Akhenaten: the Cursed Pharaoh
One of ancient Egypt’s greatest mysteries
July 1st, 1798. The French army under the command of a still unknown Napoleon Bonaparte arrives in Egypt, where it will campaign for the next two years. During his stay in the country, the young general had the opportunity to learn more about the history of Egypt and its long-lost civilization, which fascinated hundreds of Europeans (Burton, 2020). Among Napoleon’s discoveries were the remains of a mysterious city, lost in the sands of the desert, near the eastern bank of the Nile. These ruins were all that remained from the once thriving Egyptian capital of Amarna, which was built around 1346 BCE by pharaoh Akhenaten (Burton, 2020).
After Napoleon, more European expeditions were organized in order to learn more about the city which seemed as if was swallowed by the sand and reappeared out of nowhere. As more lost pieces of the puzzle began to be put together, the mystery was getting bigger and weirder. Bizarre pieces of art appeared depicting a somewhat disformed pharaoh and his family, having huge bellies and large chins. An unkown, strange god, named Aten, was unearthed together with a pharaoh whose name was deleted from the historical records along with any further evidence of him and his foul religion’s existence. This man was Akhenaten, the “heretic pharaoh”, the “Voldemort of ancient Egypt”, who founded the world’s first monotheistic religion, centuries before the appearence of Abrahamic religions.
Who was this cursed pharaoh, whose name was not allowed to be spoken? What was his mysterious religion? And, most importantly, what terrible acts did he and his god committed, in order to be literally erased from history?
The Golden Years
The life of Akhenaten is surrounded by mystery because there is simply too little information about him. What we know is that he was the son of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, known also as “the Magnificent”. If this epithet alone does not tell much, let me inform you that Amenhotep was one of the most beloved and famous rules of ancient Egypt. His 38 year-long reign was marked by unprecedented prosperity and splendor when Egypt reached the peak of its artistic and international power.
Young Akhenaten, who was originally called Amenhotep IV, was fortunate enough to live during Egypt’s Golden Age. Being a second son, he was not destined to become an heir to the throne. Unfortunately for him, the gods of the Nile had other plans…
Becoming a Pharaoh
One dreadful day, Amenhotep’s older brother, Thutmose, died unexpectedly (Hoffmeier, 2019). His death automatically raised Amenhotep IV to the status of the “Crown Prince”, meaning the royal heir to the throne. From that moment on, the historical lines become blurry. We don’t know what caused Thutmose’s death. It might have been an illness, a murder, or an accident. We are also unaware of who ruled Egypt for the next years. When Amenhotep IV became the heir, historians estimated his age ranging from10 to 23 years old. Being the Crown Prince, he must have been put to some training, in order to be prepared for his role as the future pharaoh of Egypt. Probably, just like his brother, he must have been sent to the temple of Ptah in Memphis, where he would serve as a High Priest, a role which was given specifically to the royal heirs. It is likely that during the first years in his new role, he coreigned with his father, until the latter died around 1351 BCE.
During the early years of his reign, Amenhotep IV was a kind and beloved ruler, who took care of his people. He fulfilled his obligations towards the gods, by honoring their temples, and offering money to their priests. He built temples and large architectural projects, organized festivals, and generally, he seemed to follow his father’s footsteps.
But, suddenly something changed…
Sometime during his early reign, strange buildings started to appear all over the major cities of Egypt. These buildings were temples, dedicated to an obscure sun god, named Aten. As the temples began to increase, and like a tide, flooded Egypt, the young pharaoh started to change. Clouds were gathering over Egypt. The Heretic Pharaoh was here…
The Rise of the Heretic
Aten, the mysterious god that Amenhotep IV zealously worshipped, remains one of Egypt’s greatest mysteries, mainly because the descendants of the heretic Pharaoh managed to wipe out almost all the references to him. For centuries we were sure that the Egyptian pantheon was polytheistic, dominated by the chief sun god Amun and later on, Amun-Ra. During the times of the 18th Dynasty — the time when Akhenaten lived — the worship of Amun Ra was at its peak and his priests were the most powerful and influential men after the Pharaoh.
