Karnak statue of Akhenaten (Cairo Museum)
Bust of Nefertiti (Ägyptisches Museum, Berlin)
Akhenaten, Nefertiti and daughters under the sun god Aten (Ägyptisches Museum, Berlin)
Amarna
As part of Akhenaten’s reforms, a new capital city was built at Tell el-Amarna. Everything from the placement of the road and temples was for the veneration of the sun god, Aten. Akhenaten built the city on virgin territory in the desert between Thebes and Memphis. To the east of the city, the sun rises between a break in the rising cliffs. The sunrise could be ‘read’ as the hieroglyph ‘Horizon-of-the-Aten’ (Akhet-aten). It was for this reason that Akhenaten chose the spot as his city’s location.
Shortly after Akhenaten’s death, the court returned to Thebes, and the city was abandoned. Over time, subsequent rulers such as Horemheb (r.1312/1306-1292 BC) dismantled Amarna’s monuments. These actions were deliberate attempts by Akhenaten’s predecessors to erase his memory from official record.
The period of Akhenaten’s rule is called the Amarna period.
Flinders Petrie and the excavation of Amarna
Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie (3 June 1853 – 28 July 1942), commonly known as Flinders Petrie, was an English archaeologist. He excavated dozens of major sites in the course of his career, including Amarna. Petrie was a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology and the preservation of artefacts.
Petrie was the first Professor of Egyptian Archaeology and Philology at University College London (UCL). In 1913, Petrie sold his large collection of Egyptian antiquities to UCL, which are now housed in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology. The museum has a collection of more than 80,000 objects. Petrie stressed in his reports the decorative arts he excavated at Amarna. He admired the ‘new’ and ‘naturalistic’ style that differed from the traditional and conventional style of previous generations. Petrie excavated a large quantity of glass at the site, as well as evidence of kilns, showing the city was a centre for large-scale glass production.
After Petrie, various archaeological teams excavated Amarna. In the 1920s and 30s, the Egypt Exploration Society funded several expeditions, focusing on the retrieval of religious and royal structures and ‘museum-quality’ objects. During this period, _The Illustrated London News_ published extensively on the excavations, helping to create a glamorous and fetishised image of Amarna. The city became an idyllic garden suburb with aesthetically pleasing houses and good sanitation. Akhenaten and his ‘dream city’ were an ancient precursor of modern progress. In 1977, Barry Kemp of the University of Cambridge took over directorship of excavations at Amarna. His excavation is still ongoing.
Akhenaten’s legacy
Though attempts were made to obliterate Akhenaten from the history of ancient Egypt, he has inspired artists, writers, composers and groups of people who identify with him for a variety of reasons. There has been much speculation about his motivations and his reign, which have fed creative re-imaginings of this infamous pharaoh and his court. He has been considered a nature poet, an iconoclast, fundamentalist, artist and messianic philosopher. From a modern perspective, he is regarded as the first monotheist.
The British Museum collection includes stelae from the Amarna period, and two busts of Akhenaten’s father, the Pharaoh Amenhotep III, that flank the entrance to the Egyptian sculpture gallery. The gallery contains a number of statues of other pharaohs and ancient Egyptian deities, monumental pieces of stone architecture and the Rosetta Stone with its three inscribed scripts which led to the decipherment of hieroglyphs – Egypt’s ancient form of pictographic writing.
Explore Akhnaten: The Opera
Explore Akhnaten: The Director's Note
ENO Akhnaten: The Design
