Akhenaten

Pharaoh Infobox
Name=Akhenaten / Amenhotep IV
Alt= Amenophis IV, Naphu(`)rureya, Ikhnaton


Caption=Statue" of Akhenaten in typical Amarna style.
NomenHiero=i-t:n:ra-G25-x:n
Nomen="Akhenaten" Servant of the Aten or reflection of the wiserClayton (2006), p.120] (after Year 4 of his reign)
<-M17-Y5:N35-R4:X1*Q3-R8-S38-O28-> Amenhotep

PrenomenHiero=ra-nfr-xpr-Z3-ra:wa:n
Prenomen="Neferkheperure-waenre" Beautiful are the Manifestations of Re the one of Re
Golden="Wetjesrenenaten" Who displays the name of the Aten
Nebty="Wernesytemakhetaten" Great of kingship in Akhetaten
Horus="Kanakht-Meryaten" The strong bull, beloved of the Aten
GoldenHiero= U39-r:n:V10:n-i-t:n:ra
NebtyHiero= wr:r-sw-t-i-i-Aa13:Axt:t*pr-i-t:n:ra
HorusHiero= E1:D40-i-t:n:ra:N36
Reign=1353 BC &ndash; 1336 BC [cite web|url=http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9005276/Akhenaton|title=Encylopaedia Brittanica Article|] or
1351&ndash; 1334 BCBeckerath (1997) p.190] |Predecessor=Amenhotep III
Successor=Smenkhkare?
Spouse= Nefertiti, Kiya, Meritaten, Ankhesenpaaten
Children= Smenkhkare? Meritaten, Meketaten, Ankhesenpaaten, Neferneferuaten Tasherit, Neferneferure, Setepenre, Tutankhamun, Ankhesenpaaten-ta-sherit?
Dynasty=18th Dynasty
Father= Amenhotep III
Mother= Tiye
Died= 1336 or 1334 BC
Burial= Royal Tomb of Akhenaten
Monuments= Akhetaten, Gempaaten, Hwt-Benben

Akhenaten (often : Akhnaten, or rarely Ikhnaton) (In English, IPA2|ˌɑkəˡnɑtən, or approximately "AHK-en-AHT-en";cite web|url=http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/akhenaten|title=Akhenaten|publisher=dictionary.com|accessdate=2008-10-02] his royal name Amenhotep in English is IPA2|ˌɑmənˈhotɛp, or approximately "AH-mun-HOE-tep" [cite web|url=http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/amenhotep|title=Amenhotep|publisher=dictionary.com|accessdate=2008-10-02] meaning "Effective spirit of Aten", first known as Amenhotep IV (sometimes read as "Amenophis IV" and meaning "Amun is Satisfied") before the first year of his reign), was a Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt, who died 1336 BC or 1334 BC. He is especially noted for attempting to compel the Egyptian population in the monotheistic worship of Aten, although there are doubts as to how successful he was at this. He was born to Amenhotep III and his Chief Queen Tiye and was their younger son. Akhenaten was not originally designated as the successor to the throne until the untimely death of his older brother, the Crown Prince Thutmose.

Amenhotep IV succeeded his father after Amenhotep III's death at the end of his 38-year reign, possibly after a short coregency lasting between either 1 to 2 years. Suggested dates for Akhenaten's reign (subject to the debates surrounding Egyptian chronology) are from 1353 BC-1336 BC or 1351 BC&ndash;1334 BC. Akhenaten's chief wife was Nefertiti, made world-famous by the discovery of her exquisitely moulded and painted bust, now displayed in the Altes Museum of Berlin, and among the most recognised works of art surviving from the ancient world.

After his death and the restoration of traditional religious practice, he and his immediate successors were ignored and excised from history by later rulers. Akhenaten himself is usually referred to as 'the enemy'. [Trigger et. al (2001), pp.186-7]

The Implementation of Atenism

In the early years of his reign, Amenhotep IV lived at Thebes with Nefertiti and his 6 daughters. Initially, he permitted Egypt's traditional deities to continue but near the Temple of Karnak (Amun-Re's great cult center), he erected several massive buildings including temples to the Aten. These buildings at Thebes were later dismantled by his successors and used as infill for new constructions in the Temple of Karnak; when they were later dismantled by archaeologists, some 36,000 decorated blocks from the original Aten building here were revealed which preserve many elements of the original relief scenes and inscriptions.David (1998), p.125]

The king's religious reformation may have begun with his decision to celebrate a Sed festival in his third regnal year &ndash; a highly unusual step, since a Sed-festival, a sort of royal jubilee intended to reinforce the Pharaoh's divine powers of kingship, was traditionally held in the thirtieth year of a Pharaoh's reign.

The relationship between Amenhotep IV and the priests of Amun-Re gradually deteriorated. In Year 5 of his reign, Amenhotep IV took decisive steps to establish the Aten as the exclusive, monotheistic god of Egypt: the pharaoh "disbanded the priesthoods of all the other gods...and diverted the income from these [other] cults to support the Aten. To emphasize his complete allegiance to the Aten, the king officially changed his name from Amenhotep IV to Akhenaten or 'Servant of the Aten.' Akhenaten's fifth year also marked the beginning of construction on his new capital, Akhetaten or 'Horizon of Aten', at the site known today as Amarna. Very soon afterwards, he centralized Egyptian religious practices in Akhetaten, though construction of the city seems to have continued for several more years. In honor of Aten, Akhenaten also oversaw the construction of some of the most massive temple complexes in ancient Egypt. In these new temples, Aten was worshipped in the open sunlight, rather than in dark temple enclosures, as had been the previous custom. Akhenaten is also believed to have composed the Great Hymn to the Aten.

Initially, Akhenaten presented Aten as a variant of the familiar supreme deity Amun-Ra (itself the result of an earlier rise to prominence of the cult of Amun, resulting in Amun becoming merged with the sun god Ra), in an attempt to put his ideas in a familiar Egyptian religious context. However, by Year 9 of his reign Akhenaten declared that Aten was not merely the supreme god, but the only god, and that he, Akhenaten, was the only intermediary between Aten and his people. He ordered the defacing of Amun's temples throughout Egypt, and in a number of instances, inscriptions of the plural 'gods' were also removed.

