The Cool Confines of the Luxor Museum

Whether you need a break from exploring the temples of Luxor and Karnak to escape the heat or just want to take a virtual tour, the Luxor Museum is filled with amazing statues and reliefs of King Tut, Akhenaten and other famous pharaohs, as well as Egyptian gods including Amun, Sobek and Sekhmet.

Not too many travelers bother with the Luxor Museum — but that’s a mistake.

A processional route over a mile and a half long once connected the temples of Luxor and Karnak. There’s talk of renovating and reopening this roadway, and it would be an impressive sight, lined with noble sphinxes, with the glittering water of the River Nile twinkling off to one side. To be honest, though, I can’t imagine that long of a walk, with no shelter from the sun god Ra’s blazing heat. 

After you’ve explored Luxor or Karnak Temples, though, you can escape the intense sun with a visit to the Luxor Museum. Even though it’s situated about a 20-minute walk from Luxor Temple, partway to Karnak, it seems as if not too many tourists add this to their itinerary. 

When we suggested it to our guide, Mamduh, he looked a bit surprised, as if we might have been the first people he’s had make the request.

“If you want to see a lot of the statues that once filled the temples of Ancient Egypt, you’ll have to visit a museum.”

The interior is a cool, sleek white space with angles that give it a surprisingly modern feel. It’s not too large of a space, which means you can see the entire collection in an hour or so. 

Guides aren’t allowed to lecture about the various exhibits. So Mamduh, who had been with us all week, educating us on Ancient Egyptian culture and archeology, from Aswan up to Luxor, had to shift his role. He was no longer our teacher; he became a friend exploring the museum with us. Judging from the sparkle in his eye and his childlike sense of wonder, he hadn’t spent much time in the museum and looked at this as an opportunity to increase his education.

The mummified remains of Ramesses I have a colorful past, including a stint at Ripley’s Believe It or Not! in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Unlike at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, you can actually photograph this mummy.

Where Are the Statues of Ancient Egypt?

The temples of Ancient Egypt, once packed with statues, are now sadly bereft of these works of art. I often remarked to Duke how much I wished the niches, sanctuaries and pedestals were still home to the statues that once adorned them. If you want to see these statues, you’ll have to visit a museum — and the one in Luxor fittingly houses numerous carvings that were unearthed at the nearby temples of Karnak and Luxor.

Before we started wandering the museum, we stopped into an auditorium to watch a short documentary about Thebes (the ancient city where Luxor now stands). The fim had a grainy, bootlegged quality that revealed how woefully outdated it is. It reminded Duke and me of the film reels we used to watch in elementary school. To be honest, I don’t recall much about it. If time is limited, this is definitely something you could skip.

Here’s a brief tour of the Luxor Museum, showcasing some of our favorite artifacts.

Senusret I (circa 1971-1926 BCE)

Limestone 

Part of the colossal pillar of Pharaoh Senusret I from the White Chapel at Karnak, the structure was built to commemorate the first anniversary of the Sed Festival, held during the 30th year of his reign. Senusret is depicted in the traditional form of the god of the afterlife, Osiris, with arms folded across his chest and holding an ankh, the symbol of life, in each hand. 

Senusret III (1878-1840 BCE) 

Quartz 

This quartz head, found at Karnak, sporting the double crown and false beard, captures the humanity of the great Twelfth Dynasty ruler. His heavy-lidded eyes and supposed slight smile (I don’t really see it) represent  a break in the sculptural tradition of Egypt’s Middle Kingdom. 

Amenenhat III (1841-1792 BCE)

Black granite

Check out that look of disgust! Stern features like this were typical of the Middle Kingdom statuary.

Ramesses III (1550-1532 BCE)

Graywacke

This cult statue of Ramesses III, the last great warrior king of the New Kingdom, wears a short wig surmounted by the double crown. One part of the sculpture, which decorated the Precinct of Mut at Karnak, was discovered in the 1930s by the Oriental Institute of Chicago. The other was unearthed in 2002 by an expedition team from Johns Hopkins University. 

Thutmose III (1490-1436 BCE)

Graywacke

Shown eternally youthful, Thutmose III is wearing a belt with his cartouche, an oval carving with the pharaoh’s name in hieroglyphics.

