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Egyptian religion and culture before Akhenaton's reign.

The religion of ancient Egypt was static and traditional, urging that the gods had given a good order and that it was necessary for man to hold firmly to the order. When changes did occur, religion tried to incorporate them into the system as though they came from the creation. By the time Akhenaton took the throne as the fourth pharaoh named Amenhotep, the 18th dynasty (1539–1292 BC) had run for nearly 200 years, and there had been a century of imperial conquest and control of foreign lands. Egypt dominated Palestine, Phoenicia, and Nubia. The nation was powerful, rich, and courted by lesser princes. To maintain these gains, a military and political group controlled the culture. Since the Egyptian state had always been theocratic, ruled by a god or gods, according to traditional beliefs, this group interlocked with the priesthood. The richest and most powerful of the gods, such as Amon of Thebes or Re of Heliopolis, it was held, dictated the purpose of the state. The king had to apply to the gods for oracles directing his major activities. In return for wealth, elegance, and the role of the leading actor in a drama of imperial success, the pharaoh had relinquished his religious (and military) authority to others.

A century before Akhenaton, the energetic pharaoh Thutmose III had conquered the neighbouring parts of Asia and Africa. His successors continued his vigorous method of life, but, when the conquered territories were firmly held, that vigour turned from warfare to sports. Akhenaton's father, Amenhotep III, was a mighty hunter in his youth, but the son was weak physically and could not follow the pattern of outdoor feats. His activities were intellectual.

The sudden spread of empire had excited the Egyptian culture. Architecture became less firmly planted and soared upward in assertiveness. In the visual arts, the predominant heavy, angular style of rendering became softer and rounder. Egyptian soldiers and officials lived in foreign countries, and foreigners lived in Egypt. The sharp differences between the people of the Nile valley and the people abroad were blurred. Egyptian gods had temples in other countries, and foreign gods were introduced into Egypt. Gods and goddesses were concerned about Asia and Africa, as well as Egypt. Hymns before Akhenaton's reign show that the spread of empire meant the spread of religion. Gods became universal. Egypt had already combined gods, with Amon and Re (the sun-god) becoming Amon-Re or even Amon-Re-Harakhte. This permitted the Egyptians to think of the gods as unified forces, which was a prelude to monotheism.

There were other breaks in tradition. The royal line, wherever possible, had been kept pure by marriages of the heirs with princesses of the king's own family. Amenhotep III defied this custom by marrying a commoner named Tiy. She apparently enjoyed unusual power in the palace without abandoning her loyalty to her husband. Akhenaton was a child of this marriage.

Empire was held firmly by garrisons abroad, which assured the favourable flow of trade to Egypt. Near the Nile valley there were rich gold mines, so that the country could dominate both trade and politics. Messengers traveled between Egyptian and foreign cities carrying letters written in Babylonian cuneiform, the international language of the day, on clay tablets. This correspondence shows the imperial power and elegance of Egypt, which seemed to be assured of its unending dominance over all the nearby countries.

Akhenaton's early reign.

Scholars disagree whether Amenhotep III associated his son Amenhotep IV on the throne for several years of coregency or whether the younger king succeeded to rule after the death of his father. It is here assumed that the older king died before the younger pharaoh gained power. The latter still used the family name Amenhotep, and on his ascension he still worshiped the old gods, especially Amon of Thebes and a sun-god, Re-Harakhte. His first buildings near Thebes were started in the older, massive architecture, using huge stone blocks and showing the worship of Re-Harakhte. The art was traditional, even though the figures of men and gods were carved in a softer outline than they had been a century earlier.

