Spotlight: Akhenaton,
The Revolutionary Pharaoh
OR, The Genie Out Of The Bottle
- Honor is the inner garment of the Soul; the first thing put on by it with the flesh, and the last it layeth down as its separation from it. Pharaoh Akhenaton, c. 1553-1536 bce
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Statuette of Akhenaton.
The Pharaoh Akhenaton’s heretical desertion of the ancient and widespread priesthood of Amun (“The Hidden One”) was associated with a sudden burgeoning of sensuality, realism, and expression in art known as the Amarna period. In a departure from established conventions, Akhenaton had himself and the royal family portrayed in highly stylized caricatures (here by the master sculptor Bek) with the exaggerated features of an elongated face, full lips, a narrow chin, enlarged breasts, and wide hips, suggesting to some Egyptologists an endocrine imbalance. Never before had a pharaoh been depicted in such a revolutionary manner. Within this bold atmosphere Tutankhamun appears to have grown up in the palace of the queen at el-Amarna. He was Akhenaton’s only son, probably by Kiya, a favored secondary wife who appears to have died in childbirth.
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Statue of Amenhotep IV.
In the 4th year of his 17 year reign, the 18th Dynasty pharaoh Amenhotep IV, along with his wife, Queen Nefertiti, heretically abandoned the ancient city of Thebes and founded a new capitol on the Nile at Tell el-Amarna. Midway between Thebes and Memphis, it was built on virgin ground at a feverish pace to serve as the seat of the pharaoh’s revolutionary religious cult which rejected the belief in magic and worshiped one god, the Aton (or solar globe), as the sole source of creation and of life. A radical visionary, in the winter of the 5th year of his reign, the pharaoh changed his name from Amenhotep (“Amun is Content”) to Akhenaton (“The Servant of Aton”). The father of Tutankhamun, he was the son and co-regent of Amenhotep III by his chief consort Tiye, the daughter of provincial Nubian (Sudanese) dignitaries. Wearing the blue Khepresh crown, he is depicted as a youth making an offering.
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The Latest MoAW
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MoAW's mission
is to provide public access to important fossil discoveries and treasured artifact exhibitions focused on the origins of life and ancient civilizations; to enhance universal curriculum development for local and surrounding school districts, colleges, and universities, raise the quality of life for residents, attract tourists, and to serve as an educational, cultural, and economic engine for Riverside County and the Coachella Valley.
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TUTANKHAMUN
"Wonderful Things
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Treasures From The Pharaoh's Tomb
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Face of Akhenaton
. Only 15 years after its construction on an empty plain, the pharaoh’s magnificent new city, with its temples, palaces, gardens, and lake, was abandoned following the deaths of Akhenaton and Nefertiti. During the restoration of the polytheistic cult of Amun which followed, the orphaned Tutankhamun and Ankhesenamun were taken to Thebes and installed as Egypt’s divine royal family. As if to eradicate all memory of the devastating theological crisis that had been imposed on Egypt, the names and faces of Akhenaton and Nefertiti were vengefully stricken from their monuments and their ambitious capital was deserted.
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