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2	The Theban Years

The eighteenth dynasty with its capital at Thebes, seat of the dynastic god Amun, was primarily a military monarchy, founded on the need to expel the Hyksos, who had occupied Lower Egypt. Its memorable kings had characteristically waged wars in Asia, not to mention Nubia, and had prided themselves on their physical prowess. That pattern had been broken by Thutmose IV, Akhenaten’s grandfather, famous for his diplomacy with the Mitanni, and Amenhotep III,¹ his father, who was able to spend most of his long reign (thirty-eight years) in peace.² Little foreshadowed the upheaval that followed. Amenhotep IV began his religious revolution at Thebes, where he ruled for five years, then in his Year 5 founded a new capital in Middle Egypt and changed his name to the one by which the world now better knows him, Akhenaten.

The discovery of Akhenaten

The key to the long confusion in the nineteenth century over the place of Akhenaten in history is his passing over in the Egyptian king lists, which subsumed the Amarna period under Horemheb, so that historians were left only with the chronology of Manetho, a third-century bc high priest of Heliopolis.

Bonaparte’s expedition and the accompanying scientific survey (1798), then the Franco-Tuscan expedition led by Jean-François Champollion (1790–1832) and Ippolito Rosellini (1800–43) in 1828, could provide no historical background to the ruins of Amarna. The real ‘discoverer’ of Akhenaten was Nestor L’Hôte (1804–42). He spent thirty-five days copying at Amarna, early in 1839, and regarded “Bachn” as a usurper because of the obliteration of his name. His queen was “Nofrait,” and his god “Atnra.” L’Hôte positively identified the five cartouches of these three and devoted many pages to scenes in the tombs to throw light on the period. He placed Akhenaten’s reign before that of “Horus” (Horemheb), perhaps even pre-Hyksos, or even pre-Menes.³

Richard Lepsius produced the first synthesis of the historical events of that time. His early version had Amenhotep III succeeded by his son “Horus,” also leaving two other sons, Amenhotep IV, Tutankhamun, and a daughter, “Athotis.” Amenhotep IV and Tutankhamun reigned during the life of “Horus” as rivals to him. “Bech-natenra” (Akhenaten) was at first assumed to be a woman, the wife and widow of Amenhotep IV. By 1851, however, Lepsius had realized that Amenhotep IV was the same as the king whose new name he rendered as “Bech-en-aten.” He recognized the special cult of the sun disk, worshiped in open temples, and the obliteration, as he thought, of all other gods. The cult was revolutionary, but worship of the sun was fundamental in Egypt. Lepsius also copied the scenes in the tombs at Amarna and drew attention to their important evidence. He thought that Akhenaten had seven daughters (the eldest married to his successor), and that he ruled only twelve years. His two successors renounced the Aten cult but were not later recognized. It was “Horus” (that is, Horemheb) who was the first king of the time accepted by posterity.⁴ Thanks to the genius of Lepsius, the modern understanding of Akhenaten had begun, but that did not mean the end of fantasy.

The founder of the Antiquities Service in Egypt, Auguste Mariette (1821–81), is notorious for his view, as expressed in 1855, that Akhenaten was a eunuch who had been captured and mutilated in the Nubian wars. This was, in fact, only a suggestion, to explain his portraiture.⁵ As late as 1879, Heinrich Brugsch (1827–94) still held “Khu-n-Aten,” a man of “unpleasing appearance” but “exalted notions,” to be of nonroyal birth, because of his commoner mother—and a eunuch.⁶ And in the same year, Villiers Stuart was still claiming “Khou-en-Aten” was merely a servant of Amenhotep III, but that he became king by marrying the pharaoh’s daughter.⁷

Akhenaten’s siblings

Akhenaten had an elder brother, Thutmose, who was the crown prince but predeceased his father, one of many princes of his dynasty who died early. His titles show him to have been Eldest King’s Son (s3-nsw smsw) and Overseer of the Priests of Upper and Lower Egypt, High Priest of Ptah in Memphis, and Sm-priest of Ptah.

His attestations are numerous:

- a schist miller-shabti (Louvre E2749);

- the sarcophagus of his cat (from which the above titles come) (Cairo CG 5003);

- a miniature bier in schist (fig. 2);

- a relief with his father Amenhotep III from the first chapel of the Serapeum at Memphis.⁸

A whip from the tomb of Tutankhamun⁹ has often been ascribed to him, but the only title on it other than King’s Son, “Captain of the Troops,” is not found on any certain monument of Akhenaten’s brother and does not accord with his otherwise exclusively sacerdotal offices.

Amenhotep III had at least four and possibly five daughters. These were therefore Akhenaten’s sisters:¹⁰

Fig. 2 Miniature bier-shabti of Prince Thutmose (Berlin VÄGM 112-97).

- Sitamun, many times called “King’s Daughter”; also “Eldest King’s Daughter,” and several times “King’s Wife” (alabaster vase, Cairo JE 18459). Her portrait is found on a chair (Cairo CG 51112) from the tomb of Yuya and Tjuiu (KV 46), her grandparents (fig. 3). She is shown in reliefs with her sisters Henuttaneb and Iset at the temple at Soleb in Upper Nubia.

- Henuttaneb, many times called “King’s Daughter,” but also possibly “King’s Wife.” She stands between the legs of her parents on the colossal group from Medinet Habu (fig. 4).

- Nebetta: on the right, in the same colossal family group. The name of a third daughter here, on the left, is unfortunately lost. It is often taken to be Iset.

- Iset: many times called “King’s Daughter,” but also “King’s Wife” (a serpentine statue in a Dutch private collection). We have various representations, most notably this statue, where she is shown standing beside her father,¹¹ and with her sister

Fig. 3 Portrait of Sitamun on the back panel of her chair; from the tomb of her grandparents Yuya and Tjuiu (KV 46—Cairo CG 51113).

Fig. 4 Colossus of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye, with three of their daughters, including Henuttaneb; from Medinet Habu, probably near the southwestern entrance to the king’s memorial-temple complex, where it is likely to have stood (Cairo JE 33906).

Henuttaneb on a carnelian plaque (MMA 44.2.1),¹² and again with her sister on the Soleb temple reliefs. She, like Henuttaneb, is not heard of in Akhenaten’s reign.

- Four unnamed daughters are shown together in the tomb of Kheruef (TT 192).¹³

- Baketaten, often taken to be the youngest daughter, is known only from the tomb of Huya, Tiye’s steward (TA 1): she is shown with Tiye banqueting with the family of Akhenaten, with Tiye again facing Amenhotep III (fig. 61), and having her statue carved by the sculptor Iuti inti (fig. 65).¹⁴ Where her titles are given, she is “King’s Bodily Daughter,” not necessarily the present king (Akhenaten).¹⁵

Akhenaten’s life before accession

History can be cruel. In the studio of Thutmose at Amarna, Ludwig Borchardt found a statue that he identified as being of Akhenaten as a child. It was reassembled from the pieces, only to be destroyed in the Second World War. Photographs survived, however, to be published by Marianne Eaton Krauss in 1983.¹⁶

In a painting from tomb TT 226, the owner (probably the scribe Heqareshu) sits with four naked children on his lap, one of whom is the “King’s Bodily Son, beloved of him,” Akheperre (fig. 5).¹⁷

In the same tomb, Amenhotep III is shown enthroned with his mother, Mutemwia. Norman de Garis Davies drew attention to this painting in 1923. Previously, only one royal child had been shown on the lap. Now there were four, “a challenge to laughter.” Davies considered that “The name of one of them (not the youngest) survives on a fragment as Akheper(u?)re; another may have been Thutmose, the heir who died young, and a third Akhenaton.”¹⁸ The tomb inscription was published by Davies in 1933,¹⁹ although his identification of the children has been challenged as the surviving names suggest sons of Amenhotep II.²⁰ Dimitri Laboury took up this question of who may have been the essential tutor to the young prince: the owner of TT 226; the royal tutor Amenemopet; the vizier Aper-el; or the royal scribe Meryre.²¹ There is, however, one Amarnan whose tomb inscriptions (TA 7) mention that he had served the Prince Akhenaten: Parennefer.²²

Fig. 5. Four princes, including Akheperre, on the lap of their tutor in TT 226.

