The Life and Times of Akhnaton, Pharaoh of Egypt

by Arthur E. P. Brome Weigall

At the same time temples were being erected in various parts of Egypt. At Hermonthis a temple named “Horizon of Aton in Hermonthis” was built; at Heliopolis there was a temple named “Exaltation of Ra in Heliopolis,” and also a palace for the king; at Hermopolis and at Memphis temples were erected; and in the Fayum and the Delta “Houses” of Aton sprang up. Few real converts, however, seem to have been made; for the religion was far above the understanding of the people. In deference to the king’s wishes the Aton was accepted, but no love was shown for the new form of worship; and, indeed, not even in the City of the Horizon itself was it understood.

A certain change was now made by Akhnaton in the name of the Aton. The words “Heat which is in Aton” did not seem to him to be very happily chosen. They had been used in the earliest years of the movement, and had evidently not been coined by Akhnaton himself. The word “heat” was in spelling very reminiscent of the name of one of the old gods, and, to the uninitiate, might suggest some connection. The name of the Aton was therefore changed to “Effulgence which comes from Aton,” the new words introducing into the spelling the hieroglyph of Ra, the sun. The exact significance of the alteration is not known; but one may suppose that the new words better conveyed the meaning which Akhnaton wished to imply. Even now it is not easy to find a phrase to express that vital energy, that first cause of life, which the king so clearly understood.

The date of this change is somewhat uncertain, though it is definitely to be placed between the tenth and thirteenth year of the reign, the probability being that it took place at the end of the twelfth year, when Akhnaton was about twenty-three years old. The inscriptions upon the outer coffin, or shrine, of Queen Tiy show the older form of wording, and the change, therefore, took place after her death. Now the queen did not die till the middle or end of the twelfth year, for in the tomb of Huya events of that year are recorded,[60] and he still holds the office of steward to the queen, while a letter from Dushratta, mentioning Tiy, was docketed in the twelfth year. On the other hand, the new name of the Aton occurs in tombs which, by the number of Akhnaton’s daughters represented in them, might be thought to have been constructed earlier than this.[61] Thus there is a slight discrepancy; but the point of significance is that the change occurred after the queen’s death, and was thus concurrent with another change which must here be recorded.

2. AKHNATON OBLITERATES THE NAME OF AMON.

Up till this time it will have been observed that Akhnaton had behaved with great leniency towards the worshippers of the older gods, and had not even persecuted the priesthood of Amon-Ra. It now becomes apparent that this restraint was due to his mother’s influence, for no sooner was she dead than Akhnaton turned with the fierceness of a fanatic upon the latter institution. He issued an order that the name of Amon was to be erased wherever it occurred, and this order was carried out with such amazing thoroughness that hardly a single occurrence of the name was overlooked. Although thousands of inscriptions, accessible to Akhnaton’s agents, are now known in which the name of Amon occurs, there are but a few examples in which the god’s name has not been mutilated. His agents hammered the name out on the walls of the temples throughout Egypt; they penetrated into the tombs of the dead to erase it from the texts; they searched through the minute inscriptions upon small statuettes and figures, obliterating the name therefrom; they made journeys into the distant deserts to cut out the name from the rock-scribbles of travellers; they clambered over the cliffs beside the Nile to erase it from the graffiti; they entered private houses to rub it from small utensils where it chanced to be inscribed.

Akhnaton was always thorough in his undertakings, and half-measures were unknown to him. When it came to the question of his own father’s name, he seems not to have hesitated to order the obliteration of the word Amon in it, though one may suppose that in most cases he painted over it the king’s second name, Nebmaara. His agents burst their way into the tomb of Queen Tiy and removed the name Amonhotep from the inscriptions upon the shrine, writing Nebmaara in red ink over each erasure. Having scratched out the name even upon one of the queen’s toilet-pots of minute size they retired from the tomb, building up the wall at the entrance, and continued their labours elsewhere. The king was now asked whether his own name, Amonhotep,—which had been used before he adopted the better known Akhnaton,—was to suffer the same fate, and the answer seems to have been in the affirmative. Upon the quarry tablet at Gebel Silsileh[62] the king’s discarded name is thus erased, though it was not damaged in the tomb of Rames. The names of the various nobles and officials, male and female, which were compounded with Amon—Amonhotep, Setamon, Amonemhat, Amonemapt, and so on—were ruthlessly destroyed; while living persons bearing such names were often obliged to change them.

In thus mutilating his father’s name Akhnaton did not in any way intend to disparage his forbears. He was but desirous of utterly obliterating Amon from the memory of man, in order that the true God might the better receive acceptance. He was proud of his descent, and, unlike most of his ancestors, he showed a desire to honour the memory of his father. We have seen[63] how one of his artists, Bek, represented the figure of Amonhotep III. upon his monument at Aswan. Huya, Queen Tiy’s steward, was authorised by Akhnaton to show that king upon the walls of his tomb;[64] and in the private temple of Queen Tiy, it will be remembered that there were statues of Amonhotep III.[65] Likewise, the earlier kings of the dynasty received unusual recognition. An official named Any held the office of Steward of the House of Amonhotep II.;[66] and there is a representation of Akhnaton offering to Aton in “the House of Thothmes IV. in the City of the Horizon.”[67] Upon his boundary tablet Akhnaton refers to Amonhotep III. and Thothmes IV. as being troubled by the priesthood of Amon.

It would seem from the above that there were shrines dedicated to Akhnaton’s ancestors in the City of the Horizon, each of which had its steward and its officials; and it is probable that Akhnaton arranged that a memorial shrine of the same kind should be erected for himself against his death, for we read of a personage who was “Second Priest” of the king.[68] It was his desire in this manner to show the continuity of his descent from the Pharaohs of the elder days, and to demonstrate his real claim to that title “Son of the Sun” which had been held by the sovereigns of Egypt ever since the Fifth Dynasty, and which was of such vital importance in the new religion. It was in this manner that he claimed descent from Ra, who was to him the same with Aton; and just as the great religious teachers of the Hebrews made careful note of their genealogies in order to prove themselves descended from Adam, and hence in a manner from God, so Akhnaton thus demonstrated the continuity of his line in order to show his real right to the titles “Child of Aton” and “Son of the Sun.”

3. THE GREAT TEMPLE OF ATON.

The City of the Horizon of Aton must now have been a very city of temples. There were these shrines dedicated to the king’s ancestors; there was the temple of Queen Tiy; there was a shrine for the use of Baketaton, the king’s sister; there was the “House of putting the Aton to Rest,” where Queen Nefertiti officiated; and there was the great temple of Aton, in which probably were included other of the buildings named in the inscriptions. The great temple may here be briefly described, as the reader has so far made the acquaintance only of the building belonging to Queen Tiy.