Who is amenhotep iv akhenaten

Yet, he became the king. After the death of his father, he gained power and became the new pharaoh. By this time, he had already ruled with his father as the co-regent for four or five years. After the death of his father, Amenhotep IV did what was expected of him. He built monuments for his father, got married, and continued ruling as his father had.

His wife was the famous icon of ancient Egypt, Nefertiti, who was a commoner. After five years of conventional Egyptian-style ruling, he suddenly decided to change his name from Amenhotep IV to Akhenaten. Now, he changed it to Akhenaten, which had Aten in it. Learn more about the beginning of the new kingdom-the fabulous 18th dynasty. But his name is not the only thing that Amenhotep IV changed. In the field of arts, he made changes to the sculptures of his face and body.

His face is elongated, his hips are wide, and there are hints of breasts on his statues. There are colossal statues of him in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo that show him as a somewhat deformed figure. This led to the development of a more realistic style in the official art that in many cases continued on after Akhenaton's time. When the first portraits of Akhenaton and his wife Nefertiti was uncovered they were thought to represent two women because of Akhenaton's body style.

Akhenaton's sculptures usually show him with an elongated neck, protruding belly and a lower body form more closely related to the way women were depicted. For awhile it was thought that Akhenaton was actually a woman. Today there is a theory that Akhenaton may have developed a condition known as Frolich's Syndrome late in life. This tumor of the pituitary gland can result in body deformations very similar to Akhenaton's depiction. Skip to main content.

The city offers a good deal of information about the spiritual concerns of its people, although the disparate evidence leaves many gaps and questions. As for involvement in the official Aten religion and the temples, officials presumably commissioned some of the temple statuary of the royal family or small-scale temple equipment at workshops distributed throughout one whole zone of the city.

Some of the society at least also seems to have had particular access to certain parts of the temple: the Stela Emplacement area toward the back is one example. Moreover, the huge bakeries attached to the Great Aten Temple, along with the many hundreds of offering tables in the temple, point to wide distributions of food, and these could be tied to broad accommodation within areas of the temple enclosure, possibly in connection with the festivals of the Aten promised on the boundary stelae.

In their homes, officials might exhibit devotion to the royal family as the children of the Aten, sometimes constructing small chapels in gardens alongside their houses for their own or perhaps neighborhood use. From the perspective of the small finds attached to houses and burials of the wider populace, there is very little overt evidence of attention to the new god, although such attention might not be well manifested in such finds for a variety of reasons.

What is clear is that there was no absolute prohibition on other gods: material remains testify to continued interest in household gods like Bes and Taweret Recent excavations have revealed the long-unknown cemeteries of the general populace. In contrast, the recently excavated South Tombs Cemetery of the general populace shows ample evidence of use, probably holding about 3, individuals. A few of these individuals had a coffin or a stela or a piece of jewelry While there was certainly no mention of traditional funerary religion involving Osiris in the royal or elite tombs, there was some variability in the South Tombs Cemetery: one burial had a coffin apparently representing the Sons of Horus.

The remains present many points of interest, but perhaps most surprising is the evidence of duress and poor diet well beyond that known for other typical New Kingdom populations. The profile of the population in terms of age at death also indicates to researchers that an as yet unidentified epidemic scoured the population.

Other cemeteries have been identified, and more excavation is anticipated. Nefertiti, Meritaten, the mysterious pharaoh Smenkhkare, and the female pharaoh Ankhetkhepherure—for whom the chief candidates in discussions so far have been Nefertiti and Meritaten, the eldest daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti—and ultimately Tutankhaten Tutankhamun all have roles.

Energetic scholarly discussion of the events of this period and the identity, parentage, personal history, and burial place of many members of the Amarna royal family is ongoing. Apparently in the reign of Ramesses II, the formal buildings of Akhetaten were completely destroyed, and many of their blocks reused as matrix stone in his constructions at Hermopolis and elsewhere. The site had presumably been abandoned. Hill, Marsha. Amarna Project. Milan: Silvana Editoriale, Arnold, Dorothea.

See on MetPublications. Freed, Rita E. Markowitz, and Sue. D'Auria, eds. Pharaohs of the Sun: Akhenaten, Nefertiti, Tutankhamen. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Gabolde, Marc, et al. Actes du Colloque le 18—19 novembre Montpellier: -, Kemp, Barry J.

Murnane, William J. Texts from the Amarna Period in Egypt. Edited by Edmund S. Atlanta: Scholars Press, Seyfried, Friederike, ed. English version. Stevens, Anna. Oxford: Archaeopress, Vergnieux, Robert, and Michel Gondran. Paris: Arthaud, Visiting The Met? Taweret amulet with double head. Face from a Composite Statue, probably Queen Tiye.

Fragment of a Queen's Face. Pair of Clappers. During their rule, Egypt ruled an empire that stretched from Syria, in west Asia, to the fourth cataract of the Nile River in modern-day Sudan.

They note that while previous Egyptian kings would likely have launched a military expedition into west Asia as a result of these acts, Akhenaten appears to have done nothing.

Montserrat notes that at Karnak , a temple complex near Luxor that was devoted to Amun-Ra, the king would have a series of Aten temples built, their construction beginning perhaps in his very first year of rule. Even at this early stage, he appeared to have a dim view of the god Amun, whom Karnak was dedicated to. Montserrat notes that the axis of the new Aten complex was built facing to the east, toward the rising sun, whereas the rest of Karnak is oriented towards the west, where ancient Egyptians believed the underworld to be.

This coincided with the start of a campaign aimed at desecrating the names of the gods Amun and Mut, among other deities. Still Akhenaten appears not to have been able to convince all Egyptians to put their sole spiritual hopes in the Aten. Archaeologist Barry Kemp, who leads modern-day excavations at the site of Amarna, notes in his book "The City of Akhenaten and Nefertiti" Thames and Hudson, that researchers have found figures depicting other deities, such as Bes and Thoth, at Amarna.

In addition to his radical religious changes, Akhenaten also unleashed a revolution in the way art was drawn.