Egyptian religion provided believers with comfort through the many assurances that it provided. It helped to explain the unexplainable - the great mysteries of death and birth. The gods were approachable. Their human, or partially human, form and their behavior made them familiar. Faith supported the structure of Egyptian society by providing a paternal king who was both godlike and - in theory at least - accessible and protective. It is not difficult to see how so many features of Egyptian religion stayed generally static for hundreds of centuries, reinforcing a conservative society in a potentially threatening world. Yet, there was one brief historical moment - the Amarna Period - in which the Egyptians' beliefs were challenged and disrupted, a moment when religious philosophy and practice were altered to introduce an apparently far less appealing and less functional set of beliefs. This negative appraisal of ancient Egypt's religious "revolution" is not just a modern opinion, for the new religion did not outlive its promulgator by more than a few years. The Amarna religion, its precepts, and its actual impact on Egyptian society are still among the most debated topics in Egyptology.
The "Amarna Period" (roughly 1350-1325 BC) refers to the reigns of Amunhotep IV (who changed his name to Akhenaten) (Fig. 77) and his two successors, Smenkhkare and Tutankhamun " During his reign, Amunhotep IV initiated a new theology that was nothing less than a complete reconsideration of the nature of the world and the relationship of the king and his
Figure 77. Akhenaten. Dynasty 18. Louvre N 831/ AF 109. ©
Louvre/Christian
Decamps.
Subjects to the divine. Dominating this theology was the god of Akhenaten, the Aten, the incarnation of the sun. The precepts of Atenism were not set down in a clear fashion as a set of commandments or laws. Rather, they came directly from the king, who received them from the god itself in the
The Amarna Period
Form of divine revelations. This origin marks the Amarna religion as the world's first in the series of received theologies. The relationship between the god and king is reflected in texts that claim that "there is none that know him [the Aten] except your son [Akhenaten] _ for you make him aware of your plans and strength." ' This new theology, or philosophy, which was spelled out most explicitly in the Hymn to the Aten that appears in six private tombs at Tell el Amarna, was centered on the role of light, incarnate as the god Aten, as the only giver and renewer of life. As the theology matured under Amunhotep IV/Akhenaten, Egyptian art and architecture underwent dramatic changes to accommodate it.
By the fifth year of his reign, in a dramatic move that cemented his break with the past, Akhenaten moved the court to Tell el Amarna (hence the name Amarna Period), a desolate site in Middle Egypt. There, an entirely new capital city was built in honor of the Aten. The royal policy was to discourage the worship of other gods. Although the temples of other gods were not officially closed, state financial support for the other cults was transferred to the cult of the Aten. The most direct action was taken against the gods who dwelled in the great temples of Karnak and Luxor in ancient Thebes, perhaps because the rituals enacted in them were so closely linked with the traditional idea of kingship. The names of the Theban gods, especially Amun's, were physically hacked from the temple walls and even from the tops of obelisks that were nearly thirty meters tall. The written reference to other gods was attacked in private monuments too, even when the personal name of an individual happened to include the name of another god. Never before had this sort of intolerance been seen in Egypt.
Although some of the historical details at the end of his reign are sketchy, Akhenaten apparently died after seventeen years on the throne. The new religion barely outlived him. His successor, Smenkhkare (there is great uncertainty about the identity of Akhenaten's immediate successors), ruled for no more than two years. Smenkhkare was probably followed by Tutankhaten ("Living Image of the Aten"), who, early in his reign, restored the old religion, changed his name to Tutankhamun ("Living Image of Amun"), and returned the court to Thebes and Memphis.
World History
