The Reign of Pharaoh Akhenaton

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The Reign of Pharaoh Akhenaton During the Reign of pharaoh Akhenaton (Amunhotep IV) which was a short 16 years from 1360 to 1344 B.C.E. He managed to change religion from what it had been to would it became. It went from many gods to a single god and he tried to rub out the existence of other gods. He never listened to anything the people he ruled said and many other things I will discuss in the paper. The first thing he did was he changed religion. He called his religion Aten that is the worship of the sun (El Mahdy 1999: 88). This not the first mentioning of Aten in Egypt it has been used before. Aten was known of since the twelfth dynasty getting more mentions over the years. Thutmoses IV for example refers to a large scarab as a god of battles who makes the pharaoh mighty in his domain, and brings all his subjects under the sway of the sun- disk (Alfred 1988: 239). The symbols for Aten were changed the old way was shown as either a pyramid or a falcon (Rempel 2000: 4). The new symbol was now the sun shown as a disk with rays radiating down ending as hands (Rempel 2000: 4). Akhenaton's religion had only one god coming from a religion of many gods (Eliade 1987: 169). Atenism is Monotheism. This paved the way for combining gods. Combining a lesser god with a greater god (Wilkenson 2000: 83). Also the sun never played that big of a role in the day-to-day run of Egypt. The ways were done by Osiris, Isis, and Horus a cycle of life (Grempel 2000: 2). Osiris represented the fertilizing power of the Nile, Isis the reproductive earth and Horus For the vegetation which joined the other two together (Grempel 2000: 2) Aten religion was much different from most other religions. He made it known he rejected ... ... middle of paper ... ... for Champollion who discovered the Bentresh Stela, which is now in the Louvre in Paris (Wilkinson 2000: 165). Located in the southern area of Akhenaten is the Maru Temple or viewing temple (Wilkinson 2000: 141). The royal family may have layed out in the sun here (Wilkinson 2000: 141). It had gardens and walkways and pools in it (Wilkinson 2000: 141). Again the purpose of this temple is unknown and the site know longer exists (Wilkinson 2000:141). The thing we get from this is he was really trying to build a great area in the desert. I do not think he was aware that it would be abandoned after he died. Akenaten was a very interesting ruler. He changed and turned upside down what Egypt had known of religion. He was not a very helpful or concerned ruler he very rarely did anything for his people. A very interesting person I must say in most respects.

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