Part 2

Amenhotep III was responsible for the immense colonnades at Luxor and a great funerary temple which has disappeared except for two immense seated statues of the Pharaoh now known as the Colossi of Memmon (supposedly representing an Ethiopian hero who fell on the battlefield at Troy). Although the harem of Amenhotep III included daughters from the kings of Mitanni, Assyria, Babylon, and the Hittites, he was devoted to his wife Tiy for whom he built an artificial lake a mile long and over a thousand feet wide south of the Medinet Habu temple.

The decline in Egyptian power may be traced to the latter half of the reign of Amenhotep III. While the Pharaoh was sick, his wife Tiy seems to have exercised considerable power. The balance of power in Asia was upset by the rise of Suppiluliumas (1375-1340 B.C.), a Hittite ruler who sought to carve out an empire for himself. Egypt avoided military action, with the result that the loyal princes were left to defend themselves or make their own terms with the enemy.

Young Amenhotep IV

When Amenhotep III died he was succeeded by his eleven year old son Amenhotep IV (1370-1353 B.C.), and the queen mother Tiy continued to act as regent. In addition to the influence of his mother, young Amenhotep IV was educated by the priest, Eye, who was the husband of his childhood nurse. No doubt Amenhotep was early married to the fair Nofretete who may have been his sister. Brother-sister marriages were common in ancient Egypt, but we cannot be certain concerning the parentage of Nofretete. Under the tutelage of his mother, his wife, and a favored priest, young Amenhotep could hardly be expected to have developed an interest in military affairs. His interest turned toward religion and, in the words of Breasted, "the philosophizing theology of the priests was of more importance to him than all the provinces of Asia."[2]

Amenhotep IV is depicted as having a thin face, narrow sloping shoulders, and unusually large hips and abdomen. His skull seems to have been deformed, and he may have been an epileptic. These handicaps did not affect his mind, however, for he was one of history's creative thinkers. Breasted (with considerable hyperbole, to be sure), calls him "the first individual in human history."[3] Unfortunately the international tensions of the day were such that Egypt needed a warrior rather than a philosopher king. The idealism of Amenhotep IV was largely lost on his own generation, and entirely lost on the generation that followed him.

Nofretete was devoted both to her husband and to the religious reforms to which he dedicated his life. She bore him six daughters and appears to have been her husband's constant companion and confidant. Nofretete was, understandably, a favored subject in Amarna art. Reliefs depict her playing with her daughters, and one shows her seated on her husband's knee, blowing him a kiss at a chariot procession.

During the early years of his reign, Amenhotep IV clearly favored the god Aton, but he was tolerant of the various deities worshiped in Egypt. In this he continued the policy of his father, Amenhotep III, and his mother, Queen Tiy. The preference for the god Aton is evident in the name of the first child of Amenhotep IV, Merit-aton ("Beloved of Aton").

The priests of Amon in Thebes must have looked with apprehension upon the youthful Pharaoh whose devotion to the chief god of Egypt seemed to be compromised by religious innovation. We can only guess their reaction when Amenhotep IV decided to build a temple to Aton within the sacred precincts of the city of Amon. Orders were given to quarry sandstone at the Silsila quarries, forty miles north of Aswan. Here a monument was erected to mark the beginning of the quarrying operation:

First occurrence of His Majesty's giving command to muster all the workmen from Elephantine to Samhudet, and the leaders of the army, in order to make a great breach for cutting out sandstone, in order to make the sanctuary of Harakhti in his name, "Heat which is in Aton," in Karnak. Behold the officials, the companions, and the chiefs of the fan bearers were the chiefs of the quarry service for the transportation of stone.[4]

Amenhotep IV was twenty-one when he created the Aton temple at Thebes. He was still attempting to form a synthesis of old and new elements in his religious faith, for the old god Re-Harakhti of Heliopolis is identified with Aton. The Silsila stele depicts Amenhotep IV worshiping Amon, yet it also shows Aton (the sun) with rays of light which hold the Egyptian sign of life (_ankh_). Amon, Re-Harakhti, and Aton all figure in the Silsila stele.

The Break with Amon

Amenhotep IV, however, was unable to stop with half-way measures. In his devotion to Aton he felt that his god alone was worthy of worship. The Theban temple area was renamed, "The Brightness of the Great Aton," and the city itself became, "The City of the Brightness of Aton." In an obvious break with the past, Amenhotep IV determined to change his own name, which meant "Amon is satisfied" to Akhenaton, meaning, "he who is serviceable to Aton."