Amun-Min relief (1490-1436 BCE)

Limestone

Look at those colors, still so bright after thousands of years! The chief deity Amun is merged with the fertility god Min. The relief, from Deir el-Bahari, was destroyed during the Amarna period and restored by a later pharaoh.

Unknown officer (1440-1400 BCE)

Sandstone 

This uninscribed Eighteenth Dynasty painted statue depicts an officer wearing a shebyu collar. While these necklaces were often worn by New Kingdom pharaohs, they were also given as a reward for valor or distinguished service.

Amenhotep II relief (circa 1426-1400 BCE)

Red granite

Amenhotep II was particularly proud of his prowess as an athlete and warrior. He’s shown shooting arrows through a target. In the inscription, he boasts of being so much stronger than normal men that he uses copper for target practice rather than wood, through which his arrows pass like papyrus.

Sobek and Amenhotep III (circa 1386-1353 BCE)

Calcite, Egyptian alabaster

The crocodile-headed deity holds an ankh to bestow life to the youthful ruler. The statue was usurped by Ramesses II.

Iwnit (1405-1367 BCE)

Diorite, possibly

This statue of Iwnit, a minor goddess from the Amduat and consort to the god Montu, was created during the reign of Amenhotep III. With dimples at the corner of her mouth, which give the impression of a fleeting smile, some call this the Mona Lisa of Karnak.

Amenhotep III (circa 1386-1353 BCE)

Quartzite

This New Kingdom figure of Amenhotep III was originally adorned with gold that was removed in antiquity, leaving some rough spots visible where armlets once were. 

Sekhmet

Gray granite  

The war goddess Sekhmet personified the fierce protective aspects of women and was known as the Mistress of Dread (coolest nickname ever?). In the New Kingdom she belonged to a group of goddesses known as the Eye of Ra. Here she’s shown with a broken sun disk above her head.

Amenhotep, son of Hapu (1400 BCE) 

Granite 

This statue of a seated scribe with stylized fat folds represents Amenhotep, son of Hapu, an important official under Pharaoh Amenhotep III. A palette with two inkwells, one for red and one for black, hangs over his left shoulder. As overseer of all the king’s works, a post he reached later in life, he was responsible for many of Amenhotep’s ambitious building projects. Like Imhotep, he became deified after death. 

Wall painting of Amenhotep III (circa 1386-1353 BCE)

Painted stucco

Sadly, all that’s left of this wall painting from the tomb of an official are fragments. The image shows Pharaoh Amenhotep III seated under a canopy, with his mother behind him and his enemies beneath him, a position of power. If you want to see what this would have looked like in full, the facsimile painted in 1914 by Egyptologist Nina de Garis Davies can be viewed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. 

Amenhotep III (circa 1386-1353 BCE)

Granodiorite 

This sculpture from north Karnak depicts the kneeling figure of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, a popular figure at the Luxor Museum. Holding a pair of flails, the king is kneeling during his coronation by the god Amun-Ra, whose now-missing hand would have originally rested upon Amenhotep’s crown. 

Temple wall of Amenhotep IV aka Akhenaten (circa 1380-1335 BCE)

Sandstone

This partially restored wall from a razed temple dates from the first five years of Amenhotep IV’s reign. The fragments,  known as talatat, were used as filling material and removed from the interior of the ninth pylon at Karnak. This scene depicts the so-called Heretic King and his wife Queen Nefertiti worshipping the multi-armed Aten, with images of daily life associated with the temple storehouses, workshops and breweries.

Akhenaten (circa 1380-1335 BCE)

Sandstone 

These are the remains of a colossal statue in the easily identifiable Amarna style (which we both love) found east of the Amun-Ra temple precinct, in an open court dedicated to the solar god Aten, built by Akhenaten in the third year of his reign. The colossi were knocked down and left in situ during the reign of Horemheb. During an excavation in 1925, Henri Chevrier, chief inspector of antiquities at Karnak, uncovered 25 fragments.

Tutankhamun sphinx (1347-1336 BCE)

Calcite

The face of this sphinx from Karnak Temple appears to bear the features of King Tut — most noticeably in the eyes and chin. This likeness wears a nemes headdress and originally had human arms that held a vase. 

