Akhenaten and his religious reforms

Till the fifth year of his reign he was known as Amenhotep the IV . He ruled for 17 years, being a part of eighteenth dynasty. He died probably in 1336 BC or 1334 BC. Akhenaten became famous because he was the first pharaoh who abandoned the traditional Egyptian polytheism and worshiped Aten , a new God represented as the Solar disc. The reasons of this religious reforn could have been political: by the time of his reign, the god Amen had risen to such a high status that the priests of Amen had become more wealthy and powerful than the pharaoh . It may alswo be that Akhenaten was influenced by his family members, particularly his wife or mother. There was a certain trend in Akhenaten's family towards sun-worship.Some historians, determined to link Akhenaten's religion somehow to the Jewish religion saying that he was inspired by Joseph or Moses and its a possibility, considering that Joseph was around in roughly the same time period as Akhenaten. However, after close examination of Akhenaten's religion, this hypothesis seems unlikely. Akhenaten's religion did center on one god, but his major emphasis was on the Aten's visibility, tangibility, and undeniable realness. Akhenaten placed no emphasis, therefore, on faith. He build a new capital and declared Aten to be the only god. The only exception to his own rule appears to have been in regards to the deity Re. The old temples have been sealed and almost any records regarding the old religion have been erased. His actions earned him no favor with his people.Some recent opinions are focused on the extent to which Akhenaten forced his reforms on people.As time drew on, he revised the names of the Aten, and other religious language, to increasingly exclude references to other gods. Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti had six daughters, named Merytaten, Meketaten, Ankhesenpaaten, Neferneferuaten-tasharit, Neferneferure, and Sotepenre. Meketaten died when she was about eleven of unknown causes, and Neferneferuaten-tasharit, Neferneferure, and Sotepenre followed shortly afterwards. They were probably victims of a plague that was running rampant in Egypt at the time. Nefertiti is now famous because of the beautiful bust of her found at Amarna but her origins are uncertain. Some historians believe that she was a foreign princess, but there are some evidences to suggest that she was a relative of Akhenaten. After his death references having any to do with Akhenaten were demolished as he had demolished earlier references to Amon and the other gods. Within a decade a political, religious and artistic reformation began promoting a return of Egyptian life to the norms it had followed during his father's reign. He was lost from history untill the discovery of Akhetaten, the city he built for the god Aten. After the excavations at Amarna a new discovery was made,the tomb of Tutankhamun, the son of Akhenaten. Recently discoveries and tests have confirmed that the body found buried in tomb KV55 was the father of Tutankhamun , Akhenaten. After Akhenatens death the next succesor at Egypts throne was probably

Smenkhkare one of his sons, then by Neferneferuaten a female pharaoh and finaly by Tutankhamun. The reasons for Akhenaten's revolution still remain a mystery. Until further evidence can be uncovered, it will be impossible to know just what motivated his unusual behavior. In the end Akhenaten, Neferneferuaten, Smenkhkare, Tutankhamun and other succesors were excised from the official lists of Pharaohs which meant that Amenhotep III was succeded by Horemheb This is thought to be part of an attempt by Horemheb to delete all trace of Atenism and the pharaohs associated with it from the historical record. Akhenaten's name never appeared on any of the king lists compiled by later Pharaohs and it was not until the late 19th century that his identity was re-discovered and the surviving traces of his reign were unearthed by archaeologists.i Despite his fathers mistakes Tutankhamun began repairing the damage inflicted upon the temples of Amun during Akhenaten's iconoclastic reign. He continued the construction at the temple of Karnak and finished the second of a pair of red granite lions at Soleb. Acording to the Restoration Stele (the most important document of Tutankhamun reign) Akhenatens reforms had left the country in a bad state throwing Egypt into chaos. The temples of the gods and goddesses ... were in ruins. Their shrines were deserted and overgrown. Their sanctuaries were as non-existent and their courts were used as roads ... the gods turned their backs upon this land ... If anyone made a prayer to a god for advice he would never respond.ii When Tutankhamun came to the throne he restored the old religion and moved the capital from Akhetaten back to its traditional home at Memphis. He died early at the age of 19 and the causes are still unknown and leave enough room for speculations. Because he was the son of Akhenaten with one of his sisters, some scientist say that Tutankhamun was the result of a incestuous relationship and, because of that, may have suffered from several genetic defects that contributed to his early death but there are some speculation that Tutankhamun was assassinated . Tutankhamun was buried in a tomb that was small relative to his status but that was probably because his death was unexpected and his royal tomb was not finished. Tutankhamun's tomb was discovered in 1923 by a British Egyptologist named Howard Carter who was convinced that King Tutankhamun's grave lays somewhere in the Valley of Kings. He was financed in his expedition by Lord Carnarvon, himself and ailing gentleman keen on Egyptology. After five years of unsuccessful digging, Carnarvon almost gave up on his hopes and also to his financial suport of the expedition. At the same time, Howard Carter's digging team stumbled on to a step cut into a rock beneath the debris of an ancient structure. On excavation, it was found that the states led down to the long-hidden tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun.. The discovery of the tomb was followed by a series of mysterious deaths. According to legend the tomb raiders broke the long sleep of the Pharaoh, setting a deadly curse in motion. The day he hit upon the tomb, Howard carter returned home to fund that his canary was