We know next to nothing of Akhenaten’s life until his accession. The only inscriptional evidence is a wine docket from Amenhotep III’s palace­-temple complex at Malqata, in Western Thebes: “The King’s Son Amenhotep.”²³ Surmises have, however, been made. The rambling Malqata complex (fig. 6) had a number of “palaces”: the southern (for Tiye?), the middle, and the northern; three “villas” (for the vizier, treasurer, and chief steward?); an audience pavilion; and to the north, a large temple of Amun with a festival hall.²⁴ William Hayes (1903–63) suggested that the middle palace was the home of Prince Amenhotep until the move to Amarna.²⁵ Heinrich Schäfer suggested that he was born at Malqata.²⁶

Fig. 6. Plan of the Malqata palace-complex of Amenhotep III.

Cyril Aldred thought, however, that he was reared at Memphis, and came under the influence of the sun cults at nearby Heliopolis. He also would have known important officials of his father, such as Amenhotep, son of Hapu, administrator and scholar; his brother, also Amenhotep, high steward of Memphis; as well as Yuya and Tjuiu, his maternal grandparents, and the future king Ay.²⁷ Robert Hari (1922–88) also suggested that he was brought up by the priesthood of Re at Heliopolis.²⁸ Laboury, on the other hand, has denied any influence from Heliopolis.²⁹

Amusing attempts have been made to fill the gaps. According to Arthur Weigall, he

seems to have been a quiet, studious boy, whose thoughts wandered in fair places, searching for that happiness which his physical condition had denied to him. His nature was gentle; his heart overflowed with love. He delighted, it would seem, to walk in the gardens of the palace, to hear the birds singing, to watch the fish in the lake, to smell the flowers, to follow butterflies, to warm his small bones in the sunshine.³⁰

Meanwhile, Akhenaten was, according to Donald Redford, “a man deemed ugly by the accepted standards of the day, secluded in the palace in his minority, certainly close to his mother, possibly ignored by his father, outshone by his brother and sisters, unsure of himself.”³¹

What we can say with some certainty, however, is that his education would have included literacy, which would surely include acquaintance with the history and literature of his country, and the basic skills of a young king who, whatever his personal preferences, would be expected to be a military leader: handling of weapons and driving a chariot. It would not be going too far, unless his father jealously monopolized such matters, to add some acquaintance with the nature of Egypt’s relations with her most powerful neighbors, with whom, after all, Egypt had enjoyed close diplomatic ties for some generations.

Coregency

The suggestion that Amenhotep III and IV shared the throne³² goes back at least to Flinders Petrie (1853–1942), who in his history of Egypt in 1896 argued for an overlap of five years.³³ From then onwards, many scholars produced schemes involving some degree of overlap.³⁴ The most cogent documentation was perhaps produced by Herbert Fairman (1907–82) in 1951.³⁵ The proposal found its most passionate advocate in Aldred, who argued in 1959 and then in his biographies of 1968 and 1988 for a coregency of twelve years. Other lengths have also been proposed, all having different consequences for the broader historical picture of both kings’ reigns.

Others have argued equally strongly against any overlap at all, with the majority of twenty-first-century Egyptologists agreeing that there was a simple direct succession between the kings.³⁶ For most opponents, the problem has been the reconciliation of the different artistic styles seen in the works of the two kings which, in the case of a coregency, would have been produced contemporaneously (although Raymond Johnson argues that they do work together³⁷), and the bizarre situation of the radical turn to Atenism running alongside Amenhotep III’s continued building in honor of Amun (particularly for those who place Amun’s ‘persecution’ in the early or middle part of Akhenaten’s reign). The theory of coregency has latterly been subjected to devastating critique; William Murnane’s contribution was outstanding. He concluded: “Despite the impressive quantity of evidence mustered . . . none of it can be reckoned as convincing proof.”³⁸ Laboury went further: “once much in fashion, now an Egyptological fiction.”³⁹

A key issue has been that no single piece of evidence adduced for or against the theory of coregency has won unconditional agreement, with criteria often treated in isolation, without regard for the consequences.

Accession

We have no direct record of Akhenaten’s accession day—whether as sole or joint king—which marked the beginning of his regnal year-count. This is to be distinguished from the calendar year, which opened with the season of 3ḫt (Inundation), followed by prt (winter) and šmw (summer). Murnane, however, made a brilliant but simple deduction:⁴⁰ the Amarna boundary stelae show that Year 8 included both an oath taken on I prt 8⁴¹ and a ‘colophon’ (final statement), with a repeated oath, on IV 3ḫt 30.⁴² Murnane further noted that Boundary Stelae A and B show that these two events occurred in that order. The two events covered twelve complete months of a regnal (not calendar) year, with the exception of seven days. Akhenaten’s regnal year must therefore have begun in I prt and extended to at least the end of IV 3ḫt. The only days left unaccounted for are the first seven days of I prt. Akhenaten’s accession must therefore have taken place in that first week. The year, according to the latest calculations, was around 1353.⁴³

Akhenaten’s accession was most likely at Thebes, the “Heliopolis of the South,”⁴⁴ although other suggestions have been Memphis⁴⁵ or Hermonthis (Armant).⁴⁶

His first titulary reveals a man the world has completely forgotten. It ran as follows: Horus: “Strong Bull with two high feathers”; The Two Ladies: “Great in Kingship in Karnak”; Horus of Gold: “He who raises his crowns in Karnak”; Prenomen: “Beautiful are the appearances of Re–The sole one of Re”; Nomen: “Amenhotep, divine ruler of Thebes.”

The Horus name follows that of his father: “Strong bull appearing in truth,” but the Two Ladies and Horus of Gold names both link him with Karnak, the home of Amun, whereas Thutmose III and IV had stressed the stability of their reign in the Horus name, and Thutmose IV and Amenhotep III had been “Great of strength” with reference to Egypt’s enemies in their Golden Horus name. The prenomen was traditionally a compound of Re. It is the stress on Karnak and the lack of slogans for the reign that are striking.

How old he was when he came to the throne we are not told. Suggestions have incredibly varied: “about ten,”⁴⁷ “eleven,”⁴⁸ “twelve,”⁴⁹ “thirteen to fifteen,”⁵⁰ “fifteen to sixteen,”⁵¹ and “seventeen to eighteen”⁵² have all been suggested, as well as, more commonly, “about twenty-one”⁵³ or “twenty-three.”⁵⁴ These are all guesses. All we can say is that the higher end of the scale is more likely because his father had the second longest reign of the dynasty, almost forty years.

We have a number of representations of the young Amenhotep from the first years of his reign. First, there is a wooden statuette showing him wearing the khepresh (blue) crown (fig. 7). Second, we have a scene

Fig. 7. Wooden statue of the young Akhenaten (Berlin ÄM 21836).

Fig. 8. Amenhotep IV, followed by Queen Tiye, offering to Re-Horakhty and Maat on the lintel of the outer portico of the tomb-chapel of Kheruef (TT 192).

from the outer portico of the tomb of Kheruef (TT 192), who served with Amenhotep III and his son; some of the decoration of the main chapel can be dated to the former’s first and third jubilees (Years 30, 33). In the portico, the younger king appears, named as Amenhotep, in traditional style, most notably on the lintel of the doorway of the outer vestibule of the tomb, with his mother Queen Tiye behind him, offering wine to Re Horakhty and Maat, and incense to Atum and Hathor (fig. 8). There is no sign of Nefertiti. The scenes have therefore been dated to the first few months of his reign.⁵⁵

The most famous scenes of the king in his earliest years are in the tomb of Vizier Ramose (TT 55), who also served both Amenhotep III and his son. The reliefs famously depict the last in two styles: traditional and Amarnan. On the southern side of the doorway in the western wall, in traditional style, he is enthroned, with the goddess Maat behind

Fig. 9. Amenhotep IV seated with Maat in the tomb-chapel of Ramose (TT55).

him (fig. 9). The deceased Ramose appears four-fold, offering the king sacred objects and praying for him to gods; the second figure prays to the Aten under its earlier name. To the north of the doorway, he is shown in the Amarnan style (but still with the name Amenhotep), with the disk form of the Aten above, accompanied by Nefertiti and in a ‘Window of Appearances’; the scene was carved perhaps three or four years later (fig. 10).

