Egyptian Art With the Exception of the Armarna Period Can Be Described as Which of the Following
USU 1320: History and Civilization
SECTION 10
Akhenaten and Monotheism
The concept of monotheism has deep roots in Western Civilization, reaching as far back in time as the New Kingdom of ancient Egypt, well before the formation of the aboriginal country of Israel or the appearance of Christianity. In that location, an odd-looking, untraditional and ultimately unfathomable pharaoh named Akhenaten imposed on his people a conventionalities-system centering effectually a unmarried deity, the aten or sun-disk. Famous too for his uppercase city Akhetaten (modernistic el-Amarna) and his strikingly beautiful wife Nefertiti, Akhenaten's revolution in religion was curt-lived, and the extent of its influence fifty-fifty within Egypt is hard to gauge, though information technology seems slight. Nevertheless, it's possible that aten worship inspired or in some manner sparked the development of monotheism later among the ancient Israelites.
People, Places, Events and Terms To Know:
| Monotheism | Talatat Amunhotep Three Ra-horakte Amun Thebes Aten Amun Priesthood Ankh Nefertiti | Valley of the Kings Smenkhare Tutankhamun/Tutankhuaten Howard Carter Hebrew Monotheism Egyptian Captivity Goshen (Pi-Ramesse) Psalm 104 Hymn to the Aten |
I. Introduction: The History of Monotheism in Antiquity
We in the western world today tend to acquaintance monotheism with our own traditions, every bit if it were originally the invention of our European ancestors. It wasn't. Ancient Semitic cultures rooted in the Near East and its environs not only explored monotheistic thinking earlier and more fully than whatsoever known peoples in Europe but too today comprehend the strictest form of monotheism to date, Islam. Historical data are clear that the conception of a universe created and guided by one deity alone is the product of Eastern ideologies exported to, not from, the Due west.
It'southward like pants, something we in the Due west rarely think about as essentially foreign, fifty-fifty though they are. Indeed, a mere glance at costume history shows that people in early on Western Civilization—Greeks, Romans, Franks—very infrequently wore tight-fitting garments, especially below the waist. In fact, it wasn't until well after antiquity, when trade and war had opened the way for cultural exchange between East and West, that big numbers of men who lived in Europe began wearing pants and other clothing styles suited to horseback riding. So if not for contact with the East, nosotros might all nevertheless be wearing tunics, and worshiping a pantheon of gods.
Many today also presume that the primeval historical prove for monotheism is to be institute amidst ancient Hebrew scriptures, the accounts of a people who lived in the Near East during the 2nd and start millennia BCE. Information technology isn't. Not but did the Hebrews develop their monotheistic tenets slowly—information technology took them several centuries, as we'll see in the adjacent department of the form—but long before the Hebrews even existed as a coherent social group, the ancient Egyptians experimented with a form of unmarried-deity worship. The guiding forcefulness behind this brief interruption in polytheism was a mysterious pharaoh who gave himself the proper name Akhenaten. Whether or non his theological experiment influenced or in any fashion stimulated the organized religion outlined in the Old Testament is not clear. What is certain is that the ancient Hebrews were not the but nor fifty-fifty the get-go people on record to adopt the notion of a unmarried catholic entity overseeing everything.
2. Akhenaten
We know both petty and much about Akhenaten—that is to say, we know enough to wish we knew much more—just at least the full general contours of his biography are clear. Born Amunhotep (IV), Akhenaten ruled Egypt for a mere xiv years (ca. 1352-1338 BCE), a relatively short reign by the standards of the twenty-four hour period. While there is no record of his decease nor have whatsoever material remains from his burying as yet come to light, it is safe to presume he died in middle age. The crusade of his death is not known.
The unique and peculiar phase of Egyptian history he represents is known today equally the Amarna Menstruum—the modern Egyptian hamlet of El-Amarna lies almost the site that was once Akhenaten'due south uppercase metropolis—although the Amarna Menses extends beyond his reign, including not only Akhenaten'due south regency but several of his successors':
• Smenkhare (1338-1336 BCE), almost whom side by side to nothing is known;
• Tutankhuaten (later, Tutankhamun ["King Tut"], 1336-1327 BCE), whose current notoriety since the discovery of his tomb in the 1920's far outstrips the male child-king's renown in artifact;
• and finally the very elderly Ay (1327-1323 BCE).
