Which pharaoh restored polytheism

Tutankhamun was known as the boy king because he took the throne at the age of nine. Some scholars maintain that he was just seven or eight years old. Since he was so young, King Tutankhamun was no more than a figurehead. His royal and military advisers actually ran the kingdom.

In the same year that he became king, he was married to his half sister, Ankhesenpaaten, who later changed her name to Ankhesenamun. Under the rule of Akhenaten, polytheism was abolished. Akhenaten instigated the monotheistic worship of one supreme deity, Aten, the sun god. Akhenaten was revered as a living deity, and only he and the royal family could communicate with the god Aten directly. The priests of Amun, who no longer held any power, were not happy with the religion that was being forced on them.

Evidence shows that Ankhesenamun later married Ay, before disappearing from history. Research suggests King Tut died circa B. The infection was possibly the result of a broken leg. King Tut was buried in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings. It's believed that his early death necessitated a hasty burial in a smaller tomb most likely built for a lesser noble.

Seventy days after his death, Tutankhamun's body was laid to rest and the tomb was sealed. There are no known records of Tutankhamun after his death, and, as a result, he remained virtually unknown for centuries.

Even the location of his tomb was lost, as its entrance had been covered by the debris from a tomb structure built later. Much of what is known about Tutankhamun today derives from the discovery of his tomb in British archaeologist Howard Carter had begun excavating in Egypt in , and after World War I he began an intensive search for Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

On November 26, , Carter and fellow archaeologist George Herbert, the Earl of Carnarvon, entered the interior chambers of the tomb. To their amazement, they found much of its contents and structure miraculously intact. Inside one of the chambers, murals were painted on the walls that told the story of Tutankhamun's funeral and his journey to the afterworld. Also in the room were various artifacts for his journey — oils, perfumes, toys from his childhood, precious jewelry and statues of gold and ebony.

Over the next 17 years, Carter and his associates carefully excavated the four-room tomb, uncovering an incredible collection of thousands of priceless objects from antiquity. When the lid of the third coffin was raised, King Tut's royal mummy was revealed, preserved for more than 3, years. As archaeologists examined the mummy, they found other artifacts, including bracelets, rings and collars.

King Tut's mask, an elaborate golden death mask, bears the likeness of Osiris, the Egyptian god of the afterlife. It's made from more than 22 pounds of gold and gemstones, and is among the most famous works of art in history.

Or perhaps it was all of them in league together, and with this we are dangerously close to writing the first draft of Murder on the Orient Express. Whatever the what-really-happened, Amarna culture left behind one of the most famous kings in history today—and one of the least famous kings in his own time— Tutankhamun , popularly known as "King Tut. Fairly early in his reign, he was persuaded to change his name and, doing exactly the opposite of Akhenaten when he assumed power, took the aten out and put "Amun" in.

With that alone, the resurgence of the Amun cult is all too apparent. At some point around this time, the royal court left Akhetaten and returned to Thebes, no doubt, into the warm embrace of the reigning priesthood much relieved to have their livelihood back on line.

Their gratitude, in fact, would help explain the relative grandeur of Tutankhamun's burial. Only nineteen years old when he died, Tutankhamun's failure to leave behind a male successor is hardly surprising and paved the way for a new dynasty and a world view far different from Akhenaten's. So, the Amarna Period ends with this boy-king, only to be reborn in the modern excavation of El-Amarna and Thebes, and especially in the American archaeologist Howard Carter 's famous discovery in of Tutankhamun's tomb and its splendors.

The magnificence of this hastily assembled burial is astounding, especially when one thinks what a real royal burial, like Ramses II's, must have entailed. All in all,Tutankhamun's death and funeral is the epilogue of the Amarna Period in antiquity. There is little in the rest of ancient Egyptian history that recalls or even reflects this brilliant, odd moment in the evolution of its religion.

Outside of Egypt, well, that's another matter. In today's world, the pre-eminent issue surrounding Akhenaten is whether or not his religion did—or even could have! The answer to that question depends on two main factors. How alike are Hebrew and Egyptian monotheism? And is there any way in which the Hebrews could realistically have had significant contact with atenism, enough to borrow elements from it or, if not, even just have been influenced by it?

To answer the first question, Hebrew monotheism differs in several significant ways from Akhenaten's religion. While the aten is an omnipotent, stand-alone divinity, it's also present specifically in the light of the sun-disk and the pharaoh's family, so its divinity is limited in a way the Hebrew deity's is not.

The God of Israel acts through all sorts of different media: angels, rainbows, floodwaters and, as biblical Egyptians ought to know perfectly well, frogs. Nor was there any real attempt by Egyptian monotheists to extend the aten's power beyond Egypt, the way God's power is seen by later Hebrew prophets to embrace all creation.

So, while Akhenaten claims the aten is universal, he speaks of it more like it's a pharaoh at the center of some cosmic court full of fawning, powerless minions—that is, it looks like him. Still, both cultures share the central notion, if not the details, of monotheism. Could the Hebrews have picked that up from the Egyptians somehow?

Any such idea presumes, of course, that Hebrews existed in some form during Akhenaten's reign—later pharaohs' eradication of all records pertaining to Akhenaten's religion and regime makes later cultural borrowing highly unlikely—and many scholars would say flatly there weren't any Hebrews at all during that time, at least not Hebrews as such. Israel was definitely not an organized nation in the fourteenth century BCE, but then theological notions do not require a political state for their existence.

