Akhenaten religion

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He has been variously labelled a heretic and a revolutionary, a despot and the world’s first ‘individual’, and his reign – known as the Amarna period – is vigorously studied and debated. His name was Akhenaten.

Who was Akhenaten?

Akhenaten was a pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty. Before he gave himself that name, however, he had been Amenhotep IV, son of the great Amenhotep III, who – along with the female pharaoh Hatshepsut a century earlier – made this period a golden age for Egypt.

Other famous Egyptian names associated with Akhenaten are his wife Nefertiti (best known for being the subject of a famous bust in Berlin’s Neues Museum), and the boy king thought to be his son, Tutankhamun.

When did Akhenaten reign?

Akhenaten reigned from 1353 to 1336 BC, although there is some uncertainty about his dates.

There’s also a question about whether he ruled alongside his father for a while. As the second son of Amenhotep III, he had not been expected to rule, but he became heir with his brother’s early death.

Initially, his rule followed Egypt’s established traditions and practices: he

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Akhenaten: The Mysteries of Religious Revolution

In the long course of Egyptian history, few figures have been as polarizing as Akhenaten. The period surrounding this Egyptian king’s reign was characterized by social, political and religious upheaval – the likes of which few cultures ever experience. In just under two decades on the throne, Akhenaten imposed new aspects of Egyptian religion, overhauled its royal artistic style, moved Egypt’s capital to a previously unoccupied site, implemented a new form of architecture and attempted to obliterate the names and images of some of Egypt’s traditional gods. It is in part due to the tumultuous nature of Akhenaten’s tenure that this era in Egyptian history, known as the Amarna period, has received so much attention from scholars and the public.

Since the modern rediscovery of Akhenaten, academics have written countless studies and biographies of this so-called heretic king expounding upon his incendiary nature in ways perhaps best encapsulated by James Henry Breasted: “Until Ikhnaton the history of the world had been the

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Akhenaten

18th Dynasty Egyptian pharaoh

For other uses, see Akhenaten (disambiguation).

Akhenaten (pronounced listen^ⓘ), also spelled Akhenaton or Echnaton (Ancient Egyptian: ꜣḫ-n-jtnʾŪḫə-nə-yātəy, pronounced[ˈʔuːχəʔnəˈjaːtəj]^ⓘ,^[12]^[13] meaning 'Effective for the Aten'), was an ancient Egyptianpharaoh reigning c. 1353–1336 or 1351–1334 BC, the tenth ruler of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Before the fifth year of his reign, he was known as Amenhotep IV (Ancient Egyptian: jmn-ḥtp, meaning "Amun is satisfied", Hellenized as Amenophis IV).

As a pharaoh, Akhenaten is noted for abandoning traditional ancient Egyptian religion of polytheism and introducing Atenism, or worship centered around Aten. The views of Egyptologists differ as to whether the religious policy was absolutely monotheistic, or whether it was monolatristic, syncretistic, or henotheistic. This culture shift away from traditional religion was reversed after his death. Akhenaten's monuments were dismantled and hidden, his statues were destroyed, and his name excluded f