These two tombs offer some obvious suggestions about the earliest years of the reign. At his accession, the young king was quite mature—as one might well have expected from the long reign of his father. Three or four years later, he is married to Nefertiti—although the later ubiquitous daughters are nowhere to be seen, suggesting that none was yet born. Now the Aten is dominant, with the Earlier form of his name (for further evidence of the date of the marriage, see pp. 49, 52, 202).

Fig. 10. Amenhotep IV and Nefertiti at the “Window of Appearances” in the tomb-chapel of Ramose.

Further evidence comes from Karnak, where he completed the work of his father at Pylon III by adding a porch, where he is shown in the traditional pose smiting his enemies. This work was left unfinished.⁵⁶

Another early portrait is a relief at Gebel Silsila, 150 kilometers south of Thebes, accompanying a stela recording the extraction of stone for “the great bnbn [sacred stone] of Re-Horakhty” at Karnak. It has been very badly damaged, by both the Atenists and then the Amunists, but the figure of the king facing Amun-Re is still clear.⁵⁷ Further south, in Nubia, at Soleb, the young king completed his father’s great jubilee temple by adding his figures again to its porch, on which he is shown being crowned by various deities, including Atum, Seth, and Horus, while he worships his deified father and Amun-Re.⁵⁸

Vital evidence for the earliest years at Thebes is provided also by the Amarna Letters. Tushratta of Mitanni wrote to Queen Tiye following the death of Amenhotep III, calling her “mistress of Egypt,” and complaining of the lack of precious greeting gifts. He asked Tiye to give Akhenaten a history of relations between the two powers, which she knew better than anyone else (EA 26; the same in 28 and 29). He does not mention Nefertiti, but there are generic references in other letters to “the rest of your wives,” after mention of Tushratta’s daughter Tadu-Kheba (EA 27, 28, 29). In the next letter, after greeting the king, he sends wishes to Tiye and a precious gift (EA 27; also 29). The reasonable inference to draw from these letters from Egypt’s closest ally is that Tiye was at least still very powerful in Egypt as queen mother, if not as regent, as has been suggested by a number of writers.⁵⁹ It is also suggestive that an ally so well informed and sensitive in matters of such high protocol sent no gifts to Nefertiti at this point. Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt’s interpretation of Maat in the Ramose scene as a representation of Tiye accords well with this interpretation.⁶⁰

During his early years, the king presumably commissioned a tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Various scholars have suggested the unfinished WV 25, while others have suggested the beginning of WV 23, which later became the tomb of King Ay, to be that tomb.⁶¹ The beginning of his memorial temple may have been what was later transformed into the rear section of the later Ramesseum.⁶²

The destroyed Theban temple

In the aftermath of the Amarna age, Akhenaten’s earliest temples, built at Thebes during his first five years, were demolished. Their stones, small sandstone blocks (52 cm long [a royal cubit] × 26 cm wide × 20 cm high),⁶³ often carved in relief and known then as “stone bricks”⁶⁴ and today as talatat (fig. 11), were used as foundations and filling in later buildings, particularly Pylons II, IX, and X (all built by Horemheb) (fig. 12). They were also used for the foundations of the Great Hypostyle Hall built by Rameses II as well as his pylon at Luxor.

Fig. 11.Talatat, as found in the filling of Pylon IX at Karnak.

Fig. 12. A talatat showing workers carrying the blocks and constructing with them.

These talatat were known to the early modern visitors to Thebes: Nestor L’Hôte and Êmile Prisse d’Avennes (1807–79) in 1839 and Richard Lepsius in the mid-1840s.⁶⁵ Georges Legrain (1865–1917), Director of Works at Karnak from 1895 to 1917, extracted many such blocks during his restoration of Pylons IX and X. His work was continued by Maurice Pillet (1881–1964), Director of Works at Karnak from 1920 to 1925.⁶⁶ As early as the 1922/23 season, during work undertaken by Pillet to reinforce the columns, it was discovered that the foundations of the Hypostyle Hall were composed of talatat. Few, however, were decorated.⁶⁷

Excavations at Karnak by Chevrier 1925–54

It was in 1925 that Henri Chevrier (1897–1974), Director of Works at Karnak from 1925 to 1954, began his clearance and restoration work at Thebes, which led to the recovery of the demolished Theban temples of Akhenaten, which were never meant to see the light of day again. Two statues of the king were found during drainage works around the main temple, and the next year a further nine were uncovered, in a row face down on the ground (fig. 13). They had each been on bases, thought to be backed by a pillar, and seemed to form part of a portico. Chevrier drew attention to the king’s headdress: the ḫ3t (bag wig), surmounted by various crowns, notably one of four feathers, but also the double crown (fig. 14). He had found part of Akhenaten’s Gm(t)-p3-Itn (“The Aten is found”) temple (fig. 15).

Fig. 13. Royal statues found by Henri Chevrier in the Gm(t)-p3-’Itn at East Karnak in 1926; the ‘bust’ in the center of the photograph is now in the Luxor Museum.

During 1926/27, Chevrier found the southwestern corner of the building and many much more fragmentary statues with their heads detached. One of the finest was stolen from the site on a rest day, despite its considerable weight, but was later recovered. Chevrier then began to detect a court surrounded by Osirian statues of Akhenaten. After a year’s break owing to lack of funds, work was resumed to the east and west during 1928/29, but with disappointing results because of greater destruction. These excavations required special funds to avoid encroaching on monies for restoration and consolidation. By 1929/30, expropriations of property to the east were needed; the western trench was therefore pushed north. Together with bases and heads, the largest statue of all appeared: “naked and asexual”. Expropriations occupied two years, and excavations resumed in 1931/32: the line of statues was followed

Fig. 14. Colossus of Amenhotep IV wearing the h3t- and doublecrowns; found at the Gm(t)-p3-’Itn in June 1925 (Cairo JE 49529).

Fig. 15. Donald Redford’s reconstruction of the southern colonnade of the Gm(t)-p3-’Itn. Recent studies suggest that the features identified by Redford and previous researchers as piers, against which the colossi stood, were actually the bases upon which the figures stood.

with more difficulty. Chevrier now had a locomotive to pull the wagons of the debris to the Nile, into which it was thrown. Work continued in 1932/33 until he was stopped by village houses once again, and therefore returned to the northern line of the western wall. Chevrier admitted that the work was becoming increasingly difficult. The 1935/36 season found a statue base to the east, indicating a whole series; work on the north found nothing.⁶⁸

Pylon II

Systematic work on Pylon II began only in 1946, when Chevrier resumed work after the Second World War. This pylon, the work of Horemheb, had to be rebuilt from the foundations. The reused blocks were found in even the highest levels of the 25-meter­-high structure. In 1948/49, 4,500 talatat were extracted, to be added to the 3,700 previously recovered from the Hypostyle Hall by Chevrier in circumstances that are only sketchily recorded. Work continued to be intermittent, owing to lack of funds, but another 4,000 talatat were extracted in 1952, and the work of classifying them was begun by two secondary-school teachers, André Hayler and Henri de Mazade. In sum, the pylon had included thirty-two courses of talatat, each of 770 stones, totaling more than 25,000, one-quarter of which were decorated.⁶⁹

Pylon IX

In 1964, the Antiquities Service undertook massive works to save the western wing of Pylon IX, which had for many decades threatened total collapse. It was not a matter of repairs: the foundations were giving way because of movements in the subsoil, and the stones were being degraded by salt. The only solution was to dismantle the entire structure, rebuild the foundations, and then rebuild the monument. As well as restoring it to its original state, this would make it possible for the first time to study how the ancient Egyptians had built such massive gates. It was twenty-six meters high, made up of thirty four courses, of which the uppermost were lacking.⁷⁰

Talatat had for decades been identified in the area; work on the pylon, continued by the Centre Franco-Égyptien d’Études de Temples de Karnak (founded in 1967), revealed layer after layer—up to 800 per level, of which more than one-quarter were decorated. These were mapped,

Fig. 16. A reconstructed scene using the Karnak talatat, including the underlying coding of the blocks that was used in this initial attempt at reconstructing scenes with the aid of a computer.

numbered, and extracted for study. The first attempts were also made to understand the fragmentary scenes, with the assistance of a team from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, led by Ray Smith (1897–1982), which led to the foundation of the Akhenaten Temple Project (fig. 16). Initial categorization of possible scenes showed the king being transported in a chariot or palanquin, worship of the Aten, the royal family, and temple staff. The British excavations at Amarna had revealed the complexity of the names of six different religious buildings there, but Serge Sauneron thought most blocks at Thebes came from the Tnỉ-mnw (“Exalted are the monuments”).⁷¹

