I have decided to have a page dedicated to visitor's own ideas about Ancient Egypt. I will update this page weekly, unfortunately due to my space restrictions I am only able to show one persons work per week, please e-mail your work to my mail address on the previous page, please say if you wish your page to be included for publication.
This is from Hannah Jensen, who is studying Comparative Civilisations, she writes:
Do you not find ancient Egypt fascinating? Have you heard of the Pharaoh Akhenaton? He is believed to be a relative, I think the father, but I could be mistaken, of "King Tut". A most interesting fellow. Although this has little to do with my research, you may find it useful for your web page.
Akhenaten 18th Dynasty-c.1350 B.C
As you must know, Egyptian art is all very similar. The figures are shown with the feet and legs profile, the body front view, the arms profile, the shoulders front view, the head profile, while the eye... the window to the Ka, always shown front view and often disproportional to the rest of the body. The figures are often formalised that are they all looking the same.
There was "a short but violent upheaval in Egyptian art, the only major break in the continuity of its long tradition. In the fourteenth century BC, the emperor Amenophis IV (Amenhotep IV), later known as Akhenaton (or Ikhnaton) proclaimed the religion of Aton, the universal and only god of the sun. He thus contested and abolished the native cult of Amen, sacred to Thebes and professed by the mighty priests of such temples as Karnak and Luxor, as well as by the people of Egypt. He blotted out the name of Amen from all inscriptions, and even from his own name and that of his father, Amenophis III. He emptied the great temples and embittered the priests and people, and moved his capital downriver from Thebes to a site now called Tell el-Amarna, where he built his own city and shrines to the religion of Aton."
Akhenaton, unlike the other Pharaohs did not see himself as a god. Instead he saw himself as the son and prophet of the one great god, Aton. Akhenaton's hymn to Aton survives:
Thou art in my heart. There is no other that knoweth thee. Save thy son Ikhnaton. [Akhenaton] Thou hast made him wise In thy designs and might. The world is in thy hand, Even as thou hast made them... Thou didst establish the world, And raise them up for thy son, Who came forth from thy limbs, The king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Living in Truth, Lord of Two Lands...
During Akhenaton's rule there seemed to be a relaxation of the Egyptian preoccupation with death. The people seem to have become more concerned with life on earth. Artists began to show life and movement in their work. The bodies became more curvaceous and natural.
Akhenaton was a strange fellow. He is believed to have been afflicted with some strange disease, for his body looked like that of a woman's. It is believed that this, however, developed over time. There is a statue of Akhenaton from Karnak. It is in the standard frontal pose, however the body is strangely curved. His face shows that the artist has studied him in great detail and has rendered him with all the physiognomic and physical irregularities that were part of the King's actual appearance. One would think that the artist would have shown him looking similar to his predecessors. Perhaps he was a realist and was comfortable with the way that he looked?
His queen was the famous Nefertiti. One of the most beautiful women ever to walk the earth.
(I also have the following article, taken from The Toronto Star, Sunday, November 24, 1996. It was written by Jay Ingram, host of the TV program @discovery.ca on the Discovery Channel.)
"New theory about the long-faced pharaoh
"One of the most mysterious personages of ancient Egypt was the "heretic" pharaoh, Akhenaten. A graduate student at the University of Toronto, Alwyn Burridge, may have just filled in an important piece of the Akhenaten puzzle. "It's hard to imagine how unusual this man was. When he aced to the throne just before Tutankhamen, he created a revolution. He threw out the existing pantheon of Egyptian gods, replacing them with a single god, the disc of the sun, the "Aten." By doing so, he incurred the enmity of the very powerful priesthood. "He moved the capital from Thebes downriver to Amarna. And he authored (if not invented) a whole new naturalistic style of art. Previous pharaohs were usually portrayed in macho poses; standing erect in the hunting chariot, bow-and-arrow in hand. In dramatic contrast, Akhenaten is often painted or sculpted seated with his wife Nefertiti and their daughters- gentle family scenes unlike anything seen before. "However, what is most eye-catching about these portrayals is not so much the scene as the figure of the pharaoh himself. He was depicted as being a very unusual physical specimen: his face elongate, with very prominent cheekbones, his arms unusually long, and most striking of all, his body was almost feminine, with wide hips and breasts. Once you've seen Akhenaten, you never forget him. "There has been much controversy over his unusual physique. Some Egyptologists argue that the portraiture was an artistic style that the pharaoh condoned these unusual images for reasons we could only speculate about. Others, however, argue that because the new artistic style of Akhenaten's reign was so naturalistic, the pharaoh must really have looked like this. They then try to diagnose the cause of his appearance. "Until now such attempts have fallen short one way or the other. One suggestion was that the pharaoh suffered from Frehilch's syndrome, a hormone imbalance that would indeed have led to a body shape not unlike his. But there are many inconsistencies, not the least of which is that this condition would also have rendered him impotent, a difficult claim since he had six daughters. "Now Alwyn Burridge has come up with a new diagnosis that seems to explain several of Akhenaten's physical features. It is Marfan's syndrome, a genetic disease that affects connective tissue, In its most serious form Marfan's can lead to fatal rupture of the aorta. But the disease can be much less serious. "Here's how the symptoms of Marfan's fit the portraits of Akhenaten. It causes elongations of the bones of the face, arms and fingers. (Some pictures of Akhenaten suggest he had spidery fingers.) The syndrome can lead to development of a narrow chest and wide pelvic girdle. It may result in an arched neck and elongated skull, a feature both in portrayals of the pharaoh and in some of his daughters. "Those who inherit Marfan's gene may also be weakly muscled and short-sighted, two features that might account for the scenes in which the pharaoh was portrayed. If he were a weakling he would be much more likely to be around the palace than out chariot racing. And a very shortsighted pharaoh might need his family around to guide him through the day. "There is one other potential visual problem that leads Alwyn Burridge to suspect that Marfan's syndrome might have even played a role in Akhenaten's most revolutionary act: worshipping the disc of the sun. "A possible complication of Marfan's is the development of misshapen corneas that make seeing difficult except in very bright light. What better reason for opening up the temples and worshipping the light giving suns? "Unfortunately, Akhenaten's body has never been found. But there are mummies of his close relatives, and if indeed he had Marfan's syndrome, that gene should be present in at least some of them. Alwyn Burridge has begun a study of the x-ray images of their skeletons. But DNA testing would be the best test of all. "Regardless, these new ideas will be targeted by critics. That's the way it is when someone in the 20th century dares to challenge our ideas of what happened more than 3,000 years ago."
A picture of the statue of Akhenaten accompanied [this article. It was again, written by Jay Ingram and published in the Toronto Star on Sunday, November 24, 1996.]
I hope that you enjoyed that. I do not know how much about Akhanten you know, he is a most interesting personage. After his death his successors virtually wiped out any trace of his existence. His city was torn down and the block of it were used as filler in other buildings. That also is interesting. Most Egyptian structures are built of massive chucks of stone. Akhenaten built his city with stones small enough for one man to carry. I could go on and on about this fellow, but it is late.
I look forward to hearing from you again. Again, my most sincere gratitude for your assistance.
Hannah