Akhenaten was an 18th Dynasty Pharaoh. He was the proposed son of Amenhotep III and Tiye. Amenhotep wasn’t like normal people of Egypt, as he was portrayed to be deformed. . Queen Tiye who then chose Akhenaten to take the throne and he became Pharaoh. During his reign as Pharaoh, Akhenaten became very controversial. Akhenaten had changed centuries and dynasties of belief and religion and the way all Egyptians had been living Akhenaten also changed religion. He changed how they worship gods and whom they pray to.
Before his reign as pharaoh, Egyptians had prayed to many gods as their religion was a polytheistic and prayed to a god for everything. As Akhenaten took power, he changed the religion through which god they pray to The Aten was the sun disc and was prayed to as you see the sun everyday. Akhenaten was labeled the heretic pharaoh. He was named supposedly Amenhotep IV and changed it to Akhenaten to represent the god. He changed the capital city to Akhentaten, which meant “horizon of the Aten. ” The Pharaoh and his family were to worship Aten, while the remainder of the population was to worship the Pharaoh as his representation of Aten.
This shows the importance and impact of Aten upon the Egyptians, as after Akhenaten came to power Aten was the only god, which they prayed to The Aten was the sun disc, and was always seen in the sky, which was why Akhenaten changed it so they pray to one god. When he changed his name from Amenhotep IV to Akhenaten, he also said that you must pray to the sun disc through me The nature of the new religion was that it became a monotheistic religion with a proposed god and an icon to pray to. This icon was Akhenaten and all prayers were through him and the god was Aten the sun disc.
Many historians may come to the conclusion of Akhenaten’s change in religion may be from his childhood neglection from his family and people around him With all this attention towards him, Akhenaten then focused on importance of Aten and his influence on everyone. He also focused on building a new city in recognition of Aten and himself. The city was named Akhetaten. Akhetaten, now modern day Amarna, was a city built in the middle of the desert of Egypt was a city built by Akhenaten in memory of himself and Aten. Akhenaten also changed the capital city of Thebes to Akhetaten.
The city was built in the year 5 and 6 and had the boundary stelae set up. There were 14 boundary stelae in total and they were set around the northern and southern boundaries of the city The purpose of the city was built in honor of the god, Aten, and had offertories and temples all throughout the city. The city was small and isolated from many towns as Akhenaten wished for no one to visit or invade his city, so it was very well hidden in the middle of the desert The religious motives behind moving the capital city to a new place was that the whole city was built in recognition of Aten.
It was built on the east side of Egypt. The eastern side of Egypt had a belief that all life was on the east from the sun The city had all it needed from a temple to the house of Akhenaten, barracks, sanctuaries, houses and tombs at the extremities of the boundaries. All these motives were all ideas that Akhenaten had wished and changed years of belief and practice. The motives labeled him a heretic and he was looked down upon. These motives have been to believed that they led to his overthrow and possibly death
