Egyptian Dreams

[Yves Van Herp]

The name Akhenaten (Echnaton) is mentioned quite a lot on this forum. But wasn't Akhenaten the same person as Amenothep III?

[anneke]

Akhenaten is the same person as Amenhotep IV.
He was the second son of Amenhotep III. His brother Thutmose was Crown Prince before him, but died at a young age.

I don't know when Amenhotep IV changed his name to Akhenaten. By his 6th year as King he moved to the newly founded city of Akhet-Aten (now known as Amarna, Tell-el-Amarna). By that time he was known as Akhenaten.

His name Amenhotep seems to have been found in nobles tombs in Thebes and Saqqara (Memphis).
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[Yves Van Herp]

[Horus]

Wasn't Akhenaten killed by his own army, because they didn't agree on the the one god and the ideas of Akhenaten ?
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[anneke]

To my knowledge, nobody knnown how he died.
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[anneke]

If I knew how to type, that would have read: "nobody knows"

I believe it's fairly certain that he died and was then buried in the royal tomb at Amarna.
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[Segereh]

I doubt the pharaoh's subjects were really 'into' the religious quarreling between Akh-en-Aten and the priests of Amon. It's desillusioning, but that 'war' eventually got down to the basic fact of money. Money is influence and the Amon-clergy had a lot of it. Note that Amon wasn't actually a real popi god in Egypt, he was the official leader of the pack, yeah, but does that mean we have to see that in a 20th century-ish point of view? Egypt wasn't a democracy. Amon was the god of pharaoh and clergy, okidoki, but what gods did the commoners believe in? Note how abstract the qualities of Amon are: god of light, an invisible god at first, who only got to power by the attribution of powers that belonged to other gods (take the most explicit one: Amon-Ra where he became the god of sun). That happened in like 5 or 6 generations? Traditions don't die easily, not even after a century and certainly not in Egypt. Amon was an abstract god at first, not an easy one to attract the devotion of people who were used to work on the land, make their hands dirty, sweat, bleed and cry. I doubt Amon could really make the people stand up for his cause. It could make its clergy angry, ok. But I think it's overexagerated if people say there was a real religious revolution by the overturning of Amon. This was first of all a palace-revolution.

[Segereh]

[anneke]

[Segereh]

[anneke]

[Sesen]

[Segereh]

[anneke]

I have wondered too how far the repression of the old gods went.
The strong attack against Amun-Mut-Khons makes sense in that these were the most powerful deities at that point.
I would not be surprised if there was a strong political component in the prosecution of these gods.

It seems that the surpression of the old gods would be easiest in Akhetaten. I don't know if they would have been able to affect the people in the country much.

I did see something interesting in the museum here in St Louis. They have a very small collection of Egyptian artifacts, but they do have the mummy of Henut-Wedjen (I'm probably mis-remembering the second part of her name )

She was a songstress of Amun, and her husband was a man called Hatiay, who was the overseer of the granaries of Aten. Husband and wife serving "enemy gods"??? It could of course be that she died much much earlier, and Hatiay didn't rise in the Aten hierarchy until later, but I still found it intriguing.
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Math and Art: http://mathematicsaroundus.blogspot.com/

[Segereh]

Have u ever?! Never noticed that one, but I have to admit I don't know the museum of St-Louis

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