Aten's name is also written differently after Year 9, to emphasise the radicalism of the new regime, which included a ban on images, with the exception of a rayed solar disc, in which the rays (commonly depicted ending in hands) appear to represent the unseen spirit of Aten, who by then was evidently considered not merely a sun god, but rather a universal deity. It is important to note, however, that representations of the Aten were always accompanied with a sort of "hieroglyphic footnote", stating that the representation of the sun as All-encompassing Creator was to be taken as just that: a representation of something that, by its very nature as something transcending creation, cannot be fully or adequately represented by any one part of that creation.

Akhenaten's international relations

Important evidence about Akhenaten's reign and foreign policy has been provided by the discovery of the Amarna Letters, a cache of diplomatic correspondence discovered in modern times at el-Amarna, the modern designation of the Akhetaten site. This correspondence comprises a priceless collection of incoming messages on clay tablets, sent to Akhetaten from various subject rulers through Egyptian military outposts, and from the foreign rulers (recognized as "Great Kings") of Mitanni, Babylon, Assyria and Hatti. The governors and kings of Egypt's subject domains also wrote frequently to plead for gold from Pharaoh, and also complained of being snubbed and cheated by him.

Early on in his reign, Akhenaten fell out with the king of Mitanni, Tushratta, who had been courting favor with his father against the Hittites. Tushratta complains in numerous letters that Akhenaten had sent him gold plated statues rather than statues made of solid gold; the statues formed part of the bride price which Tushratta received for letting his daughter Tadukhepa be married to Amenhotep III and then Akhenaten. Amarna letter EA 27 preserves a complaint by Tushratta to Akhenaten about the situation:

"I...asked your father, Mimmureya, for statues of solid cast gold, one of myself and a second statue, a statue of Tadu-Heba (Tadukhepa), my daughter, and your father said, "Don't talk of giving statues just of solid cast gold. I will give you ones made also of lapis lazuli. I will give you, too, along with the statues, much additional gold and (other) goods beyond measure." Every one of my messengers that were staying in Egypt saw the gold for the statues with their own eyes. Your father himself recast the statues [i] n the presence of my messengers, and he made them entirely of pure gold....He showed much additional gold, which was beyond measure and which he was sending to me. He said to my messengers, "See with your own eyes, here the statues, there much gold and goods beyond measure, which I am sending to my brother." And my messengers did see with their own eyes! But my brother (ie: Akhenaten) has not sent the solid (gold) statues that your father was going to send. You have sent plated ones of wood. Nor have you sent me the goods that your father was going to send me, but you have reduced (them) greatly. Yet there is nothing I know of in which I have failed my brother. Any day that I hear the greetings of my brother, that day I make a festive occasion...May my brother send me much gold. [At] the kim [ru fe] ast... [...with] many goods [may my] brother honor me. In my brother's country gold is as plentiful as dust. May my brother cause me no distress. May he send me much gold in order that my brother [with the gold and m] any [good] s, may honor me."(EA 27) [Moran (1992), pp.87-89]

While Akhenaten was certainly not a close friend of Tushratta, he was evidently concerned at the expanding power of the Hittite Empire under its powerful ruler Suppiluliuma I. A successful Hittite attack on Mitanni and its ruler Tushratta would have disrupted the entire international balance of power in the Ancient Middle East at a time when Egypt had made peace with Mitanni; this would cause some of Egypt's vassals to switch their allegiances to the Hittites, as time would prove. A group of Egypt's allies who attempted to rebel against the Hittites were captured, and wrote letters begging Akhenaten for troops, but he did not respond to most of their pleas. Evidence suggests that the troubles on the northern frontier led to difficulties in Canaan, particularly in a struggle for power between Labaya of Shechem and Abdi-Heba of Jerusalem, which required the Pharaoh to intervene in the area by dispatching Medjay troops northwards. Akhenaten pointedly refused to save his vassal Rib-Hadda of Byblos whose kingdom was being besieged by the expanding state of Amurru under Abdi-Ashirta and later Aziru, son of Abdi-Ashirta, despite Rib-Hadda's numerous pleas for help from the pharaoh. Rib-Hadda wrote a total of 60 letters to Akhenaten pleading for aid from the pharaoh. Akhenaten wearied of Rib-Hadda's constant correspondences and once told Rib-Hadda: "You are the one that writes to me more than all the (other) mayors" or Egyptian vassals in EA 124. [Moran (1992), p.203] What Rib-Hadda did not comprehend was that the Egyptian king would not organize and dispatch an entire army north just to preserve the political status quo of several minor city states on the fringes of Egypt's Asiatic Empire. [ cite web|url=http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:HgOzj3EYEU8J:www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/199906/correspondence.in.clay.htm+akhenaten+Rib+Hadda+Byblos&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=ca|title=Akhenaten and Rib Hadda from Byblos] Rib-Hadda would pay the ultimate price; his exile from Byblos due to a coup led by his brother Ilirabih is mentioned in one letter. When Rib-Hadda appealed in vain for aid to Akhenaten and then turned to Aziru, his sworn enemy to place him back on the throne of his city, Aziru promptly had him dispatched to the king of Sidon where Rib-Hadda was almost certainly executed.Bryce (1998), p.186]

William L. Moran [Moran (1992), p.xxvi] notes that the Amarna corpus of 380+ letters counters the conventional view that Akhenaten neglected Egypt's foreign territories in favour of his internal reforms. There are several letters from Egyptian vassals notifying Pharaoh that the king's instructions have been followed:

To the king, my lord, my god, my Sun, the Sun from the sky: Message of Yapahu, the ruler of Gazru, your servant, the dirt at your feet. I indeed prostrate myself at the feet of the king, my lord, my god, my Sun...7 times and 7 times, on the stomach and on the back. I am indeed guarding the place of the king, my lord, the Sun of the sky, where I am, and all the things the king, my lord, has written me, I am indeed carrying out--everything! Who am I, a dog, and what is my house...and what is anything I have, that the orders of the king, my lord, the Sun from the sky, should not obey constantly?" (EA 378) [Moran (2003) pp.368-69]

When the loyal but unfortunate Rib-Hadda was killed at the instigation of Aziru, Akhenaten sent an angry letter to Aziru containing a barely veiled accusation of outright treachery on the latter's part. [Moran (1992), pp.248-250] Akhenaten wrote:

Say to Aziru, ruler of Amurru: Thus the king, your lord (ie: Akhenaten), saying: The ruler of Gubla (ie: Byblos), whose brother had cast him away at the gate, said to you, "Take me and get me into the city. There is much silver, and I will give it to you. Indeed there is an abundance of everything, but not with me [here] ." Thus did the ruler (Rib-Hadda) speak to you. Did you not write to the king, my lord saying, "I am your servant like all the previous mayors (ie: vassals) in his city"? Yet you acted delinquently by taking the mayor whose brother had cast him away at the gate, from his city.