Ramadan Sa‘ad (1934–74) summed up the work on Pylon IX in 1967: between 1964 and 1967, 2,000 talatat had been found in the pylon, to be added to the 40,000 from Pylon II, the Hypostyle Hall, the temples of Amenhotep and of Khonsu, and Pylon X. As he stressed, these were but the decorated third of the blocks. The façade of Akhenaten’s temple, as reconstructed by Sa‘ad, showed him in the traditional scene of slaying enemies. The building had been finished by the time Akhenaten changed his name in Year 6 [sic], so almost all the cartouches had to be updated. There were also signs of the anti Atenist ‘restoration.’⁷²

Sa‘ad again summed up in 1976. The “Dismantling and Re-erecting the Ninth Pylon Project” had begun in 1963. Of the thirty four courses, twenty-seven were dismantled, recovering 3,743 talatat (1,501 decorated), the scenes reconstructed depicting the ḥb-sd (jubilee: see below). Most of the king’s cartouches had been changed from Amenhotep to Akhenaten, but the queen’s name was in both the short (Nefertiti) and long (Neferneferuaten- Nefertiti) forms. There were few signs of the princesses.⁷³

The Akhenaten Temple Project (1966)

The first report on the Akhenaten Temple Project appeared in 1973. By this time, 35,000 talatat had been photographed and computerized, but the actual matching of scenes was being undertaken by human observation. Fundamental questions were addressed, in particular what proportion of such decoration had survived? One simple test was reassuring: scenes showing the king or queen facing either right or left were roughly equal. Did the talatat come from one complex, or scattered buildings? The evidence pointed to the latter, some eight temples. How could one identify from which temple a block had come? Sometimes a temple is named.⁷⁴

Out of a total of 59 blocks on which the temple Rwd mnw [“Sturdy are the monuments”] is mentioned, 47 come from either [Pylon IX] or Luxor. Out of a total of 20 blocks on which Tnỉ-mnw [“Exalted are the monuments”] is mentioned 12 come from [Pylon IX] or Luxor. Conversely, 45 of the 56 talatat on which Ḥwt bnbn [“Mansion of the benben”] occurs come from [Pylon II] or Hypostyle, and five of the six references to the Sḥ-n-’Itn [“Sunshade of the Aten”] emanate from the same area. Blocks of the scenes which depict the Jubilee come largely from the [Pylon II] and Hypostyle, while scenes of soldiers tend to predominate in [Pylon IX]. The provenience of stones from construction scenes is again [Pylon II] and Hypostyle, but talatat from chariot scenes are fairly evenly divided between [Pylon IX] and Hypostyle. The scenes in which Nefertiti is shown by herself come to a large extent from [Pylon II] and Hypostyle; in fact, 73% of all the blocks on which she is figured come from that locus. In [Pylon IX] blocks, on the other hand, she plays a decidedly smaller role.⁷⁵

It was also assumed that the materials from the demolished buildings were put into pylons close to their site (one would not transport such masses further than necessary).

Much more might be learned from the talatat about the layout and construction of particular temples. The Tnỉ-mnw probably had a pylon and a line of at least three large roofless kiosks containing rectangular offering tables, as well as an aviary and a bakery. Nefertiti was depicted only in the first court. In scenes of worship, Akhenaten was accompanied by the high priest of the Aten and his own first prophet: the usual lector priest was strikingly absent. The king wore either the bag crown or the Red Crown. The presence of birds indicated a location south of the sacred lake. Names of the same type as Tnỉ-mnw and Rwd-mnw persisted later in this area: remains of the former were found in the lower courses of Pylon IX, while the latter was found in the upper courses. At East Karnak, the structure found by Chevrier, Akhenaten’s headwear featured the double crown, the quadruple feathers of Shu, and the Red Crown. The first and third are predominantly associated with the Gm(t)-p3-’Itn and the Ḥb-sd.

It seems, judging by the presence of his seals and scarabs, that Akhenaten continued to occupy his father’s residence at Malqata. Yet in the talatat, the royal couple visited temples without crossing the river. The principal royal palace was therefore presumably on the eastern bank, west of Karnak. It was called “I am not far from him” (sc. Amun).

By the second preliminary report in 1975, Redford was able to define the “dispersal pattern” of the talatat and the individual nature of the decoration of each of the temples (see below). The major question, however, was: When did Akhenaten build at Thebes? A number of facts allow us confidently to answer that it was only in the first five years of his reign:

- only the Earlier form of the name of the Aten was found;

- almost exclusively the early form of the king’s nomen (Amenhotep) was found;

- Nefertiti was shown with only one daughter 90 percent of the time (fig. 17), with two daughters 8 percent of the time, and with three only thrice;

Fig. 17. Nefertiti and Meryetaten on the reconstructed gateway of the H.wt-bnbn at Karnak. The king apparently never appears in this structure, which may have enclosed the ‘single obelisk’ of Thutmose IV, which lay west of the main Aten-complex at East Karnak.

- decorative motives matched those of the early tombs of Ramose and Parennefer;

- the royal iconography was very limited: for example, Akhenaten was shown worshiping, riding, walking, and occasionally eating.

- only the first ḥb-sd was mentioned.⁷⁶

The first Akhenaten Temple Project volume appeared in 1976. Ray Smith, the man who inspired the whole undertaking, provided enormous technical detail, but major results on a broader scale deriving from the 35,000 talatat included the following: that the Karnak talatat were sandstone from Gebel Silsila; that offering tables appeared with great frequency, bearing Nefertiti’s name; that the most frequent offering was to Maat; that there were many rectangular pillars from Pylon II bearing the figure of Nefertiti; that Nefertiti was associated with the Ḥwt-’Itn (“Mansion of the Aten”); and that she was always accompanied by a princess. In sum, the religious importance of Nefertiti was evident from the beginning of the reign. She apparently had a separate temple at Karnak, a fact that has “no close counterpart in Egyptian history.” As for Akhenaten, he was more active building in stone for these first five years of his reign than he was at Amarna for the other twelve.⁷⁷ An impressive array of temples was revealed: the Gm(t)-p3-’Itn, the Ḥwt-bnbn (“Mansion of the Benben”: a kind of obelisk) and the Sḥ-n-’Itn within it, the Tnỉ-mnw and Rwd-mnw, a “Broad Hall,” and the Pr-’Itn (“House of the Aten”).⁷⁸ While Nefertiti was shown subordinate to Akhenaten in the Tnỉ-mnw and Rwd-mnw, she was shown alone in the Ḥwt-bnbn. Most astonishing of all, Akhenaten was referred to on the talatat 329 times, but Nefertiti 564 times.⁷⁹

Resumed excavations (1975)

With the Akhenaten Temple Project’s matching of the talatat underway, in 1975 Redford and the University of Pennsylvania began excavations at East Karnak, looking for the sites of the Akhenaten temples. They began where Chevrier had found the colossi fifty years earlier.

The same area was again uncovered, revealing the southern outer mudbrick wall, with an inner sandstone wall five meters away, and the piers against which the colossal statues of Akhenaten had stood two meters in front of it. Most importantly, the name of this temple was confirmed as Gm(t)-p3-’Itn.