Wandering patriarchs, as attested in the Bible during this age, could easily have borrowed the concept of monotheism from Egypt. But there's no evidence Egyptian monotheism spread beyond the borders of its native land, so if Hebrews borrowed this idea from Amarna culture, they would have to have been living in Egypt around the time of Akhenaten's reign.

That, too, seems unlikely, except that biblical sources say they were. In the so-called Egyptian Captivity which the Bible claims lasted several centuries, Hebrews did, in fact, live in Egypt, enslaved by powerful New Kingdom pharaohs until the Exodus when Moses led them to freedom in the Holy Lands. If that really happened, they must have been in Egypt when Akhenaten had his brief day in the blazing sun. But because the great majority of scholars today downplay the historicity of the Exodus—there is certainly no corroborating evidence massive numbers of Hebrews fled Egypt at any point in ancient history—again this seems unlikely.

Still, it doesn't take huge crowds of Hebrews in Egypt to introduce the idea of monotheism into Israelite thinking. All you need is one average Joe, or Joseph. So, it's possible to weave together from the historical data a scenario in which the idea of monotheism threaded its way somehow out of Egyptian theology and into Israelite culture.

But when one looks closely, it's not a very tightly woven tapestry, especially in light of where the Bible says the Hebrews were in Egypt. The city of Goshen in which scripture claims they lived as captives is probably synonymous with an Egyptian settlement in the Nile delta called Pi-Ramesse "the City of Ramses". If so, it's many miles from Akhetaten, and there's very little evidence to be found in Egyptian art or history that Akhenaten's revolutionary theology filtered that far north.

Nor is it likely it would have fared well in this part of Egypt, a stronghold of Ramses' family. The Ramessids were staunchly opposed to atenistic thinking and later attempted to eradicate all traces it had ever existed. So, how is it even possible Ramses' construction slaves heard about a far-off, out-of-date religious tradition strongly proscribed by their tyrannical overseers?

With that, the evidence seems to weigh heavily against the argument that the Hebrews came into contact with the aten and from that caught the monotheism bug, or even heard about the belief in only one god. With no obvious channels of communication on either side, it's improbable Akhenaten's revolution could in any way have influenced or even been the inspiration for Hebrew one-god thinking.

Think about how many of the world's great inventions have cropped up independently in different places. Writing and literature, for instance, arose in both the West and the East with no apparent connection between them, as did agriculture, drama and ship-building.

Thus, proximity in time or space alone is merely circumstantial evidence and doesn't constitute a compelling case from any Amarna-Israelite connection. It's perfectly possible some ancient Hebrew came up with the idea of monotheism all on his own. After all, all he had to say was "Hmmm, I wonder if there's just one god? And then you open the Bible to Psalm , the great manifesto of God's all-encompassing power, and read how He created grass for cattle to eat, and trees for birds to nest in, and the sea for ships to sail and fish to swim in:.

Bless the Lord. Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters;. He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and. The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats;. As the sun ariseth, the beasts gather themselves together.

There go the ships: there is that leviathan whale , whom thou hast made to play therein. Among the remains of Amarna culture was found a Hymn to the Aten , purportedly written by Akhenaten himself. It reads:. When the land grows bright and you are risen from the Akhet horizon and shining in the sun-disk by day,. All flocks are at rest on their grasses, trees and grasses flourishing; Birds flown from their nest, their wings in adoration of your life-force; All flocks prancing on foot, all that fly and alight living as you rise for them; Ships going downstream and upstream too, every road open at your appearance; Fish on the river leaping to your face, your rays even inside the sea.

James P. The similarity is fairly astounding. Comparing these passages, who could argue against some form of cultural exchange moving from Egypt to Israel—and, given the chronology, one must suppose the sharing took place in that direction—how can we avoid the conclusion that the ancient Hebrew who wrote Psalm has somehow borrowed from Akhenaten's Hymn to the Aten?

With that, the realization begins to dawn that answers to the great question about the origins of Hebrew monotheism are not going to come swiftly or easily. How did a Hebrew psalmist's eyes—or ears? While the psalm is hardly a verbatim copy of its Amarna model, the likeness of these songs, especially in their imagery and the order in which the images come, argues forcefully for some sort of Egypt-to-Palestine contact, however indirect.

And if there is contact there , why not elsewhere? Marga Patterson 13 April The majority of sculpture that survives from ancient Cyprus are funerary stelae, elaborate grave markers to commemorate the dead.

Possessing an Marga Patterson 20 January Never miss DailyArt Magazine's stories. Sign up and get your dose of art history delivered straight to your inbox! Ancient Art Man, Woman or Both? Ancient Art Nefertiti as a Beauty Icon. Akhenaten, Nefertiti and their children, c. Akhenaten,Aton temple, Karnak, Egypt, 18th dynasty For the first time in the history of ancient Egypt, women were equal to men because Aten and Akhenaten were called father and mother of all.

We love art history and writing about it. Your support helps us to sustain DailyArt Magazine and keep it running. Magda Michalska. Mysterious Female Nude Statuettes of the Parthian Empire Several female nude statuettes have been unearthed from the subterranean landscape of ancient Iraq. Living Memories: The Funerary Stelae of Ancient Cyprus The majority of sculpture that survives from ancient Cyprus are funerary stelae, elaborate grave markers to commemorate the dead.

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