By the time the next series of pharaohs held the throne—Horemheb (1323-1295 BCE) and the Ramessids, a dynasty that included the famous Ramses Two—the site near Amarna had been abandoned and destroyed, along with the memory of Akhenaten's religion in the general censor of the ancient Egyptian public. This deliberate attempt to eradicate all reference in the Egyptian record to the Amarna period was nearly successful, but not quite.
Nosotros do know about Akhenaten, in fact, probably quite a bit more than the ancient Egyptians who lived even just a few generations afterward the monotheist's rule. In spite of the fact that well-nigh no reference remains in later historical records to Akhenaten's being, or that of his firsthand successors'—it's difficult to find even hints of his religion in subsequent Egyptian civilization—archaeology has brought Amarna culture back to calorie-free with astounding clarity and depth. Just like Pompeii (see higher up, Section 1), because of its nearly-total obliteration more is now known most Akhenaten's regime than almost any other period during the New Kingdom of Egypt, a fact Ramses would, no dubiety, non be very happy to learn.
A. Akhetaten (Akhenaten's capital)
To a large extent, our knowledge of Akhenaten's life and times begins in Akhetaten, the urban center he built for himself and his religion, non that the site is specially well preserved. In fact, it's not. Later rulers combative to Amarna culture, the social and religious institutions Akhenaten imposed on Arab republic of egypt, intentionally destroyed Akhetaten forth with the records of Akhenaten's reign. Ironically, however, that program of devastation saved the city and its founder's name for posterity, and for the well-nigh part its preservation depends on the fact that the city rose and fell very quickly. The reason for that stems from the enormous telescopic of modify which Akhenaten attempted—a dramatic shift in religious, political and social traditions—and that meant he had to accept an entirely new, fully functioning capital from which he could run the country without the weight of tradition bearing downwards on him and holding him dorsum. Revolutions oft accept to "seize the solar day" and go along rapidly or else they don't get off the ground at all.
In order to build Akhenaten's city and shrines at such breakneck speed, relatively small-scale blocks were used, stones which are now called talatat —it's easier and faster to raise a structure by using many pocket-size pieces rather than fewer large ones—and, to date, more than 45,000 talatat from Akhenaten'southward buildings accept come up to calorie-free. Indeed, so many have been recovered that today talatat can be found in museums around the world and are a regular item sold on the black market. Simply minor-sized blocks are besides easy to deconstruct. One of the reasons the Peachy Pyramid still stands is the enormous size of the private stones used to build it, and in part because of that it couldn't be rapidly demolished the way Amarna civilization was. Information technology's often the case that what goes up fast comes downwardly the same way.
Other factors played a role in the ready destruction—and preservation!—of Akhenaten's metropolis and religion. The demolitionists who sought to obliterate whatever retentiveness of Akhenaten past eradicating all traces of Amarna culture used his talatat, as fill in their own construction projects. Merely by hiding the talatat within the trunk of other buildings, they inadvertently protected and preserved them for modern archaeologists to find. Because of that, much of Akhenaten's architecture and artwork can exist reconstructed. So it likewise works the other way around: what goes downwardly easily comes back up the same fashion, too.
Akhetaten, this new hub of Aten worship, was situated forth the eastern shore of the Nile in a spot which had never earlier been settled. That was, no dubiety, part of its charm to Akhenaten—it lent the site a sense of austerity and religious purity, the very sort of newness he sought in his own regime—and unlike even the remotest Egyptian village, this locale had non as yet been continued with any cult or deity. Theologically, information technology was a "clean slate," and so to speak. Before Akhenaten's arrival, the place had no name even, allowing the king to dub information technology as he liked, and the name he chose, Akhetaten, ways in Egyptian "the Horizon of the Sun-disk."
And there'due south a good reason people had never attempted to settle this surface area before. Its location is about the desert, a place where it'south well-nigh incommunicable to feed and house a cocky-sustaining populace of any real size—certainly non one large plenty to govern a nation like aboriginal Egypt—so, maintaining the ground forces of bureaucrats and part-workers needed to run Akhenaten's realm depended on the collection of taxes and importation of food stuffs, an expensive and labor-intensive investment of resource. But Akhenaten didn't have to worry well-nigh that. He was the pharaoh, both god and rex, and equally long as he lived, his will was police force. If he wanted to build a castle in the sand, city hall followed.