The temple here had been demolished down to the lowest course of the foundations under Horemheb, in whose Pylons II, IX, and X the remains of it and the other Aten-structures were found; a stamped jar handle naming Horemheb was found, in fact, in the talatat debris.⁸⁰ One hundred new talatat were discovered, of which almost half allowed themes of decoration to be recovered, focusing on the arrival of the royal party and jubilee ritual in the temple, a motif apparently associated exclusively with the Gm(t)-p3-’Itn.⁸¹

The excavations of 1979/80 discovered the wall of the temenos (precinct) of the temple, five meters away from the outside of the temple. The sequence of the later destruction could be reconstructed: the colossi were overthrown, and the roof of the colonnade behind them thrown down, then the temenos wall was fired and pushed in. The excavations attempted to locate the western line of the temple, but the destruction had been too thorough. One hundred meters north of the southwestern corner, traces of smaller pier bases were found and a wall of talatat, but it was uncertain if they belonged to the same temple. Attention then turned to the northern wall. Here paradoxically it was suggested that Chevrier, in one last attempt to find it, had in fact destroyed it. The northwestern corner seemed to be more than one hundred meters from the southwestern. The basic plan was taking shape.⁸²

Redford’s 1981/82 season was very important. He worked along the western wall of the temple, revealing that it was the same as the southern one: a wall of talatat behind rectangular piers and colossal statues of the king. This ceased about sixty meters north of the southwestern corner, where a monumental entrance to the temple was found: more than ten meters wide, flanked on both sides by walls that were in turn flanked by eight piers. The inner faces were decorated with scenes, but different from those on the south: courtiers and soldiers, probably associated with the royal entry to the temple. The search then continued for the northwestern corner, but it had not been reached after 140 meters.⁸³

Redford summed up in 1984: the court of the Gm(t)-p3-’Itn was surrounded by a colonnade of piers, two meters square, seven meters high, against each of which had been a colossus of the king, wearing alternatively the feather crown of Shu and the double crown. From the ubiquity of the decoration, the main theme of the southern wall was the jubilee procession from the palace to the temple.⁸⁴ On the western wall the main themes were again processional and the king at table (feasting before and after the festival).

The whole temple could be understood as celebrating the king’s jubilee. The gods and notables from all over Egypt were in attendance, the king visited all the gods, the coronation was reenacted, officials pledged allegiance, and of course the king ran the famous race, symbolizing his taking possession of all Egypt (presumably the festival for Upper Egypt was depicted on the southern wall, and that for Lower Egypt on the northern). At the end of each day was feasting, and Akhenaten and Nefertiti appeared at the ‘Window of Appearances.’ Taxes were levied all over Egypt and wealth diverted from other temples.⁸⁵

During the thirteenth to fifteenth campaigns (1987–89), the northwestern corner of the Gm(t)-p3-’Itn was found, which at last established the width of the temple. The entrance had already been found on the western side. The statuary here survived in pitiful fragments, in comparison with the colossi found by Chevrier on the southern side. The destruction had been much more ruthless. The same was true of the northern side. All talatat, piers, and statues had been removed.

As finally revealed, the Gm(t)-p3-’Itn was 216 meters wide and more than 600 meters long, comprising a series of open courts. The talatat showed an open court with roofless shrines. They would traditionally have held the various deities of whom the king asked permission to continue to rule; now they were empty, open to the sky.⁸⁶ The perimeter wall was two meters thick and possibly nine meters high, and decorated with reliefs that were protected by a colonnade of piers. On the south side, in front of these piers were giant statues of the king in sandstone. On the north side, between the piers were set life size statues of the king in red quartzite. A relief from the tomb of Akhenaten’s butler Parennefer (TT 188) showed that the eastern side was dominated by an altar to Re Horakhty.⁸⁷ Laboury calculated that there would have been two hundred colossal statues, each seven meters tall. The main court could have held a hundred thousand people. The building was more palace in his opinion than temple, with its ‘Window of Appearances’ for audiences.⁸⁸

The colossi

There are now some thirty five identifiable colossi.⁸⁹ In 2010, Arielle Kozloff noted that the colossi showed signs of having been extensively recut, suggesting that they might have been modified from statues originally made for Amenhotep III.⁹⁰ Raymond Johnson pointed out, however, that the recutting could just as well have been of images made for Akhenaten before the change to the Amarnan style.⁹¹

They have mostly been interpreted as representing a deity, albeit with the features of the king: suggestions have included the Aten,⁹² Hapi,⁹³ Osiris,⁹⁴ and the king in connection with Osiris and the Sed festival. Three types of headdresses are found on the colossi: the headcloth (nms) with four ostrich plumes, the nms with the double crown on top, and the bag wig (ḫ3t) surmounted by a small double crown. The figures have their feet together and arms crossed and hold a crook and flail. This was the old pose of Osiris. The same was indicated by the pillars against which the statues were placed. The three types of statues have been suggested as representing three stages in the perpetual renewal of the strength of the king.⁹⁵

Rita Freed has focused on the crowns worn by Akhenaten.⁹⁶ He was shown, she concluded, in both a traditional and a new style. The Gm(t)-p3-’Itn statues have him with crossed arms, crook, and flail = Osiris; with a double crown = Atum; with a feather crown = Shu; and a tall crown = Tefnut. Johnson suggested that the last three were meant to invoke the triad of Aten, Akhenaten, and Nefertiti. Johnson also emphasized the feather crowns, pointing to Shu, who was male and female in one, with a female counterpart Tefnut. “In these statues Amenhotep IV and Nefertiti are one entity, and perhaps we err in trying to distinguish one from the other.”⁹⁷

Wolfhart Westendorf made a powerful case for the king’s identification here with the Aten.⁹⁸ The Karnak statues with the symbols of royalty recall Osirid statues, as found in the portico of the temple of Rameses III at Karnak. The standard dogma on kingship in ancient Egypt held the king to be the son of Re but also the son of Osiris, with whom the king was reunited on death. Under Westendorf’s view, Akhenaten will have adapted this theology at Karnak, where Osiris was replaced by the Aten, with the facial features of the king.

The depiction of the Aten would be to emphasize one divine quality: he was the original god, and that deity was usually androgynous. The Aten was self created⁹⁹ and replaced Re Atum in this role. As the latter had created Shu and Tefnut, so Akhenaten and Nefertiti identified with these deities.¹⁰⁰ The Aten was both mother and father of all his creation,¹⁰¹ but more often the former role is stressed.¹⁰² Most creator deities are shown as male (Atum, Amun, Ptah, Osiris) or female (Neith, Isis, Mut), but as early as the Old Kingdom, the Inundation (Hapi) is both man and woman, and Amenhotep III appeared in this guise.¹⁰³ The Amarna dogma reversed these roles: Nun had been father of Re; now the Aten was the creator of the Inundation. The king as his son could appear as the Inundation, and indeed adopted a loincloth. The exaggerated abdomen could then represent not only the fertility god but also the maternal body. The pelvis and thigh of the Aten statues have the appearance of being feminine.

Christian Leblanc put the case for Osiris. For him, the colossi formed part of a well-known series of Osirid royal statues backed by a pillar, known from as early as the Middle Kingdom (for example, Mentuhotep III at Armant, Senwosret I, Thutmose I at Karnak, Hatshepsut at Deir al-Bahari, Thutmose III at Karnak, Amenhotep III from Western Thebes, Rameses II at Luxor and Abu Simbel, and Rameses III at Karnak and Medinet Habu, as well as individual statues now in museums). Leblanc divided them into five classes according to dress (mummiform, kilt, and so on) and headdress (the grouping is not chronological, so that developments cannot be traced). The religious significance of the statues was thus made clear, as was the fact that Osiris, a most fundamental Egyptian deity, still played a very prominent role during Akhenaten’s first five years.¹⁰⁴

One may compare the distortions of the colossi to the effect on the modern mind of landscapes transformed by the Impressionists or the human body deconstructed by the Cubists. There is a growing consensus, indeed, that the colossi represent essentially an artistic convention. Edna Russmann described them as “deliberately unrealistic,” depicting a new concept of kingship; Claude Vandersleyen called them “an artistic concept”; and Erik Hornung spoke of “a manneristic distortion of reality.”¹⁰⁵ Furthermore, Valérie Angenot has emphasized—as others had noted—that these figures, being colossal, were never meant to be seen face to face, but only from below. The sculptors made allowances for parallax distortion.¹⁰⁶ Seen from this correct perspective, the figures appear physically much more normal, but at the same time more imposing.

The asexual colossus

One colossus discovered by Chevrier in 1929/30 (fig. 18) was described from the outset as “naked and asexual.”¹⁰⁷ This was accepted almost without demur for a half century until John Harris in 1977 offered a dramatic solution: it was not an image of Akhenaten, but of Nefertiti.

Fig. 18. The “asexual” colossus, found at the Gm(t)-p3-’Itn during 1929/30 (Cairo JE 55938).