He (Rib-Hadda) was residing in Sidon and, following your own judgment, you gave him to (some) mayors. Were you ignorant of the treacherousness of the men? If you really are the king's servant, why did you not denounce him before the king, your lord, saying, "This mayor has written to me saying, 'Take me to yourself and get me into my city'"? And if you did act loyally, still all the things you wrote were not true. In fact, the king has reflected on them as follows, "Everything you have said is not friendly."

Now the king has heard as follows, "You are at peace with the ruler of Qidsa. (Kadesh) The two of you take food and strong drink together." And it is true. Why do you act so? Why are you at peace with a ruler whom the king is fighting? And even if you did act loyally, you considered your own judgment, and his judgment did not count. You have paid no attention to the things that you did earlier. What happened to you among them that you are not on the side of the king, your lord? Consider the people that are training you for their own advantage. They want to throw you into the fire....If for any reason whatsoever you prefer to do evil, and if you plot evil, treacherous things, then you, together with your entire family, shall die by the axe of the king. So perform your service for the king, your lord, and you will live. You yourself know that the king does not fail when he rages against all of Canaan. And when you wrote saying, 'May the king, my Lord, give me leave this year, and then I will go next year to the king, my Lord. (ie: to Egypt) If this is impossible, I will send my son in my place'--the king, your Lord, let you off this year in accordance with what you said. Come yourself, or send your son [now] , and you will see the king at whose sight all lands live."(EA 162) [Moran (1992), pp.248-249]

This letter shows that Akhenaten paid close attention to the affairs of his vassals in Canaan and Syria. Akhenaten commanded Aziru to come to Egypt and proceeded to detain him there for at least one year. In the end, Akhenaten was forced to release Aziru back to his homeland when the Hittites advanced southwards into Amki thereby threatening Egypt's series of Asiatic vassal states including Amurru. [Bryce (1998), p.188] Sometime after his return to Amurru, Aziru defected to the Hittite side with his kingdom. [Bryce (1998), p.p.189] While it is known from an Amarna letter by Rib-Hadda that the Hittites "seized all the countries that were vassals of the king of Mitanni",EA75 [Moran (1992), p.145] Akhenaten managed to preserve Egypt's control over the core of her Near Eastern Empire which consisted of present day Palestine as well as the Phoenician coast while avoiding conflict with the increasingly powerful Hittite Empire of Suppiluliuma I. Only the Egyptian border province of Amurru in Syria around the Orontes river was permanently lost to the Hittites when its ruler Aziru defected to the Hittites. Finally, contrary to the conventional view of a ruler who neglected Egypt's international relations, Akhenaten is known to have initiated at least one campaign into Nubia in his regnal Year 12, where his campaign is mentioned in Amada stela CG 41806 and on a separate companion stela at Buhen. [Schulman (1982), pp.299-316]

Plague and pandemic

This Amarna period is also associated with a serious outbreak of a pandemic, possibly the plague, or polio, or perhaps the world's first recorded outbreak of influenza,Fact|date=June 2008 which came from Egypt and spread throughout the Middle East, killing Suppiluliuma I, the Hittite King. Influenza is a disease associated with the close proximity of water fowl, pigs and humans, and its origin as a pandemic disease may be due to the development of agricultural systems that allow the mixing of these animals and their wastes. [cite journal |author=Scholtissek C, Naylor E |title=Fish farming and influenza pandemics |journal=Nature |volume=331 |issue=6153 |pages=215 |year=1988 |pmid=2827036 |doi=10.1038/331215a0] Some of the first archaeological evidence for this agricultural system is during the Amarna period of Ancient Egypt, and the pandemic that followed this period throughout the Ancient Near East may have been the earliest recorded outbreak of influenza. [ [http://www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk/akhenaten.html Ancient Egypt Online Akhenaten] Accessed 21 Feb 2007] However, the precise nature of this Egyptian plague remains unknown and Asia has also been suggested as a possible site of origin of pandemic influenza in humans. [cite journal |author=Choi B, Pak A |title=Lessons for surveillance in the 21st century: a historical perspective from the past five millennia |journal=Soz Praventivmed |volume=46 |issue=6 |pages=361–8 |year=2001 |pmid=11851070 |doi=10.1007/BF01321662] [cite journal |author=Webby R, Webster R |title=Emergence of influenza A viruses |journal=Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci |volume=356 |issue=1416 |pages=1817–28 |year=2001 |pmid=11779380 |doi=10.1098/rstb.2001.0997] [cite journal |author=Shortridge K |title=Pandemic influenza: a zoonosis? |journal=Semin Respir Infect |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=11–25 |year=1992 |pmid=1609163] The prevalence of disease may help explain the rapidity with which the site of Akhetaten was subsequently abandoned. It may also explain why later generations considered the gods to have turned against the Amarna monarchs. The black death has also been suggested by Zahi Hawass because at Amarna the traces of the plague have been found. [Arielle Kozloff, in "Bubonic Plague in the Reign of Amenhotep III?" ("KMT", 17, 3 (Fall 2006), pp. 36-46) discusses the evidence, arguing that the epidemic was caused by Bubonic plague over polio. However, her argument that "polio is only fractionally as virulent as some other diseases" ignores the evidence that diseases become less virulent the longer they are present in the human population, as demonstrated with syphilis and tuberculosis.]

