Akhenaton: The King who worshiped one god in the state of Polytheism
The Religious Status before Akhenaten:
The 18th Dynasty Kings has originated from Thebes which remained the most important religious center in the country. Its local god Amun (imn: the hidden one) had become associated with the sun god Ra’. This this god was worshipped in every major temple in Egypt, which made his Temples received a significant part of Egypt’s wealth and his priesthood had acquired considerable political and economic power, which was changed soon by King Akhenaten.
Who is King Akhenaten?
King Akhenaten, the King who made a lot of confusion about his system of ruling Egypt and his reign. His name is Amenhotep IV; he is the son of King Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye and the grandson of Yuya and Tuya, he married his cousin Nefertiti (The beautiful one come) she was the daughter of Ay the brother of Queen Tiye.
Amenhotep III was the son of King Thutmusis IV and Mutemwiya, Tiye was the daughter of Yuya and Tuya; Yuya was holding a high position and ranks in the Eighteenth Dynasty and he married Tuya which was god’s singer of god Min and god Amun in Karnak Temples.
Akhenaten is the father of the young King Tutankhamun from the consort Kia; the early reign period of King Akhenaton is partially unknown if he was a co-regent with his father or not but the co-regency between Amenhotep III and his son is entirely rejected by the majority of scholars, He was crowned by Amun of Thebes and he was mentioned as (A real King’s son) on one of the many mud brick jars sealing found in his father’s palace (Malkata Palace).
In his 2nd year of his reign he opened sandstone quarries in Gebel el- Silsila, he undertook a major building program at Karnak Temples using the Talatat Blocks, and he even built a temple for Aten to the east of the enclosure wall and placed 23 statues with his features. These are limestone blocks with standard size 27 by 27 by 54 cm. was used majorly in the time of King Akhenaten as a building material in the construction of the temple constructed under the order of the King and of course in building his new city Akhetaten ( The Horizon of Aten), the blocks was convenient in use because of their similar size but unfortunately after the death of Akhenaten the usage of these blocks stopped and even the blocks was reused as a filling material in the pylons in the Karnak Temples and as a foundation base for the great hypostyle hall in the same Temple.
Actually Akhenaten reigned from 4 to 6 years from Thebes but after that he started in calling people to stop worshiping all the gods except for Aten whose first mention was in the Pyramid Text the religious book in the Old Kingdom, the cult of Aten reappeared in the reign of his father Amenhotep III, after some problems with the priesthood in Thebes, Akhenaten left Thebes with his family and followers to his new city Akhetaten in Tell El- Amarna nowadays in Minya Governorate.
Tell El Amarna:
King Akhenaten himself remained unknown until the discovering of Al-Amarna city as he was hated by the rulers after him and by the people of Egypt not for only changing the religion system of the state but also for leaving the ruling of Egypt and became isolated in his new city.
The city of Al-Amarna has its own style of building and art, the Temples was built to worship only Aten so they used to build the Temples without roofs to see their god and practice their rituals without any barrier.
The style of art in this city is confusing actually everything related to this King is not clear from the style of art and the disappearance of the King’s mummy to the disappearance of Queen Nefertiti herself before the end of the reign of King Akhenaten by few years. The statues of the King were in very strange shape with long thin face, long neck, pointed chin, sleepy eyes, narrow shoulders, pierced ear lobes, fleshy lips, bulging belly, large hips and pointed legs.
This takes us to three possibilities:
First: The Medical Point of View
Scholars thought that the King had a tumor in the pituitary gland which led to this appearance.
Second: The Religious Point of View
According to the principles of the new cult, the King is the only link between the followers and their god, so he represented himself like this as a combination between the Male and Female features which led to the strange appearance of the King.
Third: The Artistic Point of View
Following the principles of art in this era which was realism the most probably that the King was suffering from a disease but the artists exaggerated in in presenting this disease
The King with his new cult was haven’t any chance to survive in front of the priests of Amun Ra’, the new cult was not that strong and even in Tell El-Amarna people continued to worship Amun Ra’.
The status of the country was in continuous decline and it can be shown in the letters of Al-Amarna, it were clay tablets discovered by accident in land of a peasant women who was digging in her land in 1887, she found 382 clay tablets and unfortunately sold them to an antiquities merchant for two cups for each tablet. These antiquities merchant was super-fast in buying the antiquities to sell it with larger amount of money outside Egypt.
These Tablets were describing the miserable status of the Egyptian lands in Levant and the Northeastern lands that was taken by the warrior King Thutmusis III.
The Tablets are recording the letters between the viceroys of the Egyptian Empire in Asia and the Egyptian administration at the time of King Akhenaten, mysteriously with no respond from the King. The viceroys were saying that the land is going to cry which means that the people of this land in preparing themselves to take the land that is under the Egyptian authority, another letter saying that the land is about to cry which means that the army of the people is on the boarders of the city. The last sadly letter was saying that the land is crying now which means that the people took back the land and what is shocking that there was no a single response from the King.
