Akhenaten, the heretical pharaoh erased from history after his death through “damnatio memoriae”

Of all the pharaohs who reigned overAncient Egypt during the thousand-year history of Egyptian civilization, one of the least known was Akhenaten (1351-1334/1333 BC), of XVIII dynasty. A particular choice in religious matter implemented in the last years of his reign earned him the nickname of “heretic pharaoh” and caused, after his death, an operation of damnatio memoriae: the pharaoh (partly also his heirs) was substantially erased from history by decision of his successors through the destruction or concealment of the statues that portrayed him and the elimination of his name wherever it had been mentioned or inscribed. But what did Akhenaten do that was so terrible? He changed his name from Amenhotep or Amenhotep (a name related to god Amon) precisely to Akhenaten (linked instead to the god Aton), proclaiming the cult of solar disk superior to that of all other Egyptian deities. He then introduced a henotheistic cult (in which one god predominates over the others) instead of polytheistic (in which each deity has equal value to the others).

Who was Akhenaten and what did he do during his reign

The pharaoh known as Akhenaten ascended the throne of Egypt as Amenhotep IV and as an exponent of XVIII dynasty. It inaugurated the phase of Egyptian history known as “New Kingdom” (second half of the 2nd millennium BC), a period considered by Egyptologists to be the time of maximum flowering and greater territorial expansion of the Kingdom of Egypt. He was the second son of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, and ascended the throne due to the premature death of his older brother Thutmose, reigning for 17 years.

Among his many wives, Amenhotep IV also had the famous queen Nefertitione of the best-known female figures in Egyptian history, with whom he had six daughters. The first years of his reign saw him busy in the creation of grandiose religious architectural works in Karnak. These temples were dedicated to Amonone of the main deities of the Egyptian pantheon. Known as “Lord of all things”, Amun was considered the main deityprotectress of the whole of Egypt. At the beginning of his reign, there was nothing to suggest that Amenhotep IV would changed this order of things. But things changed.

Akhenaten’s religious reform

The big one religious reform which would forever change the destiny of this pharaoh occurred in the fifth year of his reign: between 1347 and 1346 BC Amenhotep IV he officially changed his name to Akhenatenwhich literally means “he who does the will of the Aten”.

Atonin ancient Egyptian religion, was the divinity linked to solar disk. Unlike most other deities, who were represented in anthropomorphic form or with animal heads, Aton was represented simply as a solar disk that illuminated the world with its rays. This type of iconography denotes how it was a very particular and different deity. At the time of Akhenaten, the cult of the solar disk was relatively recent and deeply rooted in the pharaoh’s family.

With his reform, Akhenaten established that Aten would henceforth be the main deitywith all the numerous others of the pantheon Egyptian in one condition of enormous subordination. The solar disk became the root of all thingsand for this reason he was venerated to the detriment of the other gods. To further establish the Aten’s dominance, the pharaoh founded a new city, Akhetatenmeaning “horizon of the Aten”, which became the new capital of his reign, putting aside the historical one, Thebes.

Akhenaten’s new religious turn is often held up as an example of monotheismbut it is instead “henotheism“. Henotheism is a religious system in which the existence of the various divinities is not denied, but the enormous superiority of one over the others. The consequent actions of Akhenaten actually seem to be compatible with this attitude: the other divinities, together with the temples and priestly colleges were progressively emptied of meaningto the point of even deleting some names of divinities from public and sacred buildings. A striking case, which denotes the great religious fervor of the pharaoh, was the cancellation of the father’s nameAmenhotep III, since it was formed from the name of Amun, the old deity against whom Akhenaten lashed out most vehemently.

Pharaoh tried to impose his own religious reform to the entire Egyptian people, without ever completely succeeding. The last years of the reign, in which theintolerance of the sovereign towards the traditional deities became increasingly marked, they provoked serious social conflicts internal to the country, also linked to the resistance of the priestly class traditional. To seek support in the diffusion of the new religious ideology, theart from the period of Akhenaten yes differentiated markedly compared to more traditional currents. Egyptian art, strongly idealizingbecame more naturalisticand this can be seen well in the difference in the representation of Akhenaten and Nefertiti compared to, for example, their father Amenhotep III.

The death of Akhenaten and the damnatio memoriae

There death of Akhenaten, which occurred in circumstances unknown In the 1334/1333 BC also marked the end of the religious revolutionwhich Egyptologists call “Amarnian heresy” (Amarna is the current name of the city of Akhetaten). Although the extensive written documentation that came from Ancient Egypt allows us to know the events of the New Kingdom quite well, for some reason, the years following the death of Akhenaten are shrouded in mysteryuntil the accession to the throne of Tutankhamunprobably son of Akhenaten.

Tutankhamun was probably the son of the heretic pharaoh and his wife biological sister (whose name unfortunately has not survived, therefore his mummy is known simply as “The younger lady“), evidence that came to light following the DNA analysis. Akhenaten’s young wife-sister probably died a violent death, fueling the mystery around the end of Pharaoh’s reign. Given the presence of the name of Amon within the word “Tutankhamun”, evidently at that moment the Amarnian heresy must have already been finished (in fact Pharaoh before reigning His name was Tutankhaton.)

Most likely, the centrality of the Aten cult ended almost immediately. Tutankhamun brought back the capital in the traditional Thebesand the city of Akhetaton fell quickly in ruins and then be forgotten. Akhenaten’s religious revolution must have been truly traumatic for a society strongly conditioned by religious life like the Egyptian one. In fact, starting after the reign of Tutankhamun, the successors advocated a real damnatio memoriae against the heretic pharaoh. The temples of Aten were dismantledstatues and inscriptions of the pharaoh came destroyed. The figure of Akhenaten was intentional cancelled and ignored by all subsequent lists of pharaohs, and his existence indeed was rediscovered by scholars as early as the 19th century.