Pharaoh and family depictions

Styles of art that flourished during this short period are markedly different from other Egyptian art, bearing a variety of affectations, from elongated heads to protruding stomachs, exaggerated ugliness and the beauty of Nefertiti. Significantly, and for the only time in the history of Egyptian royal art, Akhenaten's family was depicted in a decidedly naturalistic manner, and they are clearly shown displaying affection for each other. Nefertiti also appears beside the king in actions usually reserved for a Pharaoh, suggesting that she attained unusual power for a queen. Artistic representations of Akhenaten give him a strikingly bizarre appearance, with an elongated face, slender limbs, a protruding belly, wide hips, and an overall pear-shaped body. It has been suggested that the pharaoh had himself depicted in this way for religious reasons, or that it exaggerates his distinctive physical traits. Until Akhenaten's mummy is located and identified, such theories remain speculative. [Some scholars have identified Valley of the Kings' Mummy 61074 as Akhenaton's mummy; see S. McAvoy, "Mummy 61074: a Strange Case of Mistaken Identity", Antiguo Oriente 5 (2007): 183-194.]

Following Akhenaten's death, a comprehensive political, religious and artistic reformation returned Egyptian life to the norms it had followed previously during his father's reign. Much of the art and building infrastructure that was created during Akhenaten's reign was defaced or destroyed in the period immediately following his death. Stone building blocks from his construction projects were later used as foundation stones for subsequent rulers' temples and tombs.

Family and relations

: "See also": Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt Family Tree

Amenhotep IV was married to Nefertiti at the very beginning of his reign, and the couple had six known daughters and possibly two sons (the sons with his other wife Kiya). This is a list with suggested years of birth:

* Smenkhkare?&ndash; year 35 or 36 of Amenhotep III's reign (though not of Nefertiti)
* Meritaten &ndash; year 1.
* Meketaten &ndash; year 3, possibly earlier.
* Ankhesenpaaten, later Queen of Tutankhamun &ndash; year 4.
* Neferneferuaten Tasherit &ndash; year 8.
* Neferneferure &ndash; year 9.
* Setepenre &ndash; year 9.
* Tutankhaten&ndash;year 8 or 9 &ndash; renamed himself Tutankhamun later. [http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/ideology/king/familyakhenaton.html|title=The family of Akhenaton|accessdate=2008-10-02]

His known consorts were:

* Nefertiti, his Great Royal Wife early in his reign.
* Kiya, a lesser Royal Wife.

Also suggested as his consorts were his daughters:

* Meritaten, recorded as Great Royal Wife late in his reign, though it is more likely that she got this title due to her marriage to Smenkhkare, Akhenaten's co-regent;
* Meketaten, Akhenaten's second daughter. The reason for this assumption is Meketaten's death due to childbirth in the fourteenth year of Akhenaten's reign.
* Ankhesenpaaten, his third daughter. After his death, Ankhesenpaaten married Akhenaten's successor Tutankhamun.

Both Meritaten and Ankhesenpaaten apparently had children – Meritaten-ta-sherit and Ankhesenpaaten-ta-sherit, respectively –, but there are doubts not only regarding their parentage but their existence as well. Both appear only in texts which had belonged to Kiya, and were usurped by the princesses later, and it was suggested that they might have been the daughters of Kiya, or were fictional, replacing Kiya's daughter in those scenes. [Aidan Dodson & Dyan Hilton, The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, Thames & Hudson (2004), p.154]

Two other lovers have been suggested, but are not widely accepted:

* Smenkhkare, Akhenaten's successor and/or co-ruler for the last years of his reign.Fact|date=June 2008 Rather than a lover, however, Smenkhkare is likely to have been a half-brother or a son to Akhenaten. Some have even suggested that Smenkhkare was actually an alias of Nefertiti or Kiya, and therefore one of Akhenaten's wives (see below).
* Tiye, his mother.Fact|date=June 2008 Twelve years after the death of Amenhotep III, she is still mentioned in inscriptions as Queen and beloved of the King. It has been suggested that Akhenaten and his mother acted as consorts to each other until her death. This would have been considered incest at the time. Supporters of this theory (notably Immanuel Velikovsky) consider Akhenaten to be the historical model of legendary King Oedipus of Thebes, Greece and Tiye the model for his mother/wife Jocasta.

Death, burial and succession

The last dated appearance of Akhenaten and the Amarna family is in the tomb of Meryre II, and dates from second month, year 12 of his reign. [Allen (2006), p.1] After this the historical record is unclear, and only with the succession of Tutankhamun is it somewhat clarified.

Akhenaten planned to relocate Egyptian burials on the East side of the Nile (sunrise) rather than on the West side (sunset), in the Royal Wadi in Akhetaten.Fact|date=June 2008 His body was probably removed after the court returned to Thebes, and reburied somewhere in the Valley of the Kings.Fact|date=June 2008 His sarcophagus was destroyed but has since been reconstructed and now sits outside in the Cairo Museum.

There is much controversy around whether Amenhotep IV succeeded to the throne on the death of his father, Amenhotep III, or whether there was a coregency (lasting as long as 12 years according to some Egyptologists). Current literature by Eric Cline, Nicholas Reeves, Peter Dorman and other scholars comes out strongly against the establishment of a long coregency between the 2 rulers and in favour of either no coregency or a brief one lasting 1 to 2 years, at the most. [Nicholas Reeves, Akhenaten: Egypt's False Prophet, Thames & Hudson, 2000. p.77] Other literature by Donald Redford, William Murnane, Alan Gardiner and more recently by Lawrence Berman in 1998 contests the view of any coregency whatsoever between Akhenaten and his father. [Lawrence M. Berman, 'Overview of Amenhotep III and His Reign,' in Amenhotep III: Perspectives on his Reign, ed: David O'Connor & Eric Cline, op. cit, p.23]

Similarly, although it is accepted that Akhenaten himself died in Year 17 of his reign, the question of whether Smenkhkare became co-regent perhaps 2 or 3 years earlier or enjoyed a brief independent reign is unclear.Allen (2006), p.5] If Smenkhkare outlived Akhenaten, and became sole Pharaoh, he likely ruled Egypt for less than a year. The next successor was either Neferneferuaten, possibly a female Pharaoh who reigned for perhaps 2 or three years , or Tutankhaten (later, Tutankhamun), with the country perhaps being run by the chief vizier, and future Pharaoh, Ay. Tutankhamun is believed to be a younger brother of Smenkhkare and a son of Akhenaten, and possibly Kiya although one scholar has suggested that Tutankhamun may have been a son of Smenkhkare instead. It has also been suggested that after the death of Akhenaten, Nefertiti reigned with the name of Neferneferuaten. ["Pocket Guides: Egypt History", p.37, Dorling Kindersley, London 1996."(the Neferneferuaten part is taken from Wikipedia Nefertiti entry)"] The so-called Coregency Stela, found in a tomb in Amarna possibly shows his queen Nefertiti as his coregent, ruling alongside him, but this is not certain as the names have been removed and recarved to show Ankhesenpaaten and Neferneferuaten. [cite web|url=http://www.nicholasreeves.com/item.aspx?category=Writing&id=71|title=Book Review: Rolf Krauss, Das Ende der Amarnazeit (Hildesheimer Ägyptologische Beiträge, 1978)|accessdate=2008-10-02|author=Nicholas Reeves]