Since the discovery of Aten, this de facto situation has changed drastically. Aten was also a sun god. There are some references to him before the rule of Akhenaten, which lead us to believe that he was probably a minor, local sun deity, prior his elevation as a supreme god. But, unlike Ra and the rest gods and godesses, Aten was the one and only God to ever exist! His worshipers were not allowed to depict him in a human form, like their polytheistic compatriots did, but only as a sun disc whose rays ended up in small hands, reaching his followers from the skies. Aten worshipers also had to renounce all the other gods as fake and their teachings as heresy.
The Aten enigma gets more exciting and weirder at the same time. First of all, we have a monotheistic religion — the world’s first monotheistic religion — appearing in ancient Egypt. Although it appeared long before the Abrahamic ones, Atenism seems to have encoporated similar key elements to its core, like the renouncing of all the other fake gods in favor of the one and only God, who was the only truth of the world, the forbidance of depicting Him in human form, and finally some other familiar beliefs like the imperfection of the human body and the material world in general, a belief which was depicted in the contemporary works of art, created in the time of Akhenaten.
We don’t know how and when Akhenaten experienced his spiritual awakening. But we are certain that he accepted Aten and devoted himself entirely in his service, officially renouncing the old gods and even his own name (Hoffmeier, 2019). Amenhotep was reborn as Akhenaten.
From that point on Egypt would change drastically. Akhenaten started to persecute the other priesthoods, especially the ones who worshipped Ra (Hoffmeier, 2019). He closed their temples, abolished their festivals, and forbade their worship. He declared that Egypt would be a monotheistic state, united under one common religion, and commanded to erase the names and descriptions of the old gods (Burton, 2020).
He also decided to remove his capital to a new location, a move that schocked his subjects. Up to this point, Egypt had two capitals, Memphis — the religious centre, and Thebes — the administrative capital. Akhenaten declared that a new capital, Amarna, was to be built right in the middle of those two. This was a massive project. Entire families were forced to move, thousands of builders, merchants, farmers, and officials. Two temples were built in honor of Aten, where Akhenaten would carry out by himself all the ceremonies, as he had decided that he and only he was the voice of Aten — a kind of holy emissary on earth.
While all this may sound crazy to you — like a series of irrational decisions made by a religious fanatic — historians believe that they were actually part of a series of clever reforms to stabilize Egypt and unite its people under one common authority. The priests of Amun Ra, whose seat of power was in Thebes, had gathered great power during the times of the 18th Dynasty. They were able to control the masses, gather large amounts of wealth inside their temples, and sometimes were able to even dethrone rulers. It is plausible that Akhenaten wished to remove their power, which on several occasions opposed the decisions of the state, and divided the Egyptians. Much like Constantine the Great, who renounced the pagan Roman gods, in favor of Christianity and then moved his capital from Rome to Constantinopole, Akhenaten also wished to stabilize his empire under a firm hand, a common faith, and a new capital away from the old seats of power. That was the reason behind the creation of Amarna, which was symbolically placed right in the middle of the two older capitals.
However, unlike Constantine, Akhenaten’s social and religious reforms did not leave a positive impact on his people. While Constantine wisely followed a mediocre policy by allowing both Cristians and pagans to worship their gods, but strongly favoring the former, Akhenaten forced a more aggressive path by persecuting priests, closing temples, and completely ban the former religion. This of course resulted in multiple rebellions and further distabilization.
While Akhenaten was busy with his reforms, he completely neglected his foreign affairs. In Amarna, the archaeologists discovered multiple letters to Akhenaten send by the foreign rulers of Assyria, the Mitanni, Babylon, and Chanaan. The majority of them pleaded the Pharaoh to aid them with troops against the rising threat of the Hittites and save them from barbarian invasions. The “Amarna letters”, as they were known, proove that Akhenaten failed to hold Egypt’s role as a solid hegemon of the near East. In multiple occasions he refused to sent help to his allies, who were struggling. He let the regions of Syria and Lebanon undefended and avoided to face the Hittites, who became a major power in the region. This decicion makes sense since the army was needed to enforce order in Egypt, but ultimetely led to the loss of Egypt’s influence in the area.
Akhenaten: A Cursed Heretic or a Misunderstood Reformer?