From this time on, Akhenaton's zeal knew no bounds. He banished the mention of Re-Harakhti from the descriptive title of Aton, and had the very names of Amon and the Egyptian pantheon chiseled out of the monuments at Thebes. The Amon temples were closed, and Atonism became the only sanctioned religion of Egypt. The reform, however, did not have a popular base, and it probably did not penetrate far beyond the royal family and retainers. Akhenaton, like the earlier Pharaohs, believed in his own divinity, esteeming himself the son of Aton. As such he would be worshiped by his faithful subjects.

The reasons for Akhenaton's break with the religious traditions of his day are complex. In part the revolt certainly represents the desire of a young Pharaoh to free himself from the yoke of a firmly entrenched priestly class. Yet the break was far more than an act of political expediency. The influence of the priesthood of Heliopolis, perennial rivals of the Theban priests, and the development of Atonism in the years preceding his accession to the throne are all factors that cannot be overlooked. Perhaps the "petticoat government" into which he moved at the age of eleven with the strong influence of his mother, Queen Tiy, had something to do with it. There may even be a measure of compensation for physical inadequacies in the vigorous measures he took to establish Aton as the sole god of Egypt. Whatever historical or psychological motivations may be suggested, Akhenaton's whole life gives evidence of the fact that he was piously devoted to Aton, the god whose beneficent rays bring life to all mankind.

While the priests of Amon were bitterly antagonistic to Akhenaton, he found allies in the priests from Memphis who had long resented the dominating position of the Theban priesthood. The army was divided. Conservative elements sided with the Theban priests, but a bright young general, Horemhab, saw in Akhenaton's revolt an opportunity for personal advancement and threw in his lot with the new king. There is a suggestion that a counter revolution was planned, for the Amon priests claimed that the Pharaoh had abandoned his people, and was himself abandoned by his father Amon.

The New Capital

Akhenaton did abandon Thebes. As tensions grew he came to realize that his new faith could not flourish in the city of Amon. There were theological reasons, too, for Aton had no city that was distinctly dedicated to his worship. Akhenaton decided to build a new capital, dedicated to the god Aton, with the name Akhetaton, "the horizon of Aton."

The move to Akhetaton, modern Amarna, three hundred miles north of Thebes, must have been welcome both to Akhenaton's court and the Theban priesthood. The city seems to have been built in haste, and when Akhenaton left Thebes it was for good. Was life at Akhetaton all that Akhenaton envisioned? The inscriptions and the paintings from the rock tombs suggest that the royal family enjoyed a few happy years in devotion to Aton and to one another. True, the envoys from distant lands and subject peoples noted the growing gulf between Akhenaton and the people, and the empire suffered as the Egyptian Pharaoh lived in the seclusion of his capital. Tragedy entered the lives of Akhenaton and Nofretete when their second daughter Meketaton died and was buried in the family tomb east of Akhetaton.

The End of an Era

The closing years of the lives of Nofretete and Akhenaton are largely a blank. Their third daughter Meritaton married Smenkhkare, a young architect who was much favored by Akhenaton and occupied the throne for a short time after his death. Another daughter Ankhsenpaton, married Tutankhaton, a loyal follower of her father. His brief reign left no impress on Egyptian history. The discovery of his tomb, however, in the Valley of the Kings, has made him the best known of all Pharaohs.

The circumstances concerning the deaths of Nofretete and Akhenaton are not known, although we do know that Akhenaton died in the seventeenth year of his reign, when he was but thirty years of age. Atonism did not long survive its most loyal adherents. Meritaton became Meritamon, and the famed King Tut is known by his later name, Tutankhamon, rather than the earlier Tuntankhaton. In many ways Akhenaton seems to have been a man whose life was a failure. All for which he stood was quickly obliterated during the scant generation after his death. Yet this judgment is too hasty. Even the priests of Amon could not wholly turn back the reforms in art and literature which Akhenaton encouraged. While such terms as "monotheist" and "pacifist" when applied to him bear a different connotation from their meaning in contemporary life, still his meditation upon the Aton bringing blessing to all men has within it the seed of something that finds its highest expression in the prophetic spokesmen of ancient Israel. Akhenaton went too far for his own generation in Egypt, but the Biblical affirmation of God as creator of heaven and earth and redeemer of mankind was hardly apprehended by Akhenaton.

III THE HORIZON OF ATON

When Akhenaton determined to build a new city which would be sacred to his god Aton, he chose a site on the east bank of the Nile, three hundred miles north of Thebes, where the flanking cliffs recede to leave a semicircular plain eight miles long and three broad. Here Akhenaton built the capital city which he named Akhetaton, "the horizon of Aton." The city itself was five miles long but only about eleven hundred yards broad. It had no walls, for the Nile formed its western boundary and a semicircle of cliffs bound it on the east. The fertile land along the river bank was kept for cultivation.