swallowed by a cobra. His servant wailed at the Pharaoh's Curse, since the canary was supposed to have led the explorer to the tomb, and a cobra and a vulture were supposed to be Tutankhamun's protectors. Next death was Lord Carnarvons death. He was bitten by a mosquito and later slashed the bite accidentally while shaving and it became infected. The first autopsy carried out on the body of Tutankhamun found a healed lesion on the left cheek, which was the same location as the mosquito bite on Lord Carnarvon's left cheek. When he died, the lights went out in Cairo. This is agreed to even by hose who contest the Curse of Tutankhamun. At the moment of his death, his pet dog howled pitifully and turned over and died, in London. This is also reported, but there is no actual confirmation or denial of this event. After that a rumour that a curse had been found in the King's tomb apeared in the media and Howard Carter had a tough time keeping the scared grave diggers together. Death of Carnarvon was only the begining. A string of deaths followed. Many of those associated with the grave-digging died to unnatural causes, giving currency to the Curse Theory. The newspapers of the day speculated that such eerie events were caused by the curse which Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter had unleashed. Soon after, archaeologist Arthur Mace who was part of the expedition, went into a coma and died soon afterwards, baffling everyone. The deaths continued. Carnarvon's friend, George Gould, trekked to Egypt when he learned of Carnarvon's fate. Before leaving, he looked in at the tomb. The next day, he collapsed with a high fever; twelve hours later he was dead. Radiologist Archibald Reid, a man who used X-ray techniques to determine the age and possible cause of death of Tutankhamun, was sent back to England after complaining of exhaustion. He died soon after landing. Some have speculated that deadly fungus could have grown in the enclosed tombs and there is no doubt that dangerous materials can accumulate in old tombs and been released when they are exposed to open to the air. However, at the concentrations typically found in the tombs these pathogens are generally only dangerous to persons with a weak immunity. Now, across millennia, Tutankhamun's Curse has come back to haunt. Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, who supervised the first CT scan of the mummy of the boy pharaoh Tutankhamun this week, said the experience suggested it might be unwise to write off the legendary curse of the pharaohs. The CT, or computed tomography, scan produced threedimensional images X-ray of the boy pharaohs remains. I cannot dismiss the legend of the curse because today many things happened. We almost had an accident in a car, the wind blew up in the Valley of the Kings and the computer of the CT scan was completely stopped for two hours, iii

ii

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhenaten Hart, George (1990). Egyptian Myths. University of Texas Press. p. 47. 4 Dr. Zahi Hawass

Bibliography

-Conf. Dr. Alexandru Diaconescu Mari civilizaii ale Orientului Antic (ediia a II-a, revzut i adugit) Vol. I- Egiptul Antic -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhenaten - Hart, George (1990). Egyptian Myths. University of Texas Press. p. 47. -Howard Carter and the Discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun", H. V. F. Winstone, Constable, 1991 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A517114
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