Nor is it difficult to understand why he should want a city like this, if ane looks at things from his perspective. To start with, desolate locations like el-Amarna have a long history of attracting religious sectarians of Akhenaten'southward sort—environments like that certainly appealed to the desert fathers of early on Christianity and various groups of American pioneers—all of whom accept also felt at domicile in places distant from traditional communities and accustomed practices of regime and worship. Furthermore, from Akhenaten'due south viewpoint, Akhetaten was non without sure charms. Lodged in a recess in the highlands flanking the Nile, the site provides spectacular dawns, and indeed, at sure times of year the sun appears to ascent from a yoke in the mountains which embodies beautifully the solar iconography seen in much of the artwork created during the Amarna period. All in all, it'south not hard to imagine the forenoon Akhenaten awoke on his majestic barge as he was sailing down the Nile, looking for a place to build a new urban center, and saw this sight, a site and then suited to his solitary nature and obsession with the sun.
B. Akhenaten'due south Early Reign (1352-1348 BCE)
How that obsession developed and, in full general, the path which led to this betoken in his career are non hard to reconstruct, either. Although the earliest stages of Akhenaten'south life reveal few overt signs of the religious revolution on the horizon, at that place are several significant hints as to the radical changes most to sunburn Arab republic of egypt. Even if the clarity of hindsight sometimes makes things wait predictable when they're not, these omens are truly telling.
The second son of Amunhotep III, Akhenaten was even so called Amunhotep when he succeeded his begetter to the throne in 1352 BCE. Past all appearances, it was a smooth transition of ability and, fifty-fifty though he had not always been the heir credible—his older brother had been groomed for the kingship only had died several years earlier—the immature Akhenaten was not unprepared to wield the crook-and-flail because, to judge from his last portraits, his father suffered a lingering malady of some sort which slowly killed him, and then it would make sense that, as his health declined, he handed at to the lowest degree some of the reins of authorities to his called successor, even if i called largely by default. None of that, however, would accept helped Akhenaten feel part of or indebted to the traditional structures of Egyptian government and religion in the day.
Almost equally presently equally Akhenaten became the sole ruler of Egypt, he began to alter the traditional presentation of the pharaoh and the ways land business was conducted. For instance, he took on a new title, "Prophet of Ra-Horakhte" ("Ra of the Horizon")—annotation no Amun, the god of mysteries and hidden truth whose name appears in so many Egyptian appellations, e.g. Amunhotep and Tutankhamun—"Prophet of Ra-Horakhte" hints at a certain degree of dissatisfaction with conventional religion, particularly since past Akhenaten's twenty-four hours Amun had long been seen as the central deity in the extensive pantheon of Egyptian gods whose middle of worship was Thebes, the capital city of Egypt. But soon a new 24-hour interval would dawn and Akhenaten would change all that.
C. The Middle and Terminate of Akhenaten's Reign (1348-1338 BCE)
Just ii or three years into his reign, there is clear evidence that a major shift in Egyptian religion has begun. By now the pharaoh had moved the court and capital away from Thebes to Akhetaten and had adopted a new title, the name we know him by, Akhenaten which means in Egyptian "he is agreeable (Akhen-) to the dominicus-disk (- aten )." To have finer removed Amun from his name seems similar an all-but-open up declaration of warfare against the dominant religious potency in the twenty-four hours, the Amun priesthood based in Thebes. And equally if that weren't enough, archaeological evidence shows that effectually this time Akhenaten began closing downward Amun temples across Arab republic of egypt and even had the name Amun erased from some inscriptions. Later, he went so far equally to social club the discussion "gods" removed and changed to "god," wherever information technology occurred in public inscriptions. Whether or not this is monotheism by theological standards, it's certainly grammatical monotheism.
But what was Akhenaten's beefiness with Amun? Why did he dislike this god so intensely? Scholars have suggested it was considering Amun as the god of secrets was too obscure a deity, too inaccessible to the public. Indeed, shrines to Amun are invariably situated in the middle of temple complexes, roofed and dark, where priests solitary may enter and and then just on special occasions. Perchance Akhenaten wished to open upwards Egyptian religion to a wider clientele, not just the clergy, and so he synthetic a capital letter which was the antithesis of Amun worship, exposed as much as possible to the total lite of 24-hour interval, equally the buildings of Akhetaten are: few roofed structures, little shade, and constant exposure to Akhenaten's true begetter as far as he was concerned, non Amunhotep Three but the aten.
