Akhenaton

Akhenaton or Ikhnaton, also called Neferkheperure Amenhotep IV, pharaoh of Egypt (c. 1353-1337 bc). Akhenaton was the son of Amenhotep III and Tiy, and husband of Nefertiti, whose beauty is known through contemporary portrait busts. Akhenaton was the last important ruler of the 18th dynasty of the New Kingdom and notable for adopting, and eventually virtually identifying himself with, Aten, the sun god or solar disc, whom he believed to be a universal, omnipresent spirit and the sole creator of the universe. Some scholars have credited him with being the first monotheist and believe that the concept of a universal God preached by the Hebrew prophets seven or eight centuries later in a land that Akhenaton once ruled, was derived in part from his cult. Others, however, have concluded that he was an eccentric monotheist all the more dangerous because as pharaoh his power was absolute. After he established the new religion, he changed his name from the royal designation Amenhotep IV to Akhenaton, meaning “Aten is satisfied”. He moved his capital from Thebes to Akhetaton (now the site of Tell el-Amarna), a new city devoted to the celebration of Aten, and he ordered the obliteration of all traces of the polytheistic religion of his ancestors. He also fought bitterly against the powerful priests who attempted to maintain the worship of the state god Amon, or Amen. This religious revolution had a profound effect on Egyptian artists, who turned from the ritualistic forms to which they had been confined, to a much more naturalistic art as evidence of the all-embracing power of the sun, Aten. A new religious literature also developed. This blossoming of culture, however, did not continue after Akhenaton's death. His son-in-law, Tutankhamen, moved the capital back to Thebes, restored the old polytheistic religion, and Egyptian art once more became ritualized.