One effect of Akhenaton's revolution was that Tutankhamen, who died at the age of eighteen, was forgotten. The location of his tomb, an all-important part of an Egyptian king's legacy, was lost as well. Grave-robbers never found it, as they did the graves of virtually all the pharaohs. When the Egyptologist Howard Carter found it in 1922, the tomb contained a wealth in archaeological treasures. Tutankhamen became much more famous in death than in life.
Likewise, Amarna became an important archaeological site. When Tutankhamen's court hastily moved away, they left behind a vast array of records detailing, for instance, Egypt's relations with other countries of the time. Called the “Amarna
Letters,” these records, written on some 380 clay tablets, were found accidentally in 1887.
Akhenaton, though he was removed from the memory of a nation shocked by his act of dishonor to the gods, has lived on in the minds of modern people. Some scholars believe that he simply used the new religion as a way to gain control over the politically powerful priests of Amon-Ra. Others have regarded him as a heroic figure who tried and failed to bring a new truth to a people unwilling to accept it. In the twentieth century, he has been the subject of numerous fictional books, a play by the mystery writer Agatha Christie, and an opera by composer Philip Glass.
Certainly what Akhenaton proposed was the wave of the future. The idea of monotheism took hold in the religion of the Israelites, who were probably living in Egypt at the time, and in turn influenced Christianity and Islam. Today Egypt is a Muslim country, where one of the most important beliefs, declared before prayers five times a day, is “There is no god but God.”
World History