Akhenaten’s reign wasn’t a long one. After 17 years of ruling Egypt, he died in 1336 or 1334 BCE. His legacy was even shorter than his reign. Almost after his death, his descedants abolished the majority of his reforms and brought the old gods back to life (Burton, 2020). Akhenaten’s son, Tutankhaten, restore the old faith and following his father’s example, changed his name, offivially renouncing Aten (Burton, 2020). Most of you might not know the name “Tutankhaten”, because along with Atenism, it was forgotten. But you all know the name “Tutankhamun” — the famous boy-pharaoh whose tomb was discovered intact in 1922, in one of the most important events in Egyptiology.
Tutankhamun is probably one of the most famous pharaohs. His father however was condemned as a heretic, a cursed ruler, whose name was erased from the historical records, along with his religion, which was wiped out from the face of the earth. But a question still remains unanswered:
Who was Akhenaten? A bloodthirsty tyrant, a mad religious fanatic? Or a misundersood reformer, who tried to unite his people and failed? Was he a tyrant or a pasifist?
There are two points in favor of the latter. First of all, while Akhenaten’s most reforms were abolished right after his death, Atenism persisted for centuries after! There are historical sources from the time of Rameses and his descendants during the 19th Dynasty, which mention the collective efforts that the pharaohs put in order to close the temples of Aten and forbade Atenism. This prooves that Atenism was quite popular for a large number of Egyptians and not just a strange cult that a mad pharaoh forced on them. Afterall, if Atenism was enforced to the Egyptians with means of violence, they would have abolished it the moment Akhenaten was dead.
The second point regards the pasifistic nature of Atenism. From what information we have it seems that Atenism did not favor war and instead embrassed virtues far more alien than the ones of the rest religions of its time. The pasifistic nature of Atenism is evident from the fact that unlike all the other pharaohs, who organised large-scale campaigns and wars against their neigbours, Akhenaten did not waged a single war against them. In fact he seemed to completely renounse his role as a military leader, and instead focused on his role as a reformer and leader of his people. Unlike the other religions — including the old gods of Egypt — where waging a war and winning it, was a sign of divine favor, Atenism was not linked with this concept.
So, what virtues did Atenism favored?
The surviving art found in Amarna provides us with some answers. The art style of Egypt remained unchanged during the majority of its existence. However, in the short-lived reign of Akhenaten, there were major changes, which after his death were forgotten. In Amarna, the archaeologists discovered strange depictions of Akhenaten and his family. Their bodies are depicted having large bellies, long chins, and unequal propotions, instead of the even, optimal body structure of traditional Egyptian art. The figures appear more humane. The pharaoh — the divine ruler of Egypt — is depicted in a lovely and humble scene where he is seen kissing his young son, while his wife, Nefertiti, is playing with their other two children. The family is blessed by the light of Aten as seen above them.
This depiction would have undoubtedly shocked Akhenaten’s contemporaries. It was considered an act of heresy for the pharaoh to be depicted on daily scenes, playing with his children and not sitting on his throne, crushing enemies in battle, hunting, or enforcing the will of the gods. Their bodies should have been depicted in an ideal way, not with signs of imperfection such as big bellies and long chins.
The above picture would have been a despicable act of heresy for every follower of Ra and the rest gods. But for Aten, as it seems, the imperfection of human bodies, the simple acts of love and kindness, and the beauty of the daily routine such as playing with your family, were all that mattered.
So, what was Atenism? A belevolent religion? A propator of Christianity and Judaism? A strange, heretical cult? Was Akhenaten a religious fanatic pharaoh, or a misunderstood man who tried to change the world for the better, but failed? The answers are still lying deep beneath the sands of Egypt, waiting to be discovered…
Bibliography
Hoffmeier, J., K., (2015), Akhenaten and the Origins of Monotheism, available at https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199792085.001.0001/acprof-9780199792085-chapter-8, (last access: 17/08/21)
Hoffmeier, J., K., (2019), the First God, available at https://aeon.co/essays/why-did-an-ancient-egyptian-king-erase-all-gods-but-aten, (last access: 17/08/2021)
Burton, E., (2020), Akhenaten: The Forgotten Pioneer of Atenism and Monotheism, available at https://www.thecollector.com/akhenaten-monotheism/, (last access: 17/08/2021)