With Akhenaten's death, the Aten cult he had founded gradually fell out of favor.Fact|date=June 2008 Tutankhaten changed his name to Tutankhamun in Year 2 of his reign (1332 BC) and abandoned the city of Akhetaten, which eventually fell into ruin. His successors Ay and Horemheb disassembled temples Akhenaten had built, including the temple at Thebes, using them as a source of easily available building materials and decorations for their own temples.

Finally, Akhenaten, Neferneferuaten, Smenkhkare, Tutankhamun, and Ay were excised from the official lists of Pharaohs, which instead reported that Amenhotep III was immediately succeeded by Horemheb. This is thought to be part of an attempt by Horemheb to delete all trace of Atenism and the pharaohs associated with it from the historical record.Fact|date=June 2008 Akhenaten's name never appeared on any of the king lists compiled by later Pharaohs and it was not until the late 19th century that his identity was re-discovered and the surviving traces of his reign were unearthed by archaeologists.

Speculative theories

Akhenaten's status as a religious revolutionary has led to much speculation, ranging from the mainstream to the fringe and New Age esotericism.

Moses and Akhenaten

The idea of Akhenaten as the pioneer of a monotheistic religion that later became Judaism has been considered by various scholars.Freud, S. (1939). Moses and Monotheism: Three Essays.] [Gunther Siegmund Stent, "Paradoxes of Free Will". American Philosophical Society, DIANE, 2002. 284 pages. Pages 34 - 38. ISBN 0871699265] [Jan Assmann, "Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism". Harvard University Press, 1997. 288 pages. ISBN 067458739] [N. Shupak, "The Monotheism of Moses and the Monotheism of Akhenaten". Sevivot, 1995. ] [Dominic Montserrat, "Akhenaten: sex, Fantasy, and Ancient Egypt". Routledge, 2000. 219 pages. ISBN 0415301866] [William F. Albright, "From the Patriarchs to Moses II. Moses out of Egypt". The Biblical Archaeologist, Vol. 36, No. 2 (May, 1973), pp. 48-76. doi 10.2307/3211050] One of the first to mention this was Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, in his book "Moses and Monotheism". [S. Freud, "The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XXIII (1937-1939)", "Moses and monotheism". London: Hogarth Press, 1964.] Freud argued that Moses had been an Atenist priest forced to leave Egypt with his followers after Akhenaten's death. Freud argued that Akhenaton was striving to promote monotheism, something that the biblical Moses was able to achieve. Following his book, the concept entered popular consciousness and serious research. [Laurence Gardner, "Bloodline of the Holy Grail", "Lost Secrets of the Sacred Ark",] [Gary Greenberg, "The Moses Mystery: The African Origins of the Jewish People]

Other scholars and mainstream Egyptologists point out that there are direct connections between early Judaism and other Semitic religious traditions. [Curtis, Samuel (2005), "Primitive Semitic Religion Today" (Kessinger Publications)] They also state that two of the three principal Judaic terms for God, Yahweh, Elohim (meaning roughly "the lofty one", morphologically plural), and Adonai (meaning "our lord", also morphologically plural) have no connection to Aten. Freud commented on the connection between Adonai, the Egyptian Aten and the Syrian divine name of Adonis as a primeval unity of language between the factions; in this he was following the argument of Egyptologist Arthur Weigall, but the argument was groundless as 'Aten' and 'Adonai' are not, in fact, linguistically related. [Assmann, Jan. (1997). "Moses the Egyptian". Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; pp. 23-24, fn. 2.]

Akhenaten appears in history almost two-centuries prior to the first archaeological and written evidence for Judaism and Israelite culture is found in the Levant. Abundant visual imagery of the Aten disk was central to Atenism, which celebrated the natural world, while such imagery is not a feature of early Israelite culture, [The first commandment prohibits the making of images of God. Judaism is an aniconic religion.] Although pottery found throughout Judea dated to the end of the 8th century BC have seals resembling a winged sun disk burned on their handles, presumedly thought to be the royal seal of the Judean Kingdom. [The Bible Unearthed p. 255-257]

Ahmed Osman has claimed that Akhenaten's maternal grandfather Yuya was the same person as the Biblical Joseph. Yuya held the title "Overseer of the Cattle of Min at Akhmin" during his life. [Yuya's titles included "Overseer of the Cattle of Amun and Min (Lord of Akhmin)", "Bearer of the Ring of the King of Lower Egypt", "Mouth of the King of Upper Egypt", and "The Holy Father of the Lord of the Two Lands" among others. For more see: Osman, A. (1987). Stranger in the Valley of the Kings: solving the mystery of an ancient Egyptian mummy. San Francisco: Harper & Row. pp.29-30]

He likely belonged to the local nobility of Akhmim. Egyptologists hold this view because Yuya had strong connections to the city of Akhmin in Upper Egypt. This makes it unlikely that he was a foreigner since most Asiatic settlers tended to cloister around the Nile Delta region of Lower Egypt [Montet, Pierre (1964), "Eternal Egypt" (New American Press)] . [Redford, Donald B. (1993), "Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times" (Princeton University Press)] Some Egyptologists, however, give him a Mitannian origin. It is widely accepted that there are strong similarities between Akhenaten's Great Hymn to the Aten and the Biblical Psalm 104, though this form is found widespread in ancient Near Eastern hymnology both before and after the period and whether this implies a direct influence or a common literary convention remains in dispute.

