For my archaeological discovery project I chose Amarna which was the capitol of Egypt under Pharaoh  Amenhotep IV. I have always been completely fascinated by ancient Egypt and this city is full of interesting things. As we learned in class, Amenhotep IV (or Akhenaten as he later changed his name) is actually believed to be the father of King Tut. One of the reasons why he is so fascinating is that he only ruled for only 17 years, but he drastically changed many Egyptian traditions.

As we learned, he started worshiping Aten as his primary God. There is speculation over how much he forced his beliefs on his people, but many of his court changed their names as he did to worship Aten. He also erased some of the traditional God’s names especially Amun, however he did not stop his citizens from worshiping Amun. It is truly incredible to consider how drastic this change was. To go from the traditional Egyptian religion that was polytheistic to a henotheistic religion is a very radical change. I feel like the ordinary citizens must have been so shocked. I really wonder how the average person during this time would have reacted.

Most of the historical periods we have been learning about all change very slowly. Today we talked about the Paleolithic period and how it is hard to put a set date on when a cultural aspect appeared because the traditions and culture evolved so slowly. It took thousands of years for changes to fully take hold. This is very different from the incredible changes Akhenaten brought about in only a few years.

Another strange thing is that all of the changes Akhenaten brought about ended when he died and things went back to the way they had before his reign. More than that, Akhenaten’s name was erased from many monuments. This means that his successor (who would have been his son) disagreed with his beliefs very adamantly or else the people really didn’t like the changes and made it go back. Either way, it is very interesting. Most of the time descendants follow their parents teachings pretty closely. This would definitely be the assumed way it would happen especially when Akhenaten was known for having loving family portraits and sculptures made. And if the people rejected Akhenaten’s ideas it would be almost equally as surprising because Egyptians believed the pharaoh was basically a deity. Later pharaohs actually referred to Akhenaten as a criminal.