Harris drew attention to the fact that most of the Karnak statues are anonymous; in only a few cases, the names of Amenhotep IV are preserved on the belt. Furthermore, the headdress of the “asexual” figure differs from the mass of the figures in having its crown fitted directly onto the head, rather than on top of an interposing nms or ḫ3t hair-covering. On the eight other examples of this arrangement (seven at Karnak and Louvre E.27112), the crown seems to be the double crown.¹⁰⁸ It is interesting that Akhenaten himself rarely wore this, or the false beard. All ‘directly-crowned’ colossi except for the ‘asexual’ one have been broken into pieces, and all but the Louvre example have had their features defaced, Harris noted, in contrast to the vast majority of colossi, whose features have been untouched.¹⁰⁹ It has been noticed at Karnak that Nefertiti is a particular object of attack. That these figures are female is suggested by Schäfer’s “neck criterion”: Nefertiti’s neck is convex at the back.¹¹⁰

Vandersleyen stressed that the ‘naked’ statue is otherwise unique: it is hardly characteristic of anything. It thus makes more sense as a clothed woman than a naked man—and it was indeed clothed: the junctures on the thighs and abdomen and the points of the breasts are all masked by clothing, rather than truly naked.¹¹¹

There are a number of problems with the Nefertiti thesis. This statue is unique in the Gm(t)-p3-’Itn temple: why is there only one representation of the queen in such a mode? Second, the features are unmistakably Akhenaten’s, while there is no indication that Nefertiti bore kingly attributes while still only King’s Chief Wife. Third, vital female characteristics of the art of this period are lacking, notably emphasis on the pubic mound.¹¹² Could the king be here represented as a god, embodying both female and male characteristics, but lacking the most vital of the latter? There is one obvious candidate: Osiris, whose body, lovingly restored by Isis, lacked the genitals. A further consideration may be that the god Aten was asexual.¹¹³

There have been many other interpretations. Westendorf suggested it might be a statue of the god Hapi,¹¹⁴ who was ambiguous in sexual appearance; Gay Robins agreed. All depictions of Akhenaten in relief abandon the earlier male fashion of the kilt, which itself naturally conceals the genitals. He was always shown with his two thighs meeting just below the exaggerated abdomen, in other words asexually. Robins therefore interpreted the asexual colossus as the king as a fecundity figure, comparable to Hapi.¹¹⁵ Johnson suggested the “self-generating Atum-Re.”¹¹⁶

Julia Samson (1910–2002) thought traces of a kilt could be easily added: a curving ridge on the abdomen and then the kilt carved onto the upper legs.¹¹⁷ Winfried Barta saw the “sexless” colossus as Aten in the form of Kamutef, the bull, relying on parallels with Bat in the Story of the Two Brothers.¹¹⁸ Redford rejected the interpretation of the primordial hermaphrodite god Yati or Kamutef, albeit in the stance of Osiris, because an ‘Urgott’ was contrary to all Akhenaten’s thinking; but that the asexuality was “not intended to be of significance” will not stand.¹¹⁹

Lise Manniche suggested, on the other hand, that if Nefertiti was indeed represented, then the triad of Atum, Shu (Akhenaten), and Tefnut (Nefertiti) could be present, representing the daily solar cycle of the young sun Shu, the older sun Atum, and the womb (Tefnut/Hathor) from which the sun was reborn.¹²⁰

Pylon IX post-1967

The further work on Pylon IX carried out after 1967 by the Centre Franco Égyptien extracted thousands more talatat that provided invaluable evidence about the temples and their financing.¹²¹ Coming mostly from the Tnỉ-mnw and Rwd-mnw, they showed Akhenaten drinking, washing his hands, dressing, and being censed, as well as port scenes, massacres of enemies, and the ‘Hathor dance’ (part of the ḥb-sd).

Of great importance are the lists of sanctuaries paying taxes, about thirty in each of Lower, Middle, and Upper Egypt. That of Lower Egypt is the best preserved, and contributors included Horus of Athribis, Thoth of Hermopolis, Osiris of Busiris, Isis of Hebyt, Sekhmet of Eset, Mut of Bwy nṯrw, Sekhmet of Khasy, Re of Ḥwt-wrt (Heliopolis), Hathor of ’Im3w and of Sekhet Re (Abusir?), and Horus of Sile. Donations included metals, clothing, and food. Taxation of religious property was not unprecedented, but was usually paid to the treasury. The innovation was the payment for one cult and a fixed amount from all other sanctuaries.

The talatat from Pylon IX have revealed more than sixty blocks showing dancers. These derive from a scene on the model of tableaux in the tomb of Kheruef under Amenhotep III, showing the ‘Hathor dance’ celebrating the union of Hathor and Re, a festival of the harvest in the Middle Kingdom and the Ḥb-sd in the New Kingdom.¹²² This was probably true also for Akhenaten in the earliest years of his reign. If this scene was part of the new theology, then presumably Nefertiti took the role of Hathor.¹²³

The talatat also showed the importance of the royal bed in the palace, to which the Aten extended his rays.¹²⁴ The king and queen were even shown going to bed. The closest Egyptian art had approached this previously are theogamy scenes (most famously, Hatshepsut’s conception at Deir al-Bahari).

The problem of the talatat was always the same: how to reconstruct the original scenes. In 1984, Robert Vergnieux began a new program to attempt this. By that time, 12,450 talatat had been found from one pylon. He devised an electronic index for 6,700 of them, and as a result, after a decade’s work, he was able to use 2,000 to reassemble 150 scenes.¹²⁵ The most important new evidence derived from what had been the Tnỉ mnw, a sanctuary with a ‘Window of Appearances,’ and the Rwd mnw, which Vergnieux took to be a royal residence: the reconstructed scenes in the main show worship and ritual. Redford was able to go further: assuming that the themes of the decoration indicate the purpose of a building, these two “seem to have been given over to domestic occupancy and food preparation.” He identified both of them, indeed, as extensions to the palace.¹²⁶

Pylon X

Jean-Luc Chappaz analyzed Akhenaten’s earliest building at Karnak, as revealed by the Franco-Egyptian excavations.¹²⁷ Akhenaten finished Pylon III of his father and demonstrated that he was still an ‘Amunist.’ Before Year 4, he had built a structure dedicated to Re Horakhty, some blocks of which were found inside Pylon X—including blocks rather larger than the later talatat—and which were known to the early nineteenth-century travelers and investigators (figs. 19 and 20). Chappaz analyzed more than 140 blocks. The structure’s original location and its name were unknown, but he suggested the “Great Benben of Re Horakhty.” The only god was Re Horakhty, bearing the epithets that soon turned into the didactic name of the Aten. Other gods were named, admittedly, but only in stereotyped formulae. The king was shown in traditional guise: White Crown, Red Crown, and Blue Crown. His name had usually been recut as Akhenaten. He offered incense, bread, wine, and meat. There was no sign of Nefertiti, who first seemed to appear in Year 3/4, suggesting perhaps

Fig. 19. Amenhotep IV back to back with Re-Horakhty-Aten; found by Lepsius at Karnak Pylon X (Berlin ÄM 2072).

Fig. 20. Perhaps the earliest “classic” depiction of the Aten-globe, with the lower parts of the god’s cartouches visible. The king (with his name later altered from Amenhotep to Akhenaten) is shown in a transitional style between the ‘classical’ and the ‘revolutionary’; another early find from Pylon X at Karnak (Louvre E.13482ter).

that this was the time of her marriage. The texts already emphasized the filial relationship of the king to his god. The structure was completed by Year 4 and apparently remained in use until Year 6.

South of Pylon X is an avenue of now ram-headed sphinxes, leading toward the temple of Mut and inscribed for Tutankhamun. Claude Traunecker has noted, however, that they originally represented Akhenaten and Nefertiti.¹²⁸

Texts and names

The sandstone quarry at Gebel Silsila records the commission to a military figure whose name began with “Amun” to carry out works from Elephantine to Gambehdet (the length of Egypt), and to quarry sandstone to make the bnbn-stone of Horakhty under the name of “Light which is in the Aten” in Karnak.¹²⁹

As noted above, inscriptions show that temples, royal estates, and municipalities throughout Egypt were taxed to provide for the “House of the Aten in southern Heliopolis.” They provided gold, silver, bronze, incense, cloth, wine, oil, honey, and animals.¹³⁰

The upkeep of the new temples of Akhenaten was certainly expensive: the subordinates in the House of the Aten in Karnak numbered 3,622 people, mostly specified as northerners.¹³¹ The religious staff included the Greatest of Seers of the Aten in the House of the Aten, God’s Fathers, and lay priests, as well as the Overseer of the Treasury of the House of the Aten, Scribes of Storehouses, an Overseer of Herds, and a Chief Beekeeper.¹³²

More than half a dozen temples are named, although their relationship to each other is quite uncertain. The main temple is the Pr-’Itn. Within this was the Gm(t)-p3-’Itn and within this were the Ḥwt-bnbn and the Sḥ-’Itn. We also hear continuously of the Rwd-mnw and the Tnỉ-mnw.¹³³ A new approach was offered by Marianne Doresse, who matched the names of Akhenaten’s early structures with the building materials and compared their names with buildings known later at Amarna.¹³⁴

Sandstone

1. The Gm(t)-p3-’Itn—also the name of the main temple at Amarna and of the Nubian site of Kawa.

2. Ḥwt-bnbn m Gm(t)-p3-’Itn—paralleled at Amarna.