The Boundaries of Akhetaton

Akhenaton and his wife Nofretete personally chose the site of Akhetaton and supervised the erection of the stelae which marked its boundaries. In all, fourteen of these markers have been found on the hillsides east and west of the Nile. They contain a longer and a shorter version of the ceremony by which the site was consecrated. The shorter version tells how, on the eighth month of the sixth year of Akhenaton's reign, he mounted his golden chariot and journeyed northward from the richly ornamented tent where he had passed the night to fix the limits of the projected city of Akhetaton. After sacrificing to his god, Aton, he drove southward to a spot where the rays of the sun shining on him indicated where the southern boundary should be located. Here he swore an oath by his father Aton, and by his hope that the queen and his two (elder) daughters would attain old age, that he would never pass beyond this boundary, and beyond two more on the east bank and three on the west bank. All land within that area belonged to Aton, and should any damage befall the stelae marking it, he would make it good. Mention is made of a renewal of the oath in the eighth year.

The longer version adds some details. It tells how Akhenaton called his courtiers and military commanders, explaining to them Aton's wish that Akhetaton be built. Aton alone knew the site, and it is his alone. The courtiers reply that all countries will send gifts to Aton. Akhenaton praises his god and vows that he will never extend the city's boundaries, nor allow his wife to persuade him to do so. Then he enumerates the sanctuaries he will build at Akhetaton, ending with a reference to his family tomb.[5]

The pledge never to extend the boundaries of Akhetaton is puzzling. It seems to be a concession to the Amon priesthood that he will limit Aton's holdings to the few miles of territory in the region of present day Amarna. On the other hand the pledge may be merely the legal phrase used by a property owner to indicate that he has no rights beyond his own boundaries.

The Move to the New Capital

It probably took at least two years to build Akhetaton. It was during the sixth year of Akhenaton's reign that he ordered all Egyptians and subject peoples--Nubians and Asiatics--to serve Aton alone. Statues of the old gods were ordered destroyed; their reliefs were to be erased, and their names blotted out. Two years later--Akhenaton's eighth--the transfer of the capital from Thebes to Akhetaton was complete.

There are evidences of great haste in the construction of the buildings. Often naturalistic pictures of birds and vegetation painted on plaster walls and floors cover shoddy workmanship. Houses were built of mud brick, but palaces and temples were built of stone. An inscription attributed to the architect Bek at Aswan states that stone was quarried there "for the great and mighty monuments of the king in the house of Aton in Akhetaton."

The Plan of the City

Paralleling the Nile, the city had three north-south streets which crossed the more numerous east-west streets at right angles. The principal north-south street, the King's Way, served the city's more important buildings. At its southern end was the pleasure palace, Meru Aton, with its artificial pools, flower beds, and groves of trees. Meru Aton is thought to have served as a summer palace. It had a reception hall, a small chamber, guard houses, and various other buildings. The inner rooms were gaily decorated with colored columns and pavements painted with flying birds, playing animals, and a variety of plant life.

Farther north the King's Way passed between the palace and the royal house, where it was spanned by a bridge. In the center of the bridge was the "window of appearing" where the royal family appeared on special occasions to greet the populace assembled on the street below. The palace was fourteen hundred feet long and four to five hundred feet wide, with an impressive hall of pillars. The pavements of painted stucco, discovered by Flinders Petrie during his expedition at Amarna in 1891, were maliciously destroyed by a disgruntled guard in 1912, and the portions that were salvaged are now in the Cairo Museum. The royal house was a vast walled compound containing the king's apartment, a nursery for the princesses, and vast gardens and storehouses. The rooms were ornamented with colorful paintings and inlays of colored stone.

Beyond the palace, the King's Way passed the spiritual center of the royal city, the Great Temple to Aton, comprising a series of open courts and halls, connected by pylons in which altars were set up to receive offerings. The chief altar was located in the center of the largest court. Here Akhenaton, usually accompanied by Nofretete, offered prayers and consecrated offerings to Atom. Throughout the city there were numerous smaller shrines built to honor the kings of Egypt's past, or to serve members of the royal family. Nofretete presided at a shrine with the colorful name, "The House of Putting the Aton to Rest." The queen mother Tiy had a temple, and there were shrines for Baktaton, the king's younger sister, and Meritaton, his oldest daughter. Shrines were built in memory of Amenhotep II and Thutmose IV.