Within his first few years as pharaoh there were changes. He abandoned the temple to Re-Harakhte and began to build a place to worship a new form of sun-god—the disk of the sun, called the Aton. It had been a little-known deity for two generations before him. The Aton was never shown in human or animal form, except insofar as the extended rays of the sun disk might end in hands to confer blessings upon men. This was the life-giving and life-sustaining power of the sun. He had no image in the hidden sanctuary of a temple but was to be worshiped out in sun-warmed openness. The buildings for the Aton were of a new kind. The massive solidity of the older temples was given up, and walls were run up of much smaller stones and were jammed with excited little scenes in a feverish new art. When artistic inventiveness was encouraged, forms were exaggerated to the point of caricature. Since the young king had a drooping jaw, a scrawny neck, sloping shoulders, a pot belly, and thick thighs, these features were carved in a grotesque way. The shape of the king became the flattering pattern for his followers, so that they also were shown with thin necks and round bellies. The king's wife, Nefertiti, may be beautiful in some of the sculptures made of her, but the new art often showed her as though she were a misshapen hag. Egyptian art changed from a static statement of eternity into a liveliness that is both fascinating and repelling. It came down from eternity to the here and now, with pictures of the king presiding over a specific ceremony, kissing his wife, or gnawing on a bone at the dining table. As long as art had shown the indefinite future, it had had no exact time or place; under the new pharaoh it told stories about what happened to the royal family and their followers.

Life and rule at Akhetaton

(Amarna). The new temples were built at Karnak, near Thebes, a region dominated by the god Amon and by the families that had run the state for several generations. The new king had to break away sharply from this traditional setting. In the fifth year of his reign he changed his name from Amenhotep (“Amon Is Satisfied”) to Akhenaton (“One Useful to Aton”), thus formally declaring his new religion; and he moved his capital from Thebes more than 200 miles (300 km) north to a desert bay on the east side of the Nile River, a place now called Tell el-Amarna or Amarna. Here he began to build a new city, which he called Akhetaton (“Place of the Aton's Effective Power”). He took an oath that he would never go beyond the bounds of this place, which seems to mean not that he would never leave it but that he would not push the city limits beyond designated boundary stones. He was now free from the hostile forces at Thebes.

In their new home, Akhenaton, Nefertiti, and their six daughters gave themselves over to the new “truth.” Their family life was open to the public. They worshiped the Aton in a temple open to the sunlight. The newly made nobles and officials gave their devotion to Akhenaton and Nefertiti.

Although the Egyptian texts always asserted that the king was a god and therefore the source of every benefit for the land, the complexities of a large empire, the activities of the bureaucrats, and the enticements of royal privilege had made Akhenaton's predecessors captives of the state. His political reforms were hence reactionary, inasmuch as he tried to recapture the old authority of the king. If the focus is only on the spectacular new elements that he introduced, the fact that his domination of rule was a restoration of a very old “truth” may be obscured.

The new city at Amarna must have had charm. Officials lived in spacious villas with trees, pools, and gardens. Indoors the walls were painted in the free flowing new art, with marsh scenes near the floor and floral bouquets near the ceiling. Amarna art ranged from the very gracious, such as the famous bust of Nefertiti, to the grotesque. Everything was lively. Probably the elegant fragility of the portrait of Nefertiti displeased the traditionalists. Instead of presenting a solidity that might last forever, it gave a delicate and fleeting impression. The new “truth” came down to earth. The prime minister was shown running in front of the king's chariot, an exertion that would have been unthinkable in the staid old times. Scenes of the busy market and the soldiers' guardroom, with lively comments of the people, are depicted. Present-day viewers of this ancient art feel as though they were there.

The new religion.

The religion of the Aton is not completely understood. Akhenaton and Nefertiti worshipped only this sun-god. For them he was “the sole god.” Akhenaton had dropped his older name Amenhotep, and the name “Amon” was also hacked out of the inscriptions throughout Egypt. Here and there the names of other gods and goddesses were removed, and in some texts the words “all gods” were eliminated. The funerary religion dropped Osiris, and Akhenaton became the source of blessings for the people after death. The figure of Nefertiti replaced the figures of protecting goddesses at the corners of a stone sarcophagus. Yet Akhenaton and Nefertiti directed their worship only to the Aton. It was the closest approach to monotheism that the world had ever seen.

