reeves 2001).

A number of mummies of the period were

subject to DNA analysis in 2009 (Hawass et al.

2010); however, more work needs to be done

before any firm conclusions can be reached

on any need to revise the reconstruction set

out above.

SEE ALSO: Amenhotep (Amenophis) I–III; Amun,

Amun-Ra; Hermopolis Magna, Tuna el-Gebel

(Pharaonic); Hittite, Hittites; Memphis,

Pharaonic.

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Aldred, C. (1968) Akhenaten, Pharaoh of Egypt.

London.

Aldred, C. (1988) Akhenaten, King of Egypt. London.

Davies, N. de G. (1903–08) The rock tombs of El

Amarna. London.

Dodson, A. (2009a) Amarna sunset: Nefertiti,

Tutankhamun, Ay, Horemheb and the Egyptian

counter-reformation. Cairo.

Dodson, A. (2009b). “On the alleged ‘Amenhotep

III/IV coregency’ graffito at Meidum.” Gottinger

Miszellen 221: 25–8.

Dorman, P. F. (2008) “The Long coregency revisited:

architectural and iconographic conundra in the

tomb of Kheruef.” In P. J. Brand and L. Cooper,

eds., Causing his name to live: studies in Egyptian

epigraphy and history in memory of William

J. Murnane. Leiden.

Freed, R. E., Markowitz, Y. J. and D’Auria, S. H., eds.

(1999) Pharaohs of the sun: Akhenaten; Nefertiti;

Tutankhamen. London.

Gabolde, M. (1998) D’Akhenaton a Toutankhamon.

Lyon.

Germer, R. (2001) “Die Mumie aus dem Sarg in

‘KV55.’” In G. Grimm and S. Schoske, eds., Das

Geheimnis des goldenen Sarges: Echnaton und das

Ende der Amarnazeit: 58–61. Munich.

Gohary, J. (1990) Akhenaten’s Sed-Festival at Kar-

nak. London.

Hawass, Z., et al. (2010) “Ancestry and pathology

in King Tutankhamun’s family.” Journal of the

American Medical Association 303, 7: 638–47.

Hornung, E. (1999) Akhenaten and the religion of

light. Ithaca, NY.

Montserrat, D. (2000) Akhenaten: history, fantasy

and ancient Egypt. London.

Moran, W. L. (1992) The Amarna Letters. Baltimore.

Murnane, W. J. and van Siclen, C. CIII, (1993) The

boundary stelae of Akhenaten. London.

Redford, D. B. (1984) Akhenaten: the heretic King.

Princeton.

Reeves, C. N. (2001) Akhenaten: Egypt’s false

prophet. London.

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