Beyond the Great Temple, the King's Way becomes the main street of modern El Till. It disappears for a time in the fields, but emerges at the North Palace which had walls decorated with lively paintings of bird life in a papyrus swamp. A royal aviary and a zoo were part of the palace complex. After another break, the lines of the ancient King's Way appear again in the northern city with its numerous mansions.

A second important north-south thoroughfare is High Priest Street from which the estates of many of the nobles in Akhenaton's court could be entered. The standard of living was one of luxury, for the houses of the nobles contained large reception halls, living rooms, and bedrooms. Each had a well-kept garden, at one end of which an avenue of trees led to a pool. Besides the spacious living quarters there were separate buildings to serve as stables for the flocks and herds belonging to the family, storage buildings, and servant's quarters. The largest such estate, belonging to the vizier Nakht, measured ninety-five by eighty-five feet.

Interspersed among these palatial homes were humbler cottages, belonging to the working class, each of which had a front hall, a living room, bedroom, and kitchen. Every house--both of nobles and of commoners--had a bathroom with running water and a lavatory. There was evidently no conscious city planning, for it seems that the nobles laid claim to extensive patches of land, only to surrender parts of their property to commoners at a later time. Perhaps unintentionally, Akhetaton has marks of democracy in this mixture of ruling and working classes.

The officials of Akhetaton were for the most part new appointments of the king, and many seem to have been chosen from among commoners who were sympathetic with Akhenaton's program. The mayor of the city bore the revealing name, "Akhenaton created me." Other officials include a captain of police, an overseer of the treasury, the king's standard bearer, the commander of the army, overseers of the royal harem, the chief physician, and priests of the various temples. Eye, who had been a counselor of Akhenaton from boyhood, bore the impressive title, "Superintendent of the King's Horses," implying a responsibility for the chariots of the royal army. Second only to Akhenaton himself was the vizier, a man named Nakht. A royal butler, Parennufe, was one of the few officials who had served Akhenaton earlier in Thebes.

The Rock Tombs

The third north-south street was the East Road, located nearest to the desert and the rock tombs. As the earlier Pharaohs in Thebes prepared tombs for themselves in the nearby Valley of the Kings, so Akhenaton and his courtiers cut rock tombs into the hillside east of Akhetaton. There are twenty-five of these tombs with decorated walls honoring Aton and his son, Akhenaton. Davies in his _Rock Tombs of El Amarna_ says,

The scenes in the tombs of El-'Amarna, though abundant and detailed, yield us very limited information concerning men and things in Akhetaten. Taken together, they only reveal one personality, one family, one home, one career, and one mode of worship. This is the figure, family, palace and occupations of the king, and the worship of the sun--which also was his, and perhaps, in strictness, of no one else. Into whatever tomb we enter, as soon as the threshold is past we might fancy ourselves in the royal sepulchre. The king's figure, family, and retinue dominate everything. It is his wife and children, his family affection, his house and treasures which are here portrayed in detail, and it is with difficulty sometimes that we discover among the crowd of courtiers the official whose tomb it is, distinguished by a little hieroglyphic label.[6]

The family tomb which Akhenaton built in the eastern desert, four miles from the city, was used for the burial of his daughter, the princess Meketaton. Most of the rock tombs, however, were never occupied. Within a short time of the death of Akhenaton, his capital was abandoned and Thebes again became the center of government. Everything of value was removed from Akhetaton--even the wooden pillars of the houses! The very stones of the Aton temple were dragged away to be used in the reconstruction of temples desecrated in the days of Akhenaton's reform movement. Thus the priests of Amon had their revenge.

IV ATONISM

Akhenaton thought of himself as the apostle of Atonism, and he exhibited a mystical devotion to his god. Yet Akhenaton was not the founder of the Aton cult, which may be traced to antecedents in Egypt's earliest religious traditions.[7] The Sinuhe story, recounting the death of Amenemhet I (_ca._ 1960 B.C.), states that the deceased Pharaoh ascended to heaven and was united to the disk of the sun (_itn_). While this may mean only that the sun disk was the abode of deity, it suggests the possibility that the Aton (sun disk) might itself become an object of worship.

Ancient Egyptian Religion

The Egyptian religion of historical times represents a fusion of previously independent local gods. Each town was devoted to a particular deity, many of whom were represented in the form of animals. The cat goddess Bast was honored at Bubastis; the cobra-headed Edjo, at Buto; the ibis Thoth, at Hermopolis Magna; and the jackal god Wepwawet, at Lycopolis. Animal deities were frequently given the bodies and limbs of humans.