Indeed, a letter institute among the remains of Akhetaten confirms exactly this. Writing to Akhenaten, the Assyrian rex complains that the emissaries he sent to Egypt well-nigh died of sunstroke when they were attending some royal ceremony at the pharaoh's capital:
Why are my messengers kept in the open sun? They volition die in the open sun. If it does the king good to stand up in the open lord's day, and so let the rex stand at that place and die in the open sun.
The heat of the Egyptian midday is, in fact, torturous through much of the year, simply standing in the sun and basking in its brilliance is also a natural extension of Akhenaten's religious revolution, something well-nigh all the art of Amarna civilization demonstrates. And this is very dissimilar from the style Amun was worshiped, surely an advantage in Akhenaten's mind. It may even assist to explicate Akhenaten's premature death: pare cancer?
D. Fine art and Iconography in Akhenaten's Reign
The religious iconography of Akhenaten's new belief organization centered around the aten as a divine presence. Representing the life-giving strength of the universe, the dominicus-deejay is frequently depicted in either abstract or personified course, occasionally both at the same time. Though it's most often pictured as a mere circle with rays of lite radiating downwardly, the aten also appears sometimes with lilliputian easily appended onto the ends of its solar beams belongings out to worshipers the ankh , the Egyptian sign of life. In a few instances, the hands are even shoving the ankh rather unceremoniously up the noses of the blessed, a figurative assertion, no doubt, that the sunday offers the "breath of life." It would seem less comical today if this sacrament didn't look so much like an incontinent ear-swab.
Humorous every bit it may be to some of us, the significance of this symbol is nonetheless profound, indeed probably revolutionary to an Egyptian of the day. The sun-worship Akhenaten was promoting surely reminded many of Erstwhile Kingdom theology, by at present a millennium sometime, and its false but pervasive reputation for tyranny (encounter above, Section 5). More than one Egyptian at the time, particularly those in the Amun priesthood, must accept asked themselves, "Sun disks? 'Ra of the Horizon'? What's next? A pyramid?"
Merely Akhenaten'south movement entailed features far stranger than anything which had happened in the Old Kingdom. In fact, it looked forward more than backwards in time, at least inasmuch as the new religion prefigured a very unlike conception of godhead. Though the aten is sometimes depicted as having man or brute attributes, their frequent absenteeism stands in potent contrast to standard Egyptian practice. The goddess Isis, for instance, is often shown as part-woman, part-cow, and the face up of her deceased husband Osiris is sometimes painted green to demonstrate that he represents the rebirth of vegetation in the spring. Simply unlike either of them, Akhenaten's aten is the font of all being, which ways by nature he cannot be restricted in class, and thus is virtually e'er presented as the aptly universal and geometric solar circle. The little hands attached to his sun-rays run counter to this perception of the god and are, no doubt, a reflection of convention and popular taste.
Fifty-fifty to say "he" of the aten is perhaps too restrictive for this universalist conception of deity—gender is clearly non relevant to sun-disks—and stranger yet, to say "he" of Akhenaten himself isn't e'er valid either. Male and female person styles which are usually discrete in traditional Egyptian art blend together in peculiar fashion throughout Amarna civilisation, extending as far as royal portraiture. Akhenaten, for example, is shown in a series of colossi (large statues; singular, colossus) lacking male ballocks, and in full general, his delineation is odd, to say the least. He'due south oft portrayed as pot-bellied, slouching, thick-lipped, with a big chin and pointed head, which has led scholars to suppose he suffered from some sort of birth defect, resulting in eunuchoidism. But if then, how did he sire a family unit, for in art he appears with equally many as six different daughters? And those are only the ones he had past his chief married woman.
That raises another fascinating and enigmatic outcome concerning Akhenaten's revolution, the centrality of his family unit in the public presentation of his regime. Not only do we have many depictions of the beautiful Nefertiti, Akhenaten's principal wife—more, in fact, than of Akhenaten himself!—merely we can trace the royal daughters' births year by year, and sadly sometimes their deaths as well. Reliefs even evidence the majestic couple playing with the girls. Like no pharaoh before or after him, Akhenaten was family-oriented.
Thus, it seems unlikely he was a eunuch, but instead the real male parent of the children he professes, at least through his art, to admire so fondly. But the gender-bending portraits of him seem ill-suited for such a family man, past modern standards at least. And Nefertiti'due south depictions are non immune to cross-gendering, either. She's shown at least once wearing the blueish crown, the helmet kings don every bit they become into boxing. She's the just Egyptian queen ever known to have been depicted that way, including Hatshepsut, the adult female who ruled Egypt singlehandedly for two decades a century before (encounter Section 9). There'south something very odd, past any standard, nigh the style the Amarna rulers chose to portray themselves.