First "individual"

Akhenaten has been called by historian James Henry Breasted "the first individual in history", [Dominic Montserrat. Akhenaten: History, Fantasy and Ancient Egypt. Routledge 2003 ISBN 0415301866.] as well as the first monotheist, first scientist, and first romantic. As early as 1899 Flinders Petrie declared that,

: "If this were a new religion, invented to satisfy our modern scientific conceptions, we could not find a flaw in the correctness of this view of the energy of the solar system. How much Akhenaten understood, we cannot say, but he certainly bounded forward in his views and symbolism to a position which we cannot logically improve upon at the present day. Not a rag of superstition or of falsity can be found clinging to this new worship evolved out of the old Aton of Heliopolis, the sole Lord of the universe." [Sir Flinders Petrie, "History of Egypt" (edit. 1899), Vol. II, p. 214.]

H.R. Hall even claimed that the pharaoh was the "first example of the scientific mind". [H. R. Hall, "Ancient History of the Near East", p. 599.]

Criticism

On the contrary, Nicholas Reeves in his book "Akhenaten: Egypt's False Prophet" portrays a totally different image of Pharaoh, seeing his religious reformations as mere attempts for centralizing power and solidify his role as "divine monarch".

Oedipus theory

Another claim was made by Immanuel Velikovsky. [Immanuel Velikovsky, "Oedipus and Akhnaton, Myth and History", Doubleday, 1960] Velikovsky argued that Moses was neither Akhenaten, nor one of his followers. Instead, Velikovsky identifies Akhenaten as the history behind Oedipus and moved the setting from the Greek Thebes to the Egyptian Thebes. His theory also includes that Akhenaten had an incestuous relationship with his mother, Tiye. Velikovsky also posited that Akhenaten had elephantiasis, producing enlarged legs &ndash; Oedipus being Greek for "swollen feet." As part of his argument, Velikovsky uses the fact that Akhenaten viciously carried out a campaign to erase the name of his father, which he argues could have developed into Oedipus killing his father. This point seems to be disproved, however, in that Akhenaten in fact mummified and buried his father in the honorable traditional Egyptian fashion prior to beginning his monotheistic revolution.

In the same 1960 work, "Oedipus and Akhnaton", Velikovsky not only saw Akhenaten as the origin of Oedipus, but also identified him with a Pharaoh mentioned only in Herodotus, "Anysis of the city of the same name" - Akhenaten of Akhetaten. Like Oedipus, Anysis was blinded, deposed and exiled. Some scholars have argued that Akhenaton went blind at the end of his life and was supported by his wife Nefertiti.

Akhenaten's genetic make-up

The rather strange and eccentric portrayals of Akhenaten, with a sagging stomach, thick thighs, larger breasts, and long, thin face - so different from the athletic norm in the portrayal of Pharaohs - has led certain Egyptologists to suppose that Akhenaten suffered some kind of genetic abnormality. Various illnesses have been put forward. On the basis of his longer jaw and his feminine appearance, Cyril Aldred [Aldred, C. (1988). "Akhenaten, King of Egypt". (Thames and Hudson, Ltd.,)] suggested he may be suffering from Froelich's Syndrome. However, this is unlikely because this disorder results in sterility and Akhenaten is believed to have fathered numerous children - at least six daughters by Nefertiti, and possibly his successor Tutankhamen by a minor wife.

Another suggestion by Burridge [Burridge, A., (1995) "Did Akhenaten Suffer From Marfan's Syndrome?" (Akhenaten Temple Project Newsletter No. 3, Sept. 1995) ] is that Akhenaten may have suffered from Marfan's Syndrome. Marfan's syndrome, unlike Froelich's, does not result in any lack of intelligence or sterility. It is associated with a sunken chest, long curved spider-like fingers (arachnodactyly), occasional congenital heart difficuties, a high curved or slightly cleft palate, and a highly curved cornea or dislocated lens of the eye, with the requirement for bright light to see well. Marfan's sufferers tend towards being taller than average, with a long, thin face, and elongated skull, overgrown ribs, a funnel or pigeon chest, and larger pelvis, with enlarged thighs and spindly calves.. [Lorenz, Maegara "The Mystery of Akhenaton: Genetics or Aesthetics" [http://www.heptune.com/Marfans.html] ] Marfan's syndrome is a dominant characteristic, and sufferers have a 50% chance of passing it on to their children. ["Did Akhenaton Suffer from Marfan's Syndrome" [http://www.marfan.ca/pharaoh.html] ] All of these symptoms appear in depictions of Akhenaten and of his children. Recent CT scans of Tutankhamun report a cleft palate and a fairly long head.

However, Dominic Montserrat in "Akhenaten: History, Fantasy and Ancient Egypt" argues that "there is now a broad consensus among Egyptologists that the exaggerated forms of Akhenaten's physical portrayal...are not to be read literally"Dominic Montserrat, "Akhenaten: History, Fantasy and Ancient Egypt" Routledge, 2000, p.48] Montserrat and others [Reeves, Nicholas (2005) "Akhenaten: Egypt's False Prophet" (Thames and Hudson)] argue that the body-shape relates to some form of religious symbolism. Because the god Aten was referred to as "the mother and father of all humankind" it has been suggested that Akhenaten was made to look androgynous in artwork as a symbol of the androgyny of the god. This required "a symbolic gathering of all the attributes of the creator god into the physical body of the king himself", which will "display on earth the Aten's multiple life-giving functions". Akhenaten did refer to himself as "The Unique One of Re," and he may have used his control of artistic expression to distance himself from the common people, though such a radical departure from the idealised traditional representation of the image of the Pharaoh would be truly extraordinary. It should be observed that representations of other persons than Akhenaten in the 'Amarna style' are equally unflattering - for example, a carving of his father Amenhotep III as a languid, overweight figure;Fact|date=September 2007 Nefertiti is shown in some statues as well past her prime, with a severe face and a stomach swollen by repeated pregnancies.

The Smenkhkare Mystery

There has also been interest in the identity of the Pharaoh Smenkhkare who was the immediate successor to Akhenaten. In particular descriptions on a small box seemed to refer to "Smenkhkare beloved of Akhenaten" [Montserrat, Dominic, Akhenaten: History, Fantasy, and Ancient Egypt, 2000; ] .

