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Volume 8 issue 2 October 2007

ANCIENT EGYPT explores the WORLD WIDE WEB ...

THE AMARNA AGE

This month’s NETFISHING continues its look at the history of Egypt by seeing what the World Wide Web has to say about ‘The Amarna Period’ in the Eighteenth Dynasty, when Akhenaten and Nefertiti ruled from Amarna and the young Tutankhamun was born.

Akhenaten & Nefertiti ruled Egypt from their newly-built capital city of Akhetaten (modern Amarna), where they brought up their six daughters and developed their new, Aten-based, religion. Refer:

www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/akhenaten_01.shtml

www.egyptsites.co.uk/middle/mallawi/amarna/menu.html

http://touregypt.net/featurestories/amarna.htm

http://ib205.tripod.com/akhetaten_map.html

www.egyptsites.co.uk/middle/mallawi/amarna/menu.html

www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/amarna/index.html

www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/amarna/boundary.html

In year twelve of Akhenaten’s reign a great celebration was held at Amarna, know as the ‘Great Durbar’. This was the highpoint of Akhenaten’s reign when foreign kings were invited to Egypt to take part in the huge festival. Scholars who accept that Akhenaten had a long, twelve-year co-regency with his father, Amenhotep III, believe that this celebration marks Akhenaten’s sole accession to the throne of Egypt upon the death of his father. Amenhotep III was buried in the Valley of the Kings and had a magnificent Mortuary Temple on the West Bank. Refer:

www.thebanmappingproject.com/atlas/index_kv.asp?tombID=undefined (Select KV22)

www.touregypt.net/featurestories/amenhotep3temple.htm

www.egyptsites.co.uk/upper/luxorwest/temples/amenhotep3.html

www.egyptsites.co.uk/upper/luxorwest/other/colossi.html

www.touregypt.net/collmem.htm

All was not well at Amarna, however, as Akhenaten needed an heir, and Nefertiti had failed to produce a son; so Akhenaten took a secondary wife, Kiya. Just who Kiya was remains uncertain, but some scholars have suggested that she was the mother of Tutankhamun – although there is no direct evidence for this, apart from the fact that she was of childbearing age and married to the king (as were several hundred other women in the royal harem). Indeed it is possible that Tutankhamun was actually a son of Amenhotep III rather than of Akhenaten – we simply don’t have enough evidence to say with certainty. Kiya, however, appears to have produced only a daughter, and so Akhenaten, perhaps in desperation, ‘married’ his own daughters to give him a male heir, but they, yet again, gave birth only to daughters. Refer:

http://ib205.tripod.com/kiya.html

www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/amarna_03.shtml

www.touregypt.net/featurestories/whowastut.htm

The events after year twelve of Akhenaten’s reign are uncertain, but many of the royal family seem to have died: one daughter, Meketaten, in childbirth, then the three younger daughters, Kiya, and then Queen Tiye. Nefertiti also seems to have disappeared about year fourteen of Akhenaten’s reign. Akhenaten, perhaps resigned to not having a son, took a co-regent to rule alongside him – a shadowy figure called Smenkhkara. Some scholars believe that Smenkhkara was actually Nefertiti under a different name, whilst others refute this view believing that Nefertiti had died and that Smenkhkara was merely a junior member of the royal family ‘adopted’ by Akhenaten as a co-regent. Refer:

www.touregypt.net/featurestories/smenkhkare.htm

www.angelfire.com/realm2/amethystbt/Eanksmek.html

In any event ‘Smenkhkara’ married Meritaten (the eldest daughter of Akhenaten) and ruled alongside Akhenaten as his coregent. Akhenaten died in, or just after, his seventeenth regnal year, to be outlived by Smenkhkara by only a few months. It is possible that Smenkhkara’s wife Meritaten ruled briefly in her own right at this point ... but she was quickly succeeded by another member of the royal family, a nine-year-old boy called Tutankhaten. This young child was duly married to Ankhesenpaaten, now the last surviving daughter of Akhenaten. Refer:

www.touregypt.net/featurestories/tut.htm

www.angelfire.com/art/ankhes/ankh2.html

Tutankhaten’s regents controlled the country on behalf of the young king and in year two of his reign decided that the experiment in monotheism had run its course. The fortunes of Egypt could only be restored by bringing back all the traditional gods of Egypt. Amarna was abandoned, the dead left in their tombs, and the royal court moved back to Memphis. Honouring the god Amun, the king changed his name to Tutankhamun and his Queen took the new name Ankhesenamun. The young king devoted his time to restoring the abandoned temples of the former gods and riding his chariot, unaware that his uneventful life would be soon be cut short by a cruel twist of fate.

Victor Blunden

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