Who was Akhenaten ?
This is the topic I should like to broach today. Akhenaten the man It was probably in the north of Egypt, around 1370 BC, that the boy was born, to the Egyptian queen Tiye, great royal wife of the powerful pharaoh Amenhotep III. A second son, the child was named after the divinity he would later come to revile: Amenhotep, “The god Amun is content”. Educated for a priestly career in the temple at Heliopolis, the centre of Egypt’s ancient solar cult, it was clearly not envisaged that he would ever rule. Today Prince Amenhotep is best known by the name he adopted at or soon after his accession to independent rule, following the death of his elder brother, Thutmose, and after a brief period of co-regency with his father. This new name was Akhenaten, “He who is beneficial to the Aten”. And it is “Akhenaten” which today conjures up visions of the gentle monotheistic, Christ-like figure familiar to us from the influential writings of James Henry Breasted at the start of the 20th century. For
Akhenaten was a Ruler of Egypt during the period known as the 18th Dynasty. He ascended to the throne as Amenhotep IV, succeeding his father Amenhotep III. Akhenaten’s brief reign, only about 16 years, happened at a difficult time in Egyptian history and many scholars maintain that Akhenaten was responsible for this decline, but evidence suggests that it had already started. Akhenaten, possibly in a move to lessen the political power of the Priests, introduced the worship of one god, the Aten, or Sun disk. This meant that the Pharaoh, not the priesthood, was the sole link between the population and the Aten which effectively ended the power of the various temples. It is interesting to note that when Akhenaten’s successors, the generals Ay and Horemheb re established the temples of Amun they selected their priests from the military, enabling the Pharaoh to keep tighter controls over the religious orders. The cult of the Aten is considered by some to be a predecessor of modern monotheism
Perhaps one of the most studied, despised, loved figures of ancient Egypt – sometimes thought as a religious zealot (of the Aten sun god) who instigated a new form of art into the stuffy staid ways of ancient Egypt, or a sufferer of a disease wishing to express his body to the world. About Akhenaten there is an air of mystery – why did he chose to worship just one god and banish all others, why did he forgo the traditional look of a warrior – and what happened to him and his cause? The early years The second son of the great Amenhotep III, Akhenaten came from obsurity when his elder brother and heir to the throne, Thuthmose, died while still a child. At this point the young Akhenaten was still known by his original name – Amenhotep (IV), it was only when he ascended the throne that he would change his name. Immediately he took up the offices and teachings of a prince regent, including studying at the centre of intellectual learning for Egypt – Heliopolis.
