Akhenaten

Amenhotep IV, or Akhenaten, was the son of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye, who called for monotheism to worship the god Aten during his reign.

Beginning of Akhenaten’s reign

King Akhenaten had a brother named Thutmose, it was assumed that his brother would be the legitimate heir to rule the ancient Egyptian kingdom after his father, Amenhotep III, but Thutmose died at a young age before he assumed power, and therefore Amenhotep IV inherited power and became king of the ancient Egyptian kingdom.

Amenhotep IV followed at the beginning of his rule, specifically in the first five years, his father and grandfather approach of sanctification for all the existing gods, specially the god Amun (Ra), the patron of the ancient Egyptian gods, he married Queen Nefertiti in the fourth year of his reign, but by the fifth year, he began to change his approach, as he paid attention only to the god Aten, who represents the solar disc.

Akhenaten and monotheism

Although at that age and the ages that preceded it, everyone revered all the gods and the god Aten was even unknown at that time, but Amenhotep IV believed that there was no god but Aten and was the origin of the existence of everything on earth, so he began his journey in worshiping the god Aten alone.

Amenhotep IV changed his royal name to (Akhenaten), the name that means “servant of the Aten”, which aroused suspicion and fear among the priests of other gods and the people, in order to move away from the priests of other gods and focus on this matter, he decided to move the capital from Thebes to Tel el-Amarna in Minya, and he called it (Akhitaton), a name that means “Horizon of the Aten”. He built many temples along the Nile River to sanctify the god Aten, and instead of taking engineers and workers a lot of time to establish the city using huge stone, he ordered them to use small stone as a shortcut, to save time and to quickly finish building the new capital. In addition, instead of establishing the thirtieth feast in which sacrifices are presented to all the gods, after thirty years of the king’s rule, Akhenaten held it at the beginning of his reign and offered sacrifices to the god Aten only, which shocked the priests and got them angry, he also built many temples in all important areas for the sanctification of the Aten, such as Thebes, Heliopolis, Memphis, and others.

After finishing all these procedures, Amenhotep IV decided to declare that the Aten is the supreme god of Egypt. Not only did that, but he also declared that Aten is the only god of Egypt and the god of every place on which the sun shines, and the only mediator between him and the people, he also prohibited all forms of worship of any other god anywhere in Egypt.

One of the most prominent manifestations of monotheism is that Tutankhamun, who assumed power after Amenhotep IV, was initially called Tutankhaten in relation to his worship of the Aten, but because of the disappearance of the worship of Aten after the death of Akhenaten, his name was changed to Tutankhamun, in relation to the god Amun (Ra), the patron of the Egyptian gods.

The Decline of Ancient Egypt

As a result of King Akhenaten’s focus on spreading Atonism and his lack of interest in the country’s other affairs and securing its borders, the Hittite kingdom, which appeared on the international scene in 1750 BC, began to think about the dream of empire, they took advantage of Akhenaten’s preoccupation with religious matters to reach the peak of their glory in his era, as they have already begun to impose their control and influence in the north of the Egyptian empire, therefore Egypt has lost many of the regions that belonged to it outside Egypt, like Syria and chaos took hold in Palestine, most of the Egyptian leaders who were in control of the regime in those areas were killed. Moreover, because of Akhenaten’s lack of interest to use his influence as a king to restore and control those areas and preserve the Egyptian empire, Egypt lost a lot of property that the kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty exerted a lot of efforts to control and preserve.

Akhenaten’s death

Akhenaten died after seventeen years of ruling Egypt, he was one of the weakest kings in the history of Egypt militarily because of his focus only on religious matters and the spread of Atonism, which means the unification of worship of the god “Aten”, who represents the solar disc.

The worship of the god Aten lost its shine after the death of Akhenaten.

Statues and monuments

When visiting Tell el-Amarna, you can see Great Aten Temple and Small Aten Temple, Thutmose’s workshop, the Workers’ Village, and between the two horizons between which the sun rises and sets.

Archaeologists also found, when excavating in Tell el-Amarna, quantities of clay tablets, which numbered approximately 380 pieces. These tablets were made up of clay that was burned to the extent it was like stone with inscriptions of diplomatic correspondence written in the Akkadian and Sumerian languages (the language used by the Canaanites).

The Grand Egyptian Museum has a sandstone statue of King Akhenaten dating back to the era of the New Kingdom.