Akhnaton is the king of Egypt Pharaoh Amenhotep IV «Amon Satisfied», named in the classic sources Amnovis. His father Amenhotep the Third (1417-1379 BC), and his mother Tey, who came from a popular environment, unlike what was known about the wives of the pharaohs who came from distinct strains. His mother-in-law is Tee, her husband the vehicle leader Aye, and his aunt, the sister of the Queen Mother, Moutnejmet.

The sources talk about his marriage to Princess Nefertiti, who was described by the sources as a wonderful beauty, and that she is a Maitan princess without any evidence of this. Nothing is known about her origin. There is a great deal of mystery about the family ties of the royal family, Its end. But it is a well-known fact that the royal couple married six daughters, including Marit Aten, wife of Semenakh Karee and Akhnsen Paktun, wife of Tutankhamun.

The young king received the name of the monarch who carried him after his coronation, "Nefekhurra", but six years after he ascended the throne he called himself "Akhenaten", the name he was famous for.

Akhenaten ruled almost two decades (1379-1362 BC), but the beginning of his rule was mixed with the end of his father's reign, which Egypt reached at the peak of its glory in its ancient history. Its influence extended from the island of Fratia, Anatolia, Crete and the Aegean basin to Nubia.

Religious teachings

Under these circumstances, Amenhotep IV, the guardian of the covenant and the life of his father, began to practice the religious rituals and rituals of his fathers, especially those concerning Amun-Ra, the official god of the state. While at the same time announcing new religious ideas that evolved until they became heretical (heresy) for their departure from the prevailing traditional teachings. But his renewed religious orientation became clearer after he left his father on the throne. In the sixth year of his reign (1374 BC), the king announced the principles of a new religion calling for the worship of one god, "Aton", and represented him with the winged disk of the sun. And without interrupting the King's tradition of inherited traditions worked to highlight some of the manifestations that he saw more realistic in the expression of God, who wanted to be closer to all people, and globally, is everywhere, in the era in which Egypt opened its doors to meet with around Its neighbors, and as a result had to reconsider the foundations of their inner and spiritual lives.

The rituals of worship in the new Akhenaton religion do not include any secret procedures, and people are not subject to certain rituals, but it is not known how the conversion from old worship to new worship was reversed. Archaeological evidence indicates that Akhenaten established a number of urban structures, most notably the famous Karnak Temple (near Luxor today) and the new city of Achit Aten, which is located in Upper Egypt on the ruins of ancient Egypt.


Akhenaten with Nefertiti and their children

(A calcareous obelisk from Tel Amarna)


The site, known today as Karnak, is an archaeological complex that includes a number of temples, the most important of which is Beit Amun, a favorite of the ruling class from the 18th Dynasty, surrounded by the houses of high priests. In this place, to the east of the pyramid of Amun, Akhenaten set up a temple for Aton, for the rising sun. The goal was to establish a new religion to replace old worship. He went in a poetic hymn to his Lord Aton, who symbolized him by the disk of the sun and declared that there was no life for anything without him.

In his renewed call, the Priest declares that the blessings of Athen are not an end to Egypt and its people, but to the creatures in every place of men and animals. Athen is given power to the beings and enlivens them so that the grace of life will continue. When the world loses the breath of life, this world enters into a depression, as the sun shines a new card as it disappears. A number of researchers have found a similarity between the content of these ecclesiastical hymns and the Psalms, which is attributed to David (10th century BC), especially psalm 104.

In the Akhnaton religion, changes were made to the theories of death, funerary rituals, burial traditions, and new Assyrian interpretations of the ancient Uzbek traditions of the other world. As for Amun, the hidden force, as his name indicates, he is no longer a king, but something strange. The king who chose the name of the god is known in the texts of the pyramids, from the third millennium BC. It is Aton which planet the eye of the sun is the source of everything, was called by his flock Akhenaton, "Abdul Aton". This Aeten, who was in the Middle Kingdom, receives the aerial image of a king upon his departure to the world of the dead. This image dates back to the flesh that came out of it.

Akhenaten used plastic arts to spread his teachings, and he himself taught and guided artists in his time because he felt it necessary to translate his new religious ideas into realistic forms. In the temple that was built east of Karnak, the image of the king and his family were treated with amazing realism. In Akhenaten's image, she showed intentional distortions of the body, and painted on the face signs of introspection in the artist who was interested in reflecting in his work a deep subjective experience in the preview of what is happening in the thought at that stage in the history of Egypt and expressing it with an effort to express the inner emotions of the object To portray the true shape of the body. Vakhnaton recommends that everything must be sacrificed for the truth that is the source of balance, justice and life are elements of the image of holiness as reflected by the mirror of faith.
The new capital

The first years of the reign of Amenhotep IV, Akhenaten, passed as an associate of power with his father in the capital Taiba. But he was determined to achieve a radical religious reform. He left the city with the consent of his father the king, and founded a distance of about three hundred and seventy-five kilometers north of Tiba, away from the land of Amun, a new city that quickly became the capital city of Achit Atoun, .