Smenkhkare was first thought to be a male, raising the idea that Akhenaten might have been what we now call bisexual. This theory seems to originate from objects found in the tomb of Tutankhamen in the 1920s. The Egyptologist Percy Newberry [Montserrat, Dominic, Akhenaten: History, Fantasy, and Ancient Egypt, 2000] then linked this to one of the stele exhibited in the Berlin Museum which pictured two rulers, naked and seated together – the older caressing the younger and the shoulder offering support. He identified these with the rulers Akhenaten and Smenkhkare. Coinciding with the disappearance of Nefertiti’s name from all records towards the end of Akhenaten’s reign [Grimal, Nicolas, A History of Ancient Egypt, French 1988, English 1992] .

It is now generally accepted that Smenkhkare was likely none other than his queen, Nefertiti. The issue seemed finally to have been resolved in the 1970s when John Harris identified the figure pictured alongside Akhenaten as Nefertiti. He argued that Nefertiti may have actually been elevated to co-regent alongside Akhenaten and perhaps even succeeded temporarily as an independent ruler; changing her name to Smenkhkare [Montserrat, Dominic, Akhenaten: History, Fantasy, and Ancient Egypt, 2000] . Furthermore, other Egyptologists like Nicholas Reeves have contended that Smenkhkare was the same person as Neferneferuaten who ruled together with Akhenaten as co-regents for the final one or two years of Akhenaten's reign. Reeves contends that Smenkhkare shares some names with Nefertiti, wife of Akhenaten, and it is possible that Nefertiti was Smenkhkare, as it is not unheard of Ancient Egypt for women to become pharaoh (e.g., Hatshepsut). On several monuments, the two are shown seated side-by-side. Reeves' suggestions would give weight to the idea that switch in names at different times were to recognize changes in titles or positions for Nefertiti (e.g., Queen, and then Pharaoh). [Nicholas Reeves and Richard H. Wilkinson,The Complete Valley of the Kings. Thames & Hudson, 1996.] Some others believe Smenkhkare was likely to have been a half-brother or a son to Akhenaten.

In the arts

Plays

* Savitri Devi: play "" (Philosophical Publishing House [London] , 1948)
* Agatha Christie: play, "Akhnaton" (written in 1937, published by Dodd, Mead and Company [New York] , 1973, ISBN 0-396-06822-7; Collins [London] , 1973, ISBN 0-00-211038-5)

Novels

* Thomas Mann, in his fictional biblical tetralogy "Joseph and His Brothers" (1933-1943), makes Akhenaten the "dreaming pharaoh" of Joseph's story.
* Anthony Holmes: "Tutankhamun-Speak my Name" published in 2005 portrays Akhenaten as the Aten obsessed, but loving father of Tutankhamun. He fakes his death to join the Israelite monotheists and becomes Aaron, the brother of his real life sibling Thutmoses who had modified his name to Moses.
* Tom Holland: "The Sleeper in the Sands" (Little, Brown & Company, 1998, ISBN 0-316-64480-3)
* Mika Waltari: "The Egyptian", first published in Finnish ("Sinuhe egyptiläinen") in 1945, translated by Naomi Walford (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1949, ISBN 0-399-10234-5; Chicago Review Press, 2002, paperback, ISBN 1-55652-441-2)
* Gwendolyn MacEwen: "King of Egypt, King of Dreams" (1971, ISBN 1-894663-60-8)
* Allen Drury: "A God Against the Gods" (Doubleday, 1976) and "Return to Thebes" (Doubleday, 1976)
* Naguib Mahfouz: "Akhenaten, Dweller in Truth" (العائش فى الحقيقة) (1985)
* Andree Chedid: " Akhenaten and Nefertiti's dream"
* Wolfgang Hohlbein: "Die Prophezeihung" ("The Prophecy"), in which Echnaton is killed by Ay and curses him into eternal life until a prophecy is fulfilled.
* Moyra Caldecott: "" (1989; eBook, 2000, ISBN 1-899142-86-X; 2003, ISBN 1-899142-25-8)
* P.B. Kerr: The Akhenaten Adventure Akhenaten is said to be the holder of 70 lost Djinn
* Pauline Gedge: "The Twelfth Transforming" (1984), set in the reign of Akhenaten, details the construction of Akhetaten and fictionalized accounts of his sexual relationships with Nefertiti, Tiye and successor Smenkhkare.
* Dorothy Porter: verse novel, "Akhenaten" (1991)
* Judith Tarr: "Pillar of Fire" (1995)
* Carol Thurston: "The Eye of Horus" (William Morrow & Co., 2000), posits the "Akhenaten was Moses" theory.
* Moyra Caldecott: "The Ghost of Akhenaten" (eBook, 2001, ISBN 1-899142-89-4; 2003, ISBN 1-84319-024-9)
* Lynda Robinson: mystery, "Drinker of Blood" (2001, ISBN 0-446-67751-5)
* Spelled 'Akenhaten', he appears as a major character in the first of a trilogy of historical novels by P. C. Doherty, "An Evil Spirit out of the West".
* Michelle Moran: "Nefertiti" (2007)

Music

* [http://www.nefertitithemusical.com "Nefertiti: The Musical"] is a stage musical based on the Amarna period in the life of Akhenaten. Book by Christopher Gore and Rick Gore, Music by David Spangler.

* Philip Glass: opera, "Akhnaten: An Opera in Three Acts" (1983; CBS Records, 1987)

* Julian Cope, track on 1992 album Jehovahkill
* The song 'Cast Down the Heretic' by the death metal band Nile on the album "Annihilation of the Wicked."
* The song 'Son Of The Sun' by Swedish Symphonic Metal band Therion on the album Sirius B.
* "Ikhnaton" is referenced in a section of the epic progressive rock song Supper's Ready by the English rock band Genesis
* "Roy Campbell" - The Akhnaten Suite - a modern jazz epic - read [http://freejazz-stef.blogspot.com/2008/03/roy-campbell-akhnaten-suite-aum.html"review"] . Released in 2008 by AUM Fidelity.
* The song 'Cursing Akhenaten' by hardcore progressive metal band After The Burial on the album Rareform.

Other

* Edgar P. Jacobs: comic book, " (1950), adventure story in which the mystery of Akhenaten provides much of the background.

* "The Egyptian", motion picture (1954, directed by Michael Curtiz, Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation), based on the novel by Mika Waltari.

* The Geronimo Stilton series mentions Akhenaten as "Akhenraten" in "The Mummy with No Name".

* Spelled Ankhenaton, he is the chief power in the French RPG Nephilim.

