Amarna Period

The Amarna Period is centred on the reign of Amenhotep IV, who adopted the name Akhenaten and elevated the solar deity Aten above Egypt’s traditional gods. Royal patronage shifted away from the priesthood of Amun, established cults lost influence and the king presented religious change as an extension of pharaonic authority.

Akhenaten founded a new capital, Akhetaten, at the site now called Amarna. Court art adopted an unusual style and repeatedly showed Akhenaten, Nefertiti and their daughters participating in worship and royal ceremony. Nefertiti’s visibility was exceptional, although the exact nature of her later political authority and the succession at the end of the reign remain uncertain.

This context supports fiction about Akhenaten and Nefertiti, the Atenist revolution, life at Akhetaten and the conflict between royal innovation and established institutions. Michelle Moran’s Nefertiti uses the queen’s sister as a witness to the court’s movement from Thebes to the new capital and to the political consequences of religious upheaval.