Indeed, the unabridged family is depicted with elongated faces and skulls, wide hips and sagging bellies. The alpine hat Nefertiti wears in her famous bust is probably roofing—mayhap even accentuating—her pointed head beneath, even though surely she was not congenitally deformed, and as the mother of 6 daughters, certainly not barren. Nor were the girls, which is all the more show Akhenaten also was not. Naturalistic portraiture seems a less likely explanation of the oddities inherent in this family unit than some sort of stylized rendering. In that location'south doubtless something abnormal nigh them, but what? And why? That the royal family unit was the only grouping ever portrayed this way is surely a clue.
To depict Akhenaten'south entire immediate family unit—and but them—in such an unusual manner must signify something. Perhaps their different await is meant to highlight exactly that, the fact that they're different. Possibly the royal family is supposed to represent something alien, transcendental, not bound to human or earthly distinctions such equally gender. It's easy to see why this would entreatment to Akhenaten, nor is it hard to understand why Nefertiti might go along with beingness designated as super-special, and the children would, of class, have been too young to have a choice or even know the divergence.
All this concurs well with Akhenaten's religion, where the pharaoh was said to serve as the conduit between humanity and the aten. In other words, it'south through and because of him the sun-disk bestows life on the planet. In his own words, a hymn Akhenaten claims to have composed himself about the aten, "At that place is no other who knows you except your son, Akhenaten." That makes the pharaoh and his family unit some species of divine beings among humankind, earth-jump extraterrestrials on whose good will the benefits of the sun, and thus all life, depend. One way or another, before Akhenaten's day the Egyptians had always considered the sun a god and the royal family was for the virtually part seen as divine, only equally the simply divine presence in the universe? That, indeed, was something unlike.
The imagery of Amarna culture with all of its strangeness has attracted not but scholars but a wide range of iconoclasts, revolutionaries and weirdos of every ilk, who take latched onto this radiant, unworldly, rebel pharaoh and by and large caught the reflection of their ain oddity in his slouching, fat-lipped silhouette. The many answers posited to the riddle of Akhenaten are, in any case, less of import than the few, frail realities clinging to his reign and the questions they get out at our feet. Among them, how did he sustain such a bizarre reordering of the celestial kingdom? For more than a decade, we must remember, Akhenaten kept his divine fantasies afloat even equally he faced down the Amun priesthood, traditional cults in Arab republic of egypt and a nation long nurtured on a pantheon of gods numbering by that day in the thousands. Before we can ask why whatsoever of this happened or what happened to it, we must get-go try to sympathize how it happened at all.
Akhenaten must have had some supporters, besides the usual lunatic fringe and sycophant wing who volition follow any maniac into the wilderness. A hint near their identity comes in one of the Amarna reliefs in which Nefertiti holds up the decapitated head of a foreign captive. That suggests some sort of military machine activity during Akhenaten'southward reign, an result history bears no bear witness of otherwise. Only that'southward non surprising actually, given subsequently pharaohs' destruction of records from this day. Whatever boast of victory in strange wars the monomaniacal monotheist might have issued isn't probable to take survived their holocaust. So, if Akhenaten did have the support of the Egyptian regular army—and there'due south no existent evidence to the opposite—his revolution would make much more sense. Nonetheless, an regular army bankroll an effeminate, secluded, family-loving, pointy-headed dominicus freak seems highly improbable by the standards of today. And then again, how much tin can we rely on our mod sensibilities hither where and then little else seems logical?
All the same, strange times often make strange bedfellows. If both the pharaoh and the military were seeking the same thing—for example, to undercut the power of the Amun priesthood which by so was siphoning off a hefty percentage of the taxes collected in Egypt—the aten and the army might have made common cause. Or so some scholars advise. All the same, information technology must have been an interesting coming together between the slouching sun-lover and the hardened desert troopers who defended Egypt'south frontier. How did they find enough in mutual even to have a conversation, much less foment a revolution together?
Iii. The Backwash of Akhenaten's Reign
Akhenaten died sometime after the fourteenth year of his reign. Initially he was buried near Akhetaten, but afterwards his tomb was desecrated and his body moved to Thebes and reburied in the Valley of the Kings, the traditional resting place for New Kingdom pharaohs. Some scholars believe a badly damaged male mummy found at that place is Akhenaten's. If and so, it shows that he did in fact have an unusually elongated skull, but little else tin exist gleaned from this body, non even the crusade of decease.