* Ankhenaten appears as a cosmic antagonist in the Marvel series .

ee also

*Pharaoh of the Exodus

Notes and references

Notes

Bibliography

* Peter Clayton, Chronicle of the Pharaohs, Thames and Hudson, 2006
* Jürgen von Beckerath, Chronologie des Pharaonischen Ägypten. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz, (1997)
* Rosalie David, Handbook to Life in Ancient Egypt, Facts on File Inc., 1998
*
* William L. Moran, The Amarna Letters, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992
* Trevor Bryce, The "Kingdom of the Hittites", Clarendon Press, 1998.
* A.R. Schulman, "The Nubian War of Akhenaten" in L'Egyptologie en 1979: Axes prioritaires de recherchs II (Paris: 1982)
*

Further reading

*cite book
last = Aldred
first = Cyril
authorlink = Cyril Aldred
title = Akhenaten: King of Egypt
origyear = 1988
year = 1991
publisher = Thames & Hudson
isbn = 0-500-27621-8

*cite book
last = Bilolo
first = Mubabinge
authorlink = Mubabinge Bilolo
title = Le Créateur et la Création dans la pensée memphite et amarnienne. Approche synoptique du Document Philosophique de Memphis et du Grand Hymne Théologique d'Echnaton
origyear = 1988
edition = new ed.
year = 2004
publisher = Academy of African Thought
location = Munich-Paris
language = French
chapter = Sect. I, vol. 2
*cite book
author = Rita E. Freed, Yvonne J. Markowitz, and Sue H. D'Auria (ed.)
authorlink = Boston Museum of Fine Arts
title = Pharaohs of the Sun: Akhenaten - Nefertiti - Tutankhamen
year = 1999
publisher = Bulfinch Press
isbn = 0-8212-2620-7

* Devi, Savitri, "A Son of God" ( [http://downloads.members.tripod.com/~neuro_net/asonfgod.htm full text] ) (Philosophical Publishing House [London] , 1946); subsequent editions published as "Son of the Sun: The Life and Philosophy of Akhnaton, King of Egypt" (Supreme Grand Lodge of A.M.O.R.C., 1956); part III of "The Lightning and the Sun" is focused on Akhnaten.
* Gestoso Singer, Graciela (2008) [http://www.uca.edu.ar/esp/sec-ffilosofia/esp/docs-institutos/s-cehao/otras_public/gestoso_monog.pdf "El Intercambio de Bienes entre Egipto y Asia Anterior. Desde el reinado de Tuthmosis III hasta el de Akhenaton" Free Access] (Spanish) Ancient Near East Monographs, Volume 2.Buenos Aires, Society of Biblical Literature - CEHAO. ISBN 978-987-20606-4-0
* Holland, Tom, "The Sleeper in the Sands" (novel), (Abacus, 1998, ISBN 0-349-11223-1), a fictionalised adventure story based closely on the mysteries of Akhenaten's reign
* Hornung, Erik, "Akhenaten and the Religion of Light", translated by David Lorton (Cornell University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-8014-3658-3)
*cite book
last = Montserrat
first = Dominic
authorlink = Dominic Montserrat
title = Akhenaten: History, Fantasy and ancient Egypt
year = 2000
publisher = Routledge
oclc = 0-415-30186-6
* Najovits, Simson,Egypt, Trunk of the Tree, Volume I, The Contexts, Volume II, The Consequences, Algora Publishing, New York, 2003 and 2004. On Akhenaten: Vol. II, Chapter 11, pp. 117-173 and Chapter 12, pp. 205-213.
* cite book
last = O'Connor
first = David
coauthors = Eric Cline
title = Amenhotep III: Perspectives on His Reign
year = 1998
publisher = University of Michigan Press
isbn = 0-472-10742-9
* Phillips, Graham, "Act of God: Moses, Tutankhamun and the Myth of Atlantis", (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1998, ISBN 0-283-06314-9); republished as "Atlantis and the Ten Plagues of Egypt: The Secret History Hidden in the Valley of the Kings" (Bear & Co., 2003, paperback, ISBN 1-59143-009-7)
* Redford, Donald B., "Akhenaten: The Heretic King" (Princeton University Press, 1984, ISBN 0-691-03567-9)
*cite book
last = Reeves
first = Nicholas
authorlink = Nicholas Reeves
title = Akhenaten: Egypt's False Prophet
year = 2001
publisher = Thames and Hudson
isbn = 0-500-05106-2
*cite book
last = Velikovsky
first = Immanuel
authorlink = Immanuel Velikovsky
title = Oedipus and Akhnaton: Myth and History
year = 1960
publisher = Doubleday
location = Garden City, New York
isbn = 0-385-00529-6
*cite book
last = El Mahdy
first = Christine
authorlink = Christine El Mahdy
title = Tutankhamen: The Life and Death of a Boy King
year = 1999
publisher = Headline
isbn = 0-7472-6000-1

*cite book|last=Najovits|first=Simson|title=Egypt, Trunk of the Tree, Volume II, The Consequences|publisher=Algora Publishing|location=New York|year=2004

External links

* [http://www.comparative-religion.com/ancient/akhenaten.php Akhenaten and the Hymn to the Aten]
* [http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~rgrosser/amarna/neywetaten/index.htm The City of Akhetaten]
* [http://www.maat.sofiatopia.org/aten.htm The Great Hymn to the Aten]
* [http://history.memphis.edu/murnane/Dorman%20-%20Coregency,%20Tomb%20of%20Kheruef.pdf The Long Coregency Revisited: the Tomb of Kheruef] by Peter Dorman, Univ. of Chicago
* [http://www.mansooramarnacollection.com/ M.A. Mansoor Amarna Collection]
* [http://ahmedosman.com/home.html Moses and Akhenaten: The Secret History of Egypt at the Time of the Exodus]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7209472.stm news.bbc.co.uk, Grim secrets of Pharaoh's city]
* [http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080502/ap_on_he_me/feminine_pharaoh The Androgynous Pharaoh? Akhenaten had feminine physique]

Persondata
NAME = Akhenaten
ALTERNATIVE NAMES = Amenhotep IV (Initial name)
SHORT DESCRIPTION = Egyptian Pharaoh
DATE OF BIRTH =
PLACE OF BIRTH =
DATE OF DEATH = 1336 BC or 1334 BC
PLACE OF DEATH =