Akhenaten

Akhenaten was an Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh who ruled Egypt in the fourteenth century BCE, initially under the name Amenhotep IV. He is chiefly remembered for promoting the Aten to an unprecedented position in Egyptian religion and for moving the royal court from Thebes to the newly founded city of Akhetaten, at modern Amarna.

The reign also produced the distinctive artistic and textual culture now associated with the Amarna Period, including unusually intimate representations of the royal family. Akhenaten’s religious programme was largely dismantled after his death: the court returned to traditional cults, his city was abandoned, and later rulers attempted to erase or marginalise his memory.

Paul Doherty’s The Mysterious Death of Tutankhamun reconstructs the life and early death of Tutankhamun, the Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh who inherited a court still recovering from Akhenaten’s religious revolution. In Michelle Moran’s Nefertiti, at Thebes, Nefertiti quickly learns to use beauty, ceremony and family connections to strengthen her position, while Mutnodjmet watches the rivalries among royal wives, priests, generals and courtiers who expect the new reign to preserve Egypt’s established order. Amenhotep instead renames himself Akhenaten, elevates the Aten above the traditional gods and builds a new capital at Akhetaten. Nefertiti embraces the revolution and seeks authority almost equal to the pharaoh’s, but religious upheaval, uncertain succession and hostility beyond the palace place the dynasty at risk. Mutnodjmet must decide how far loyalty to her sister can govern her own marriage, safety and future. Further fictional perspectives on Akhenaten can be found in Mika Waltari’s The Egyptian and Pauline Gedge’s The Twelfth Transforming.