HISTORY'S CURRENTS
AKHENATEN, ANCIENT EGYPT'S 'RELIGIOUS REFORMER'

Akhenaten was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh who reigned in the eighteenth dynasty about 3,500 years ago. He was born Amenhotep IV, but he became known as Akhenaten due to religious innovations he attempted to initiate during his reign. Most scholars agree he was on the throne during the years between 1350 and 1335 BC, however, they disagree on the year of his ascension (as early as 1370 to as late as 1352) and his death (believed to be around 1336 to 1332). Not only is Akhenaten associated with the religious reform that took place during his reign, but he is also known for his famous wife Nefertiti and with the ill fated "boy king" Tutankhamen, who may have been his son or his half brother.

Akhenaten was the son of Amenhotep III and Tiye. His wife, Nefertiti, who is famous because of the beautiful bust of her found at Amarna, may have been a foreign princess, but there is also evidence to suggest that she was a relative of Akhenaten or the daughter of the vizier Ay. Akhenaten and Nefertiti had six daughters. One daughter Meketaten died when she was about eleven of unknown causes, and Neferneferuaten-tasharit, Neferneferure, and Sotepenre followed shortly afterwards and were probably victims of a plague that tormented Egypt at the time. As mentioned previously, Tutankhamen may have been his son.

Akhenaten's religious revolution consisted of a belief in a single god named Aten, represented by the sun disk. He essentially overthrew Egyptian polytheism in favor of the worship of Aten, a move that displeased both the Egyptian people and the very powerful priest of the various gods worshiped by the Egyptians. Akhenaten closed many of the temples of the old gods and allowed the estates of the temples and their priests to revert back to the throne. In year 6 of his reign, he left Thebes and created a new capital city in Middle Egypt, halfway between Memphis and Thebes. It was a virgin site not previously dedicated to any other god or goddess, and he named it Akhetaten (The Horizon of the Aten). Here he built a temple to Aten and proceeded to lead the nation in the worship of Aten as chief priest with Nefertiti as chief priestess. Today the site is known as el-Amarna.

The new religion tried to purge the superstitious beliefs and magic from Egyptian religion. Beliefs in such divine magic and empty ritual can be observed in The Book of the Dead, a list of chants and formulas designed to guide a deceased person through the trials and tribulations of the other world and into paradise. Akhenaten's religion centered on the visibility, tangibility, and undeniable realness of Aten.

As chief priest of the new religion, Akhenaten created several poems or hymns to the new sun disk deity. The most famous was the 'Hymn to Aten.' The first verse reads:

Splendid you rise in heaven's lightland,
O living Aten, creator of life!
When you have dawned in eastern lightland,
You fill every land with your beauty.
You are beauteous, great, radiant,
High over every land;
Your rays embrace the lands,
To the limit of all that you made.
Being Re, you reach their limits,
You bend them for the son whom you love;
Though you are far, your rays are on earth,
Though one sees you, your strides are unseen.

Biblical scholars note a resemblance of the 'Hymn to Aten' to 'Benedic, anima mea,' commonly referred to as Psalm 104. Note that only Akhenaten had access to the god, a belief that dates back to earlier Egyptian religion when life eternal and access to Ra, the sun god, was only accessible to the pharaoh. Akhenaten takes away the belief that the dead can call upon Osiris and Isis, The Book of the Dead, or any other deities, spells or magic, to guide them through the after-world. Only through their adherence to the king and his intercession on their behalf could they hope to live beyond the grave.

Akhenaten probably died in the 16th year of his reign. He was surly buried at Akhetaten. Evidence indicates that he was moved, probably by his followers to prevent desecration from enemies, when the old religion returned to favor during the next quarter century. Most of the writings commissioned by Akhenaten were removed in the next century as his memory was erased from Egypt's collective history.

Many historians determined a link to Akhenaten's religion and the early Jewish religion established by Moses. While Moses developed his religious views in Egypt, at least a century had passed since the death of Akhenaten and the religion of Aten was certainly forgotten.

Akhenaten has been described as a religious innovator and a heretic, as a free thinker and control freak. However, he is credited with being the world's first monotheist. His struggle against the old religion with its superstitions, chants, and magic, controlled by cults, priests, and gigantic temples and estates, demonstrated to the world for the first time that nothing is as detrimental to a society than a large group of unemployed priests.

History's currents, or current history? You decide!