Famous Pharaohs: Akhenaten and Nefertiti

The Rising of Akhenaten to the throne marked the starting of the most intriguing and controversial geological era of Egyptian history. Akhenaten had been crowned as co-regent pharaoh leastways eight years before his fathers death, but at the starting of his reign he rapidly set about applying his radical religious views. Akhenaten's grandfather (Thutmosis IV), had already hinted at a new emphasis on the adoration of the sun disc Aten, and his father had nurtured this by working the cult of the sun. Akhenaten came right out into the open and stated his fidelity to God Aten in orientation to all other Egyptian deities, though he did not instantly condemn the revere of God Amun.

The reigns of Akhenaten and Nefertiti swept only 17 years from 1352 to 1336 B.C.E. Even Akhenatens artists raised the palace, tombs, and temples with many prospects of music making. This brief period seen a dramatic change in Egyptian religion. Akhenaten collapsed the worship of Amun, the King of the Gods, and replaced the god Aten, the physical disk of the sun. He involved Amuns temples and moved the royal court from homes in Thebes and Memphis to a new metropolis at the site of Tell El-Amarna. Thus this period is named the Amarna Period and takes the reign of Tutankhamun, who reinstated the religion of Amun and taken back the royal court to Thebes. The richness and variety of the scenes of music-making establish some key styles in music in this time. Many prospects show Akhenatens six daughters taking on the sistrum and menattwo sacred rattles used in worship proposing that the royal daughters had a marked role in the musical life of Atens cult. Likewise, the presence of foreign musicians at court in draughts demonstrates the wide nature of Akhenatens reign. The outside musicians may have attended foreign wives to court, though the demonstrate that Nefertiti, his primary wife, was a foreigner is not determinate.

During the Amarna Time Period the royal daughters and the queen played the sistrum for the Aten instead than Goddess Hathor. Though Hathor had been the essential deity assorted with sistrum playing in conventional Egyptian religion, her worship was not applied during the Amarna Period. Thus the two sistra determined in the tomb of Tutankhamun and the sistrum described on a block from an Amarna constructing miss the normal decoration with Hathors head. Rather than the sistra from this period have easy handles shaped like papyrus plants. The rattle disks themselves are housed on snake-shaped poles. Perhaps the sound of the sistrum was connected with the cobra who protects the royal family.

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Akhenaten and Nefertiti