Akhenaten was then moved to this new city to live with his wife, his neighbors, and his entourage of senior officials and his six daughters who were born Nefertiti. It seems that the royal family lived a happy life in Achit Athen until the family split in the late years of his rule.

There is a change in the style of the Egyptian king highlighted by the study of diplomatic messages in the archive of Tel Amarna, revealing the method of communication and correspondence between the kings and princes of Canaan and Amoru (Palestine and Syria) on the one hand and the Egyptian pharaoh on the other.

The study of the entire Amarna era indicates the deterioration of the Pharaonic influence in the subordinate areas after the laxness of the imposition of the prestige of the king, which was much lower than in the era of Thutmose III. The taxes on the country no longer amount to Pharaoh's treasury. The Pharaonic palace did not act as necessary to confront the international situation caused by Egypt's decline in the advance of the Hittite influence. It seems that a large conspiracy from inside: the priests of Amun in Thebes and the army chief Horemheb on the one hand, and the princes of Canaan and Amoru on the other, have been arranged to overthrow the rule of the monarch who was devoted to religious reform, without being surrounded by what was happening around him.

It was a time when the king held a strong hand in the hands of the good and the palace. He was able to order the construction of huge temples of Aton in Tiba next to the temples of Amun. But after the twelfth year of his rule, weakness took hold in the structure of power. The split took place in the royal family itself. Queen Nefertiti left the royal palace in the center of the city of Achit Aten with her nanny Tee, her husband, the priest Ei, four of her daughters and the little prince Tut Gnakh Aten, and settled for herself in the north of the city, while the king settled in another palace south of the capital. And documented his relationship with his younger brother «Semenakh Kara» to make him and his son-in-law and a partner in the management of the king, so entered the era of Amarna a new stage. At this stage the psychological state of the king worsened and his behavior became more turbulent. It became almost random and broadened the front of those who opposed his religious movement when he ordered the destruction of the Amun statues and the removal of his name from the inscriptions and abolished his titles and all the so-called qualities of believing in the protection of his royal throne. The change in religious life in ancient Egypt extended to include the image of the falcon symbolizing the goddess Nakhbet, and the name of the city of Amun (Taibah), which was written with hieroglyphics. The king issued orders to remove these depressing images up to the borders of Nubia and to replace the cult of Aton throughout the country .

This religious policy, led by the king, was strongly opposed by the priests of the temples who were most affected by the unification of worship, as well as the nobles whose reforms were threatened by the reforms, officers and military commanders whose influence in the state diminished in the absence of the king's attention to the army and his reluctance to pursue the policy of his expansionist predecessors The state of the state has deteriorated and its prestige has deteriorated internally and externally, and the powerful Anatolia states have penetrated into Syria. The Amarna documents, particularly the diplomatic messages, referred to the reality of the situation in Palestine and Syria in the face of the expansionist expansion. Akhenaton's departure from commanding his armies or moving them in an effective way to preserve Egypt's sites in Western Asia, and only to spread the new doctrine of the consequences of the terrible cost of the country high, in addition to the collapse of trade relations of insecurity and stability, and ended the king's days in the midst of a tragic crisis, At first, his successor, Samnakh Karee, worked to reconnect with Memphis and Taiba, and restored Egypt to religious pluralism. Akhenaten was buried in his capital, Achit Aten. Archaeologists have known his grave, but found only the wreckage of his royal nawasa, which was restored and transferred to the Cairo Museum. As for his mums, who have not been found, no one knows what happened to them. It may have been hit by the destruction of Akit Aten (Tel el Amarna) by the commander Horemheb who was at the forefront of working to end the era of Amarna and to overthrow the rule of Akhenaton. A mummy was found in the Valley of the Kings, thought to be his mummy, but there is no conclusive evidence. After he was appointed as a priest, who briefly ruled the throne, Tutankhamen, who had to change his name to Tutankhamun, went back to restoring his respect for Amon and the powerful priests. This early attempt to overthrow the traditional religious conscience in ancient Egypt and to replace the unity of God replaced pluralism.
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