3. Tnỉ-mnw n ’Itn r nḥḥ—found only at Thebes.

4. Rwd-mnw n ’Itn r nḥḥ—found also at Amarna, near the Pr-’Itn.

Doresse suggested that the presence of the name Amenhotep (IV), sometimes chiseled out, dated these buildings to before Year 4 (but see below). Sometimes, however, the name was Akhenaten, showing that work continued, but since there was no trace of the Later form of the Aten name, work stopped by the end of Year 8—or Year 12 (see chapter 4).

Limestone and granite

1. Ḥ‘y m 3ḫt n ’Itn (‘He who rejoices in the horizon of Aten’; fig. 21), and granite altars from it.

2. M33rw mḥty n p3 ’Itn (“Northern viewing place of the Aten,” mentioned on a block from Pylon II in connection with a lake)—found at Amarna, and using the Later form of the name of the Aten: perhaps a kiosk.

The sandstone four are now accepted as Akhenaten’s temples at Karnak,¹³⁵ but the limestone block naming the Ḥ‘y m 3ḫt n ’Itn may have come from Memphis.¹³⁶

Redford dated the buildings by the number of princesses shown: Meryetaten appeared in the Gm(t)-p3-’Itn; by the time of the Ḥwt-bnbn, Meketaten had been born, and he dated this to Year 4; Ankhesenpaaten was probably born by Year 5, before Akhenaten left Thebes.

The temples served different functions, to judge by the surviving fragments of decoration: the Tnỉ-mnw featured domestic activities, such as bread- and wine-making; the Rwd-mnw showed cult scenes in roofless kiosks, with Akhenaten and the court riding out to open-air offerings, and foreign dignitaries being presented; a military escort always seemed to be present. The Ḥwt-bnbn was connected with the primeval hill at Heliopolis, where Re created the universe. The word bnbn was written with the determinative of an obelisk, most likely recalling the obelisk of Akhenaten’s grandfather Thutmose IV at the eastern end of the main Karnak complex, dedicated to Horakhty.¹³⁷ Here, Nefertiti and Meryetaten offer to Aten; there was apparently no sign of the king. The Gm(t)-p3-’Itn was associated overwhelmingly with the ḥb-sd.

Where were these temples located? Redford very logically suggested that they were close to where their dismantled building blocks were found. Tnỉ-mnw and Rwd-mnw blocks come from Pylon IX, middle and lowest courses respectively, suggesting a southern location, while those of the Ḥwt-bnbn come from mainly Pylon II and the Hypostyle Hall respectively, as did those of the Gm(t)-p3-’Itn. This might suggest a northern location, although the location of the Gm(t)-p3-’Itn is known for certain to be well to the east.¹³⁸

The cult

Redford noted that the talatat showed Akhenaten accompanied by the Great Seer, the Lector Priest, and the First Prophet of the King when going to the Gm(t)-p3-’Itn; by the first and third of these at the Tnỉ-mnw; and by only the first at the Rwd-mnw. He was shown alone at the kiosk of offering.¹³⁹

Sayed Tawfik (1936–90) attempted to uncover the evidence for the religious ceremonial in these temples. Was it radically different from the traditional service? The priesthood remained the same: the talatat mention the Chief Seer (wr m33w), the same as the chief priest of Re at Heliopolis.

That part of the traditional daily ritual concerned with the image of the god was, of course, no longer possible, because there was no image of the Aten. The rest of the ritual, however, was very similar: the “offering of Maat.” The talatat show Amenhotep and Nefertiti with an offering table presenting items, including Maat, to the Aten. Akhenaten “lives on Maat” and Aten “is satisfied with Maat.” Purificatory libations of water were poured; purification was made also with incense. The Aten was then presented with various objects, such as collars or pectorals, oils and ointments. There was a final offering with ‘utterances’ of natron, incense, and water.

As Tawfik concluded, the main problem was that these rituals had been devised for the worship of deities represented by statues, but the Aten was immaterial. The visual evidence, however, confirms that all these offerings were made nonetheless.¹⁴⁰

The jubilee(s)

The famous limestone relief in the Fitzwilliam Museum (fig. 21) was first published by Francis Griffith in 1918. He recognized it as a jubilee scene. On the left, Akhenaten (originally Amenhotep, but with the name later updated) wears a White Crown and stands before an altar of offerings, hands uplifted to the Aten. The god’s titles are in the Earlier form, and he is “rejoicing in the horizon of the Aten.” On the right, the king wears the short festival cloak and again the White Crown. Behind him is the High Priest of Neferkheperure, in front two other priests, one a chief lector. The inscription states that the scene is in Southern On (which Griffith understood to be Hermonthis, a little south of Thebes, rather than Thebes itself).¹⁴¹

Fig. 21. Akkenaten (name altered from its Amenhotep form) at his Hb-sd, worshiping at an altar and surrounded by priests; perhaps from Memphis, the Gayer-Anderson relief (Fitzwilliam EGA.2300.1943).

Schäfer in 1919 sharpened the analysis, noting that the original inscription bore the name Amenhotep. He also connected the Gebel Silsila inscription with the ḥb-sd, stressed the presence of the human handed disk of the Aten, and suggested its introduction at this time. Like Griffith, Schäfer took the Southern On to be Hermonthis as the location of the scene. The relief showed Amarnan artistic characteristics in a “mild” form.¹⁴²

Aldred collected reliefs of the Aten offering w3s scepters, which he took to be related to the ḥb-sd. In the Fitzwilliam piece, the original name of Amenhotep had been recut as Akhenaten; the king, moreover, is by himself. In others, the name was not recut, and he was accompanied by Nefertiti and their daughters. The ḥb-sd was seemingly celebrated also by the Aten: for an immortal god to renew his reign, however, seems, incongruous.¹⁴³

Crucial to dating the jubilee(s) is the tomb of Ramose, where on the western wall a doorway shows two different styles (figs. 9 and 10). On the south side is a traditional scene, but on the north is the new Atenist style. In the former, Re-Horakhty has his name without cartouches; in the latter, the Aten shines on king and queen (no daughter is shown). This change coincided, Aldred suggested, with the first jubilee. The distribution of rewards from the ‘Window of Appearances’ was also suggested as having originated with the first ḥb-sd.

Jan Assmann stressed the importance of the jubilee to the establishment of Atenism. Akhenaten created two “Houses of Rejoicing of the Aten-distinguished-in-Heb-Seds.”¹⁴⁴ For Assmann, the epithet of the Aten as “Festival-Celebrating” marked his proclamation as “over-king” (Überkönig), the “House of Rejoicing” being the stage for the god’s (and king’s) ḥb-sd.¹⁴⁵

Redford went further:

All the evidence militates in favor of the kaleidoscope of revolutionary changes associated with Akhenaten’s program having taken place at his jubilee, or in anticipation thereof. This includes the new style of art, the new, outlandish representation of the king, the first steps in overt iconoclasm, the introduction of the Disk as an icon, and the enclosing of the didactic name in cartouches.¹⁴⁶

Talatat were also invented at this time, and the enlarged Pr-’Itn became the Gm(t)-p3-’Itn, complete with statues, altars, and shrines.

