The Life and Times of Akhnaton, Pharaoh of Egypt

by Arthur E. P. Brome Weigall

Purely tentatively a suggestion may here be offered to account for this peculiar treatment of the human body. It is probable that the king had now, in a boyish way, become deeply interested in the religious contest which was beginning to be waged between Amon-Ra and Ra-Horakhti Aton. Having listened to the arguments on both sides, it may have occurred to him to study for himself the ancient documents and inscriptions bearing on the matter. In so doing, he would have found that Amon had become the state god only some few hundred years before his own time, and that previous to his ascent to this important position, previous even to the earliest mention of his name, Ra-Horakhti had been supreme. Carrying his inquiries back, past the days of the pyramid kings to the archaic Pharaohs who reigned at the dim beginning of things, he would still have found the Heliopolitan god worshipped. One of the Pharaohs’ most cherished titles was “Son of the Sun,” which, as we have seen, had been borne by each successive sovereign since the days of the Fifth Dynasty, whose kings claimed descent from Ra himself. Such studies would inevitably bring two matters into prominence: firstly, that Amon was, after all, but a usurper; and, secondly, that as Pharaoh he was the descendant of Ra-Horakhti, and was that god’s representative on earth.

On these grounds, more than on any others, all things connected with Amon would become distasteful to him. He was too young to understand fully which of the two religions was the better morally or theologically; but he was old enough to be moved by the romance of history, and to feel that those great, shadowy Pharaohs who lived when the world was young, and who at the dawn of events worshipped the sun, were the truest and best examples for him to follow. They were his ancestors, and as they were the sons of Ra, so he, too, was the proud descendant of that great god. In his veins there ran the blood of the sun, that “Heat-which-is-in-Aton” pulsed through and through him; and the more he read in those old documents the more he was stirred by the glory of that distant past when men worshipped the god whose rights Amon had usurped. Now the canons of art were regarded as a distinctly religious institution, and the methods of treating the human figure then in vogue had in the first place the sanction of the priesthood of Amon; and few things would be more upsetting to their régime than the abandoning of these canons. This was probably recognised by those who were furthering the cause of Ra-Horakhti, and the young king may have been assisted and encouraged in his views. Presently it may have been brought home to him that, since he was thus the representative of those archaic kings and the High Priest of their god, it was fitting that the canons acknowledged by those far-off ancestors should be recognised by him. Here, then, he would both please his own romantic fancy and deal a blow at the Amon priesthood by banning the art which they upheld, and by infusing into the sculptures and paintings of his time something of the spirit of the most ancient art of Egypt.

The Art of Akhnaton compared with Archaic Art.

1. The head of Akhnaton. From a contemporary drawing.

2. The head of a king. From an archaic statuette found by Professor Petrie at Abydos.

3. The head of Akhnaton. From a contemporary drawing.

4. The head of a prince. From an archaic tablet found by Professor Petrie at Abydos.

5. An archaic statuette found by Professor Petrie at Diospolis, showing the large thighs found in the art of Akhnaton.

In the old temples of Heliopolis and elsewhere a few relics of that period, no doubt, were still preserved; and the king was thus able to study the wood and slate carvings and the ivory figures of archaic times. We of the present day can also study such figures, a few specimens having been brought to light by modern excavators; and the similarity between the treatment of the human body in this archaic art and the new art of Akhnaton at once becomes apparent. In the accompanying illustrations some archaic figures are shown, and one may perhaps see in them the origin of the idiosyncrasies of the new school. Here and in all representations of archaic men one sees the elongated skull so characteristic of the king’s style; in the ivory figure of an archaic Pharaoh one sees the well-known droop of Akhnaton’s head and his pointed chin; in the clay and ivory figures is the prominent stomach; and here also, most apparent of all, are the unaccountably large thighs and ponderous hips.