At the storm of the Egyptians, Akhenaten collapsed the Egyptian god Amun in favor of another god, the Aten or (sun disk). Akhenaten and his religious reforms thought the sun deserved its own complete blown cult. His conclusion shocked the influential army of Amun revering priests. They anticipated their pharaoh to worship Amun, god of fertility and creation higher up all other gods.
Five years into his rule, pharaoh Akhenaten loosed another shockwave. Thebes, he declared, was too closely connected to Amun and unsuitable for the Aten. The sun disk required its own holy city. After scrubbing the length of the Nile, he came upon a place in the middle of Egypt. This location was precisely half way between Thebes and Memphis, around 170 miles from each of the two cities.
The shores where Akhenaten downed were in a part now called Amarna. It was waste and further, but it was still where King Akhenaten determined to establish his new capital. The king gave his reasons in writing, and they can still be read today on top of the cliffs overlooking the city. A symbol of the Aten has been etched into the rock as a limit maker.
In Egyptian notion, the horizon where the sun raised was called the Aket and was symbolized by two mountain tips with the sun disk rising between them. The hills that border the Amarna plane are suddenly disturbed by a break in the cliffs, a sight to behold particularly at dawn. The king must have believed hed found the sacred birth position of the sun god. He called his city Aketaten, horizon of the sun disk. Akhenaten challenging Thutmosis his greatest artist and favorite carver, with the job of turning his dream into realism.
Notes:
Five years into his rule, pharaoh Akhenaten loosed another shockwave. Thebes, he declared, was too closely connected to Amun and unsuitable for the Aten. The sun disk required its own holy city. After scrubbing the length of the Nile, he came upon a place in the middle of Egypt. This location was precisely half way between Thebes and Memphis, around 170 miles from each of the two cities.
The shores where Akhenaten downed were in a part now called Amarna. It was waste and further, but it was still where King Akhenaten determined to establish his new capital. The king gave his reasons in writing, and they can still be read today on top of the cliffs overlooking the city. A symbol of the Aten has been etched into the rock as a limit maker.
In Egyptian notion, the horizon where the sun raised was called the Aket and was symbolized by two mountain tips with the sun disk rising between them. The hills that border the Amarna plane are suddenly disturbed by a break in the cliffs, a sight to behold particularly at dawn. The king must have believed hed found the sacred birth position of the sun god. He called his city Aketaten, horizon of the sun disk. Akhenaten challenging Thutmosis his greatest artist and favorite carver, with the job of turning his dream into realism.
Notes:
Akhenaten traveled the capital away from Thebes, and a new city was constructed as the new capital of the Pharaoh Akhenaten, consecrated to his new religion of worship to the Aten. Aten or Aton was the disk of the sun in ancient Egypt mythology, and primitively an aspect of god Ra. This religious reformation seems to have started with his decision to observe a Sed festival in his third regnal year a highly different step, since a Sed-festival, a kind of royal jubilee involved to reinforce the Pharaoh's divine powers of kingship, was traditionally contained the thirtieth year of Akhenaten's reign.
Year eight determined the beginning of building on his new capital, Akhetaten ("Horizon of Aten"), at the situation known today as Amarna. In the very year, Amenhotep IV officially converted his name to Akhenaten (Capable Spirit of Aten) as prove of his shifting religious view. Very shortly afterward he centralized Egyptian religious patterns in Akhetaten, though construction of the city appears to have continued for some more years.
Previous Posts:
Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV)
Queen Nefertiti
Tutankhamun Facts
Turin Kings List
Tutankhamun (1334-1325 B.C.)
