The Amarna Period of Egypt History Essay Example

Akhenaten's Amarna ‘revolution’ turned Egypt’s long standing polytheistic cult into a monotheistic one, the change was sudden and drastic for the people who had been worshipping various gods their whole life, and short lived along with his reign as the roots of Aten never were able to become deeply rooted within society, not even a generation had passed since marking Akhenatens ‘revolution’ before things were beginning to change back to the old ways. His time as pharaoh was often referred to as an experimental reign in an attempt to do something different and remove the extreme power from priests who were the only ones who could challenge their power. He built a new city and moved everyone there, called Akhetaten.

There wasn't a drastic overturn until Akhenaten's son, Tutankhamun took the throne, named Tutankhaten at birth, meaning “Living Image of Aten”  after the Sun god his father Akhenaten had solely worshipped instead of Amun. This was the first sign of rejecting the Amarna revolution and moving back to the previous polytheistic cult, a reversal starting with the abandonment, and eventual destruction, of Akhenaten’s religious centre at Amarna. Additionally, Tutankhamun's building projects at Thebes and Karnak used many small pieces of stone called talatat from Akhenaten's buildings, likely meaning Tutankhamun started to demolish temples dedicated to the Aten in his short period of reign. In ‘The Rediscovery of Akhenaten and His Place in Religion’ by Erik Hornung it's suggested that the Amarna period was not actively suppressed until the reign of Seti I and Ramses II, however later archaeologists disproved this in the fact Tutankhamun's buildings consisted of the rubbled talatat, being the first to do so and followed by others during their reign.

Egyptians started to destroy temples to the Aten and reuse the building blocks in new construction projects, including in temples for the newly restored god Amun. 

Horemheb restored Egypt by removing references to Akhenaten from monuments, in an attempt to erase him from history. The counter revolution of Atenism started with Horemheb when the Aten temples were dismantled, marking where a systematic demolition began in the city of Akhenaten. The Great Edict, inscribed on a stela from Karnak temple records the procedures taken to eliminate ‘corruption’. Historians believe Akhenaten’s neglect of traditional temple based authority was the cause of corruption Horemheb was seeing. Horemheb began the restoration of the Amun cult. The Great Edict records Horemheb’s promotion of Amun and full restoration of the traditional cults. Horemheb removed references to Akhenaten, Tutankhamun, Nefertiti and Ay, having them labelled as “enemies”. The swift nature of the restoration back to pre-Amarna religious structures suggests that Atenism was not widely accepted amongst Egyptian society, especially the elites. The foundation for the Great Pyramid Hore almost entirely consisted of sandstone from Akhenaten's demolished temple and the base of the added 9th Pylon consisted of sandstone salvage from the 2 demolished shrines. In order to build Akhenaten's city and shrines at such speed, it's easier and faster to raise a structure by using talatat. More than 45,000 talatat from Akhenaten's buildings have come to light. The fact that most of the blocks had some part of relief seen on one face made it clear that we're not just trouble Rubble but remnants of a former major structure because of the striking artstyle introduced. In Peter Brand’s journal article, Secondary Restorations in the Post-Amarna Period he states “With the collapse after his death of Akhenaten’s religious revolution, his successors were left to repair the damages caused by the dispossession and persecution of the orthodox cults, especially that of Amen-Re.”, Akhenaten's reign and left behind memory was seen as something needed to be fixed to hide the atrocities of the monotheistic worship. Horemheb's successor continued in this effort. 

Seti I restored monuments to Amun and had the god's name re-carved on inscriptions where it was removed by Akhenaten. Seti I also ordered that Akhenaten, Smenkhkare, Neferneferuaten, Tutankhamun, and Ay be excised from official lists of pharaohs to make it appear that Amenhotep III was immediately succeeded by Horemheb.  The negative attitudes toward Akhenaten were illustrated by, for example, inscriptions in the tomb of scribe Mose where Akhenaten's reign is referred to as "the time of the enemy of Akhet-Aten. When ramses the second moved to Luxor several thousand additional sandstone blocks leftover from the demolition akhenaten structures at karnak. 36000 blocks have been photographed, which made it possible to trace akhenaten's progress in developing his radical monotheism, such as the earliest structure, a monumental gate a Pylon a witch no remnants now standAkhetaten was gradually destroyed and the building material reused across the country, such as in constructions at Hermopolis.

This monotheistic shift away from traditional religion was reversed after his death. Akhenaten's monuments were dismantled, hidden, destroyed, and his name excluded and discredited, and his successors referred to Akhenaten as "the enemy" or "that criminal '' in archival records. However since there really was little to reform in minds, simply forgetting the pharaoh and his antics and moving on seemed to be enough to forget his legacy, along with the destruction and denouncement of his name.