What killed him? He was still in his thirties or forties, so it tin't have been old age. Disease is always a possibility, and in that location is show that a plague struck Egypt around this time. The historical record, however, contains not a single hint of foul play in his expiry, all of which leaves usa to gauge its crusade. Sunstroke? Mono-theistic-nucleosis? Aten-tion deficit disorder? Above all, what happened in downtown Akhetaten on that gloomy day when the reason the sunday-disk shines on the globe, the pharaoh of light and life, departed this earth, and the side by side morning the sun still rose? That must have been a disconcerting moment for the aten-true-blue.
Archaeology has, all the same, made one thing very articulate. Akhetaten was not abandoned immediately upon Akhenaten'south death. Edifice continued, at least for a while. How the regime continued is less articulate. Akhenaten'southward successor, for instance, is all but a complete mystery. Named Smenkhare, which is close to all nosotros know almost him, this pharaoh appears of a sudden in the historical record ii years before Akhenaten's death. A late relief depicting Smenkhare with Akhenaten is about all there is to rail this most cryptic of Egyptian pharaohs, along with a few documents showing that he married ane of Akhenaten'south daughters, surely an try to secure his merits to the throne after Akhenaten'southward death.
Curiously, Smenkhare's rise coincides almost exactly with another mysterious event, the all-but-consummate disappearance of Nefertiti from the art of El-Amarna. Only once in the concluding two years of Akhenaten's reign is she shown, in a funerary tableau recording the decease of one of her and Akhenaten's daughters. Ane theory is that Akhenaten sensing the approach of death—just how?—married his eldest daughter past Nefertiti to Smenkhare who was the son of a secondary wife. In fact, he had little choice only to practice this because Nefertiti had never given him a son—half-dozen daughters just no male heir—and Egyptian tradition demanded some sort of "son of the pharaoh" succeed. Thus in the absence of a crown prince, the son of a secondary wife usually stepped in every bit successor.
But this is not the merely explanation that's been offered. Another theory proposes—and in lite of the unusual circumstances surrounding the aten-cult at Akhetaten, information technology's not nigh equally unlikely equally it might seem at kickoff glance—that Smenkhare was Nefertiti! Knowing his death was imminent and seeing no clear and obvious heir on the horizon since he'd had no sons by Nefertiti and so at that place was no pointy-headed male to stem the family'southward aten-uation, Akhenaten created a "son" for himself out of the most obvious candidate in that location was, non a secondary son only his primary married woman.
Family was, after all, of utmost importance in this new earth society, and she had held the power of Arab republic of egypt in her hands—had even worn the bluish crown!—best of all, she was already one of the chosen, the long-necked beloved of the aten. So, similar whatever social-climbing secondary son, Nefertiti "married" her own daughter and took the throne as a man, assuming as was traditional a new proper name, Smenkhare. That would help to explicate why she disappears at the very moment Akhenaten's successor enters the picture.
Like many ingenious solutions—and this age does seem to attract them—it didn't work. For whatever reason, Nefertiti couldn't cut information technology equally "king," not that there hadn't been woman kings in Arab republic of egypt who had taken male guise earlier. Hatshepsut, for instance, had portrayed herself with masculine attributes in more than one work of art (come across above, Section 9). She had maintained herself on the throne with the support of the regular army, just possibly the army in this twenty-four hour period was willing to back an effeminate male but not a masculinized woman as king. Or peradventure Nefertiti was simply more beautiful than savvy. Despite all their protestations of hope for world peace, beauty pageant winners rarely attain that aim.
In any case, the elusive Smenkhare disappears two years into "his" reign. No tomb for Smenkhare has ever been located nor accept any of his burial appurtenances been constitute. At that place is only no further mention of him at all in Egyptian history. Though it'southward pure speculation, it's hard to believe Smenkhare wasn't assassinated by someone. After all, he had so many enemies, probably far more than than what few supporters he could muster. Perhaps emissaries of the Amun priesthood did him in, or spies sent from an army unwilling to be led by a woman—over again!—or even by a disgusted daughter-husband in league with some would-exist-pharaoh, an actual homo who was not her mother. Or perhaps it was all of them in league together, and with this we are dangerously close to writing the starting time draft of Murder on the Orient Express.