The king addressed a beautiful hymn to his god, expressing gratitude for the benefits of life. The Aton, says the hymn, gave these blessings not only to the Egyptians but also to “Syria and Nubia” and to “all distant foreign countries,” to “all men, cattle, and wild beasts,” to the lion coming from his den, the fish in the river, and the chick within the egg. Men live when the sun has risen, but at night the dark land is as if dead. It has often been pointed out that this hymn has a remarkable similarity to Psalm 104 in the Bible. Both the hymn and the psalm reflect a common family of ideas, according to which God or the god is praised for his bounties.

The Aton religion was a happy nature worship, without an ethical code. Men were asked only to be grateful to the sun for life and warmth. It was unlike the awful austerity of the great gods of former Egypt, who might punish man for disobedience. It was quite unlike the heavy demands that the Hebrew god would lay upon his people. In the Aton religion there was no “Thou shalt . . .” and no “Thou shalt not. . . .”

An aesthetic and intellectual religion, it probably had no deep roots. There is no evidence that the people worshiped the Aton happily; in their tombs they prayed to the Aton but also to Akhenaton and Nefertiti. The people wanted to see a definite force. Akhenaton was the same god-king who had always ruled Egypt, and Nefertiti could substitute for all the former mother goddesses. The king and queen seem to have accepted this worship as their just due.

The decline and end of Akhenaton's reform movement.

The politics of the time must have been troubled. Although the ruling classes had been shorn of their powers, there was still an army. It may have been restless, because the documents show that Akhenaton paid little attention to it. Without a strong army and navy, foreign trade began to fall off, and internal taxes began to disappear into the pockets of local officials, finally causing the discontented priesthood and civil officials to combine with the army to discredit the new movement. Akhenaton was able to withstand these forces, but his weaker successors could not.

The Amarna Letters, discovered in the ruins of Tell el-Amarna from an archive of international correspondence directed by Asian princes to the courts of Amenhotep III and Akhenaton, reflect the new situation. The army commanders and high commissioners in Palestine and Syria were neglected. The local princes, who had seen their advantage in trading with Egypt, became despondent when Egypt did not answer their appeals for support. Hostile forces arose, ambitious princes in Palestine and Syria, invaders from the eastern desert, and the venturesome Hittites to the north. The Amarna Letters, as well as the archives found at the Hittite capital, show the disintegration of the Egyptian empire in Asia. Loyal princes were forced to flee their cities. Aggressors, aided by the Hittites, captured territory from the Egyptian army. It may be that Egypt lost all of its holdings except the southwest corner of Palestine. Akhenaton's preoccupation with ideas and ideals cost Egypt its proud empire.

Akhenaton may have given in a little in the face of these disasters. In the 12th year of his reign the queen mother, Tiy, a practical woman, made a visit to Amarna. There is some evidence that he modified his extremism after that. The matter is confused, involving Akhenaton's estrangement from Nefertiti and the promotion of his young son-in-law Smenkhkare as a favourite. Since Smenkhkare apparently returned to Thebes, compromise seems to have been in the air.

When Akhenaton died, he was succeeded briefly by Smenkhkare and then by a second son-in-law, Tutankhaton. The latter was forced to change his name to Tutankhamen, dropping the Aton and embracing Amon, to abandon Amarna and move back to Thebes, and to pay penance by giving the old gods new riches and privileges. When the tomb of Tutankhamen was discovered in western Thebes in 1922, it gave a final illustration of the sumptuous glories of Amarna art. A few years after the death of this young king, the army took over the throne in the person of General Horemheb. He instituted counterreforms in order to restore the old system fully.

Assessment.

Akhenaton was a strange figure, spiritually and physically. Representations of his peculiar, unmanly body have been studied by pathologists with no unanimous conclusions. Some modern scholars have also questioned his ability to father children, but the presence of six daughters would certainly indicate that he was potent. Despite conflicting statements in the literature, it now seems certain that his mummy has never been found. Anciently and modernly he has been a controversial person, but the very fury of the controversy shows that he was a major figure of ancient history. The strong and changing forces of his day shaped his determined nature, and yet he stood estranged from his day in the strength of his ideas and ideals.