The ḥb-sd was held here, as shown by the scenes on the talatat from this location that are analyzed by Redford.¹⁴⁷ Over many days, the king left the palace and proceeded to the temple. He, the queen, and princesses were carried in palanquins. Crowds lined the route. The courts of the temple were full of kiosks containing altars. The king went from kiosk to kiosk, making offerings and pouring libations. Redford identified the three priests in the relief: the chief priest of the sun god, the lector priest holding a papyrus setting out the ritual, and a personal priest carrying the king’s sandals. On the return each evening to the palace, the king and queen are shown feasting, while musicians, both Egyptian women and Hittite men, play for them.¹⁴⁸

The most exhaustive study of the festival at Thebes is by Jocelyn Gohary. She concluded that:

- there was only one ḥb-sd of Akhenaten (as Amenhotep IV) at Karnak;

- there was no evidence that the Aten was a co-celebrant;

- there was no evidence that this festival coincided with any of Amenhotep III’s ḥb-sds;

- the festival scenes have been recovered from Pylon II and the Hypostyle Hall;

- the style of the art was transitional, rather than the developed Amarnan one;

- there were two main types of scenes: a palanquin procession, and an offering to the Aten in kiosks;

- the traditional ḥb-sd showed offerings to various deities; now they were made only to the Aten, which was therefore done in multiple kiosks;

- Nefertiti was shown only in the palanquin scenes;

- no daughters were shown;¹⁴⁹ and

- closely connected with the temple in the festival was the palace to the west, associated with daily feasting by both the court and the common people.¹⁵⁰

Controversy remains regarding the date of the ḥb-sd at Karnak. Redford dated it to Year 3—or to the second anniversary of Akhenaten’s accession; Eric Uphill placed it in Year 6.¹⁵¹ The obvious question is what the young king was doing celebrating at the beginning of his reign a festival normally only held after thirty years. John Darnell and Colleen Manassa make the attractive suggestion that he was incorporating his father’s reign into his own, thus following on from Amenhotep III’s third jubilee in his Year 37 (probably just over a year before his death).¹⁵²

Akhenaten certainly stated his intention to celebrate a jubilee also at Amarna,¹⁵³ but modern scholarship has turned against it. Aldred attributed to such a second festival a scene in the tomb of Parennefer at Amarna (TA 7): Akhenaten wears the 3tf-crown and is seated under a baldachin.¹⁵⁴ Aldred first placed this putative jubilee in Year 9, linking it with the change in the Aten’s names and its epithet from “in Heb-sed” to “Lord of Heb-seds,” positing even a third festival within a span of nine years. By the time of his 1968 biography of Akhenaten, Aldred was caught in a trap, defending vigorously a coregency of Amenhotep III and his son for twelve years and arguing for the contemporaneity of their festivals, thus placing Akhenaten’s in his own Years 3, 7, and 10.¹⁵⁵ Uphill agreed that Akhenaten celebrated a second festival at Amarna in Year 9.¹⁵⁶ It was customary for a king to celebrate this festival subsequent to the first at approximately three year intervals, but there was no sign of any further one in Year 12 or 15. By the second edition of his biography, Aldred was of the view that Akhenaten had celebrated only one jubilee, in Year 3.¹⁵⁷ Redford oscillated: there was no evidence for any further festival at Amarna—or perhaps there was another in Year 9.¹⁵⁸ Nicholas Reeves hinted at “a theoretical scheme of repeated celebrations at el-Amarna,” but explained no further.¹⁵⁹ Laboury accepted that there was only one, at Karnak.¹⁶⁰ It must be confessed that this appetite for anniversaries was not unique: Thutmose III held four in twelve years, Rameses II celebrated fourteen.¹⁶¹

The king’s change of name

The king was still called Amenhotep as late as the Gurob letter: Year 5, III šmw 19.¹⁶² He had changed his name to Akhenaten as early as the carving of the first boundary stelae at Amarna: Year 5, IV šmw 13.¹⁶³ Only twenty-four days separated these two dates. The change was therefore in the middle of Year 5.¹⁶⁴

His full new titulary was as follows: Horus: “Beloved of Aten”; Two Ladies: “Great of kingship in Akhet-Aten”; Horus of Gold: “Who raises up the name of Aten”; King of Upper and Lower Egypt: “Neferkheperure-Waenre” (“Beautiful are the appearances of Re-The only one of Re”); Son of Re: “Akhenaten.”¹⁶⁵ The stress has thus shifted completely from a traditional focus in his original names to the Aten.

Translations of the king’s new throne name have varied over the years. The difficult element is the first: 3ḫ. Suggestions have included: “(Aten is) satisfied” (Breasted); “Serviceable to (the Aten)” (Gardiner); “Effective spirit (of the Aten)” (Aldred).¹⁶⁶

The meaning of Akhenaten’s name has been fully revealed by the studies of Gertie Englund and Florence Friedman, relying on texts such as, “I am your [the Aten’s] son who is effective for you and who exalts your name” and “son of eternity, who came forth from the Aten, effective for him who is effective for him,” which stress the interdependence of the king and his god. An apparently unique variant of the early form of the name of the Aten replaced “Shu” [i.e., “sunlight”] with “3ḫ,” implying the equivalence of the two. Akhenaten could thus be “the sunlight” of his father, the Aten. There was finally a potential connection between 3ḫ and 3ḫt (“horizon”), a wordplay that goes back to the Pyramid Texts (Spells 158 a–d, 585a). Friedman suggested that scenes of the king and queen facing each other with the Aten centered above them formed an analogue of the horizon from which the Aten rises.¹⁶⁷

A final issue regarding the name of the king is that certain German scholars have argued that the standard vocalization of the name of the god, “Aten,” is mistaken, and that it should rather be written as “Jati.”¹⁶⁸ The king’s name would then therefore be “Akhenjati,” the queen’s “Nafteta.” It seems safe to predict that these will not displace the traditional forms, concealing as they do the underlying structure as seen in the hieroglyphs.

Akhenaten’s pathology

Not the least fascinating aspect of the historiography of Akhenaten is his physical condition and appearance. Since the nineteenth century, those who understand nothing of art have been fascinated by Akhenaten’s physical representation, have understood it literally, and have therefore been sure that there is a medical diagnosis to be made. No attempt will be made to chart and catalogue every such theory. The endless contradictory diagnoses should be enough to convince anyone that obviously

Fig. 22. The king’s figure from what was originally a dyad of the king and queen, presumably Akhenaten and Nefertiti, although no texts survive (Louvre N.831).

this is a false trail. It will suffice to mention the two syndromes that have gained more adherents than others: Fröhlich’s and Marfan’s.

The former is named after the Austrian pharmacologist Alfred Fröhlich (1871–1953). Its symptoms as described in a current textbook of pathology are stunting of growth, obesity (feminine distribution of fat), arrested sexual development, mental retardation, and decreased production of growth and other pituitary hormones.¹⁶⁹ It is obvious that little of this can be applied to Akhenaten. In adults, one of the main symptoms is inability to produce children. The acrobatics indulged in to explain Akhenaten’s six daughters defy belief: Aldred, for example, suggested that they were Amenhotep III’s children.¹⁷⁰

Marfan’s Syndrome is named after the French pediatrician Antoine Marfan (1858–1942). Symptoms include slender bones, long face, arachnodactyly, spinal deformities, pigeon chest, a wide pelvis, and visual impairment. The usual cause of death is cardiovascular weakness. A prominent recent supporter of this diagnosis is Alwyn Burridge, who recognized a complication: “If Akhenaten had Marfan’s Syndrome, he was most likely blind for most of his adult life.”¹⁷¹

There are a number of facts that make the literal interpretation of Akhenaten’s physiology improbable, if not impossible.

First, in the tomb of Ramose at Thebes, dated about Year 30 of Amenhotep III, Akhenaten is depicted in two ways: alongside Maat with normal physiology; but also alongside the Aten and Nefertiti, while still Amenhotep IV, with ‘Amarnan’ anatomy. That the same person could be shown realistically in two such different ways about the same time is impossible.

Second, there are many portraits of the king with normal physiology: for example, the well-known yellow steatite seated statue in the Louvre (fig. 22); or holding an offering table, from Amarna house O49.14.¹⁷² To account for this, there are theories of ‘early’ and ‘late’ styles, the earlier more ‘extreme.’

Third, the ‘exaggerated’ anatomy is shared by not only his family, but also members of his entourage. This could not possibly be the case in fact; these must be examples of artistic distortion, or fashion.

Fourth, admittedly an argument based on omission, the Amarna Letters make no reference to any illness suffered by Akhenaten. None of Akhenaten’s siblings, moreover, is known to have had any deformity.¹⁷³