Whatever the what-actually-happened, Amarna culture left behind one of the most famous kings in history today—and one of the least famous kings in his own time—Tutankhamun, popularly known as "King Tut." Originally named Tutankh(u)aten (1336-1325 BCE), the male child-king succeeded Smenkhare to the throne. Adequately early in his reign, he was persuaded to change his name and, doing exactly the opposite of Akhenaten when he causeless ability, took the aten out and put "Amun" in. With that alone, the resurgence of the Amun cult is all too apparent. At some point around this fourth dimension, the regal courtroom left Akhetaten and returned to Thebes, no dubiousness, into the warm comprehend of the reigning priesthood much relieved to have their livelihood back on line. Their gratitude, in fact, would help explain the relative grandeur of Tutankhamun's burial.
Only xix years onetime when he died, Tutankhamun'south failure to exit behind a male successor is hardly surprising and paved the way for a new dynasty and a world view far different from Akhenaten's. Then, the Amarna Period ends with this male child-male monarch, only to be reborn in the modern earthworks of El-Amarna and Thebes, and especially in the American archaeologist Howard Carter'south famous discovery in 1922 of Tutankhamun'southward tomb and its splendors. The magnificence of this hastily assembled burying is phenomenal, peculiarly when one thinks what a existent purple burying, like Ramses II's, must have entailed.
All in all,Tutankhamun's decease and funeral is the epilogue of the Amarna Period in antiquity. There is little in the rest of ancient Egyptian history that recalls or even reflects this brilliant, odd moment in the evolution of its religion. Outside of Arab republic of egypt, well, that's some other thing.
Iv. Conclusion: Akhenaten and Hebrew Monotheism
In today's world, the pre-eminent effect surrounding Akhenaten is whether or not his faith did—or even could have!—influenced the evolution of Hebrew monotheism, a theology which the historical data suggest evolved several centuries subsequently Akhenaten'southward lifetime. The answer to that question depends on two chief factors. How akin are Hebrew and Egyptian monotheism? And is in that location whatever way in which the Hebrews could realistically accept had meaning contact with atenism, enough to borrow elements from it or, if not, even just have been influenced past it?
To answer the offset question, Hebrew monotheism differs in several significant ways from Akhenaten's faith. While the aten is an almighty, stand-lone divinity, it's also present specifically in the low-cal of the sunday-disk and the pharaoh's family unit, and so its divinity is express in a way the Hebrew deity's is not. The God of Israel acts through all sorts of different media: angels, rainbows, floodwaters and, as biblical Egyptians ought to know perfectly well, frogs. Nor was there any real endeavor by Egyptian monotheists to extend the aten'south power beyond Egypt, the manner God's power is seen by subsequently Hebrew prophets to embrace all creation. And so, while Akhenaten claims the aten is universal, he speaks of it more like it's a pharaoh at the center of some catholic court full of fawning, powerless minions—that is, it looks like him.
Still, both cultures share the cardinal notion, if not the details, of monotheism. Could the Hebrews have picked that up from the Egyptians somehow? Any such idea
presumes, of course, that Hebrews existed in some form during Akhenaten's reign—later pharaohs' eradication of all records pertaining to Akhenaten's religion and regime makes afterwards cultural borrowing highly unlikely—and many scholars would say flatly there weren't whatever Hebrews at all during that fourth dimension, at least not Hebrews as such. State of israel was definitely non an organized nation in the fourteenth century BCE, merely then theological notions do non require a political country for their existence. Wandering patriarchs, as attested in the Bible during this age, could hands take borrowed the concept of monotheism from Egypt. Merely at that place'due south no evidence Egyptian monotheism spread beyond the borders of its native land, then if Hebrews borrowed this idea from Amarna culture, they would have to take been living in Egypt around the time of Akhenaten's reign. That, as well, seems unlikely, except that biblical sources say they were.
In the and so-called Egyptian Captivity which the Bible claims lasted several centuries, Hebrews did, in fact, live in Arab republic of egypt, enslaved past powerful New Kingdom pharaohs until the Exodus when Moses led them to freedom in the Holy Lands. If that really happened, they must have been in Arab republic of egypt when Akhenaten had his cursory day in the blazing sun. Merely considering the great majority of scholars today downplay the historicity of the Exodus—at that place is certainly no corroborating bear witness massive numbers of Hebrews fled Egypt at whatsoever point in ancient history—over again this seems unlikely. Still, information technology doesn't take huge crowds of Hebrews in Arab republic of egypt to introduce the idea of monotheism into Israelite thinking. All you demand is ane average Joe, or Joseph.
So, it's possible to weave together from the historical data a scenario in which the thought of monotheism threaded its way somehow out of Egyptian theology and into Israelite culture. But when one looks closely, it's not a very tightly woven tapestry, especially in light of where the Bible says the Hebrews were in Egypt. The city of Goshen in which scripture claims they lived as captives is probably synonymous with an Egyptian settlement in the Nile delta chosen Pi-Ramesse ("the City of Ramses"). If so, information technology's many miles from Akhetaten, and there's very lilliputian bear witness to exist plant in Egyptian art or history that Akhenaten's revolutionary theology filtered that far north. Nor is it likely information technology would have fared well in this office of Egypt, a stronghold of Ramses' family unit. The Ramessids were staunchly opposed to atenistic thinking and later on attempted to eradicate all traces information technology had e'er existed. Then, how is it even possible Ramses' structure slaves heard about a far-off, out-of-date religious tradition strongly proscribed past their tyrannical overseers?
With that, the evidence seems to weigh heavily against the argument that the Hebrews came into contact with the aten and from that caught the monotheism issues, or even heard nigh the belief in just one god. With no obvious channels of advice on either side, information technology's improbable Akhenaten'southward revolution could in any manner have influenced or even been the inspiration for Hebrew one-god thinking. Think nigh how many of the globe's peachy inventions have cropped up independently in different places. Writing and literature, for instance, arose in both the West and the E with no apparent connectedness between them, equally did agriculture, drama and ship-building.
Thus, proximity in time or space lone is merely circumstantial prove and doesn't constitute a compelling case from any Amarna-Israelite connection. It's perfectly possible some aboriginal Hebrew came up with the idea of monotheism all on his own. Later on all, all he had to say was "Hmmm, I wonder if there's just one god?" Even in a earth predicated on polytheistic traditions, how hard is that?
And and then yous open the Bible to Psalm 104, the great manifesto of God's all-encompassing power, and read how He created grass for cattle to swallow, and trees for birds to nest in, and the body of water for ships to sail and fish to swim in:
Bless the Lord . . . you who coverest thyself with low-cal as with a garment . . .
Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters; . . .
He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and . . . the trees
Where the birds make their nests; as for the stork, the fir copse are her business firm.
The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats; . . .
(Every bit) the lord's day ariseth, (the beasts) gather themselves together . . .
There become the ships: in that location is that leviathan (whale), whom thou hast made to play therein.
Among the remains of Amarna civilization was found a Hymn to the Aten, purportedly written by Akhenaten himself. It reads:
When the land grows vivid and you are risen from the Akhet (horizon) and shining in the sun-disk by day, . . .
All flocks (are) at remainder on their grasses, copse and grasses flourishing;
Birds flown from their nest, their wings in adoration of your life-force;
All flocks prancing on human foot, all that wing and alight living equally you ascent for them;
Ships going downstream and upstream too, every road open at your advent;
Fish on the river leaping to your face, your rays fifty-fifty inside the bounding main. (trans. James P. Allen)
The similarity is fairly phenomenal. Comparing these passages, who could argue against some form of cultural commutation moving from Egypt to State of israel—and, given the chronology, one must suppose the sharing took identify in that management—how tin we avert the determination that the ancient Hebrew who wrote Psalm 104 has somehow borrowed from Akhenaten'southward Hymn to the Aten?
With that, the realization begins to dawn that answers to the great question about the origins of Hebrew monotheism are not going to come up swiftly or easily. How did a Hebrew psalmist's eyes—or ears?—ever pass near a banned Egyptian hymn? While the psalm is hardly a verbatim copy of its Amarna model, the likeness of these songs, especially in their imagery and the lodge in which the images come, argues forcefully for some sort of Egypt-to-Palestine contact, however indirect.
And if in that location is contact there, why not elsewhere? But if nosotros imagine an invisible turnpike of some sort running between Akhetaten and aboriginal Jerusalem, what are we actually creating: a history or a novel? And by doing so, are nosotros not at chance of saying more near ourselves than the odd, beguiling world Akhenaten built, whose slanted low-cal yet shines from beneath sand and stone and scripture? Historiai, you'll remember, means "questions," and that is exactly what the history of Akhenaten leaves behind.
Source: https://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320hist&civ/chapters/10AKHEN.htm
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