Tutankhamun as Amun (1347-1336 BCE)

Limestone

Amun, the patron deity of Thebes, is depicted in the form of the legendary Boy King. Tutankhamun restored the cult of Amun (and the other gods) after the death of monotheistic, monomaniacal Akhenaten.

Atum and Horemheb (circa 1300-1292 BCE)

Diorite

The militaristic Pharaoh Horemheb kneels before the solar deity Atum, offering two nw jars. Atum is seated on a throne, holds an ankh and wears a long wig and a curved false beard, topped with the double crown of Egypt. Carved into the side of the throne is the sema tawny, lung and windpipe, symbolizing the union of the two lands (Lower and Upper Egypt). The well-preserved artwork was discovered in 1989, buried beneath the solar court of Amenhotep III at Luxor Temple. 

Seti I (1323-1279 BCE)

Alabaster

Wally thinks the spot where his penis would be was a light switch. Seti I was a warrior king like his father Ramesses I before him. He was the husband of Queen Tuya and the father of Ramesses II also known as Ramesses the Great. A passionate builder, he’s responsible for the hypostyle hall at Karnak. 

Nebre (circa 1292-1189 BCE)

Sandstone

This work was discovered at a fortress that protected the western border of Egypt from the Libyans. Nebre served as a commander under Ramesses II and held multiple titles, including troop commander, charioteer of the king, overseer of foreign lands and chief of the Medjay, an elite police force. He holds the staff of office, topped by the lion head of Sehkmet, goddess of war. –Wally

 

Atenism: Akhenaten’s Experiment in Monotheism

The world’s first monotheistic religion wasn’t Judaism — it happened in Ancient Egypt during what’s known as the “Amarna heresy.”

Oh my gods! Everyone knows that Ancient Egypt was polytheistic, with a troupe of animal-headed gods that were worshiped for thousands of years. And it’s true. Ancient Egypt was polytheistic — except, of course, for those 20 years or so when it wasn’t.

Many of us thought that the Jews were the first monotheists in history. But sometime early in his reign, from 1353-1336 BCE, the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten upended centuries of polytheistic practices and decreed that there was only one god: the sun itself.

“Ancient Egypt was polytheistic — except, of course, for those 20 years or so when it wasn’t.”

Sun worship started with his father, Pharaoh Amenhotep III, who identified himself with a minor god, the Aten, elevating it to the status of a favored god and personal deity.

Amenhotep III might have initiated the intense worship of the Aten that took over his son, the pharaoh who became Akhenaten

Like Father, Like Sun

After Amenhotep III died, his son ascended the throne under the name Amenhotep IV, which meant The God Amun Is Content. But the pharaoh, in the fifth year of his reign, changed his name to Akhenaten, He Who Is Effective on the Aten’s Behalf, when he became convinced that the Aten was the one true god. 

Egyptologists never fail to point out that the Aten is the “solar disc,” though I’m not sure how that differs from just saying that they worshipped the sun.

Gerhard Fecht, who taught Egyptology at the Free University of Berlin and who died in 2006, noted the similarity of the pronunciation in ancient times of Aten (“yati”) and father or forefather (“yata”), which he believed was far from a coincidence. Akhenaten styled himself as the son of the sun and the father of his people, and he believed that he would merge with the sun in death. 

Wally and Duke are particularly partial to the Amarna style of art, as shown in this statue of Akhenaten

The Upsides of the So-Called Amarna Heresy

History hasn’t looked favorably upon Akhenaten, deeming him “the Heretic King” for having the gall to shift Ancient Egypt from polytheism to monotheism for a short period and for moving the capital from Thebes to a new city, Akhentaten, now referred to as Amarna.

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THE RISE AND FALL OF AMARNA, Ancient Egypt’s short-lived new capital

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There’s much to admire about this fascinating ruler, though. For one thing, he created a new style of art — strangely captivating genderbending statuary on the one hand and paintings that convey an intimate realism on the other — when the rest of the three millennia of Ancient Egypt had a remarkably stagnant style. If we can believe the artwork (and we have every reason to be skeptical, since imagery was used for propagandist purposes throughout the ancient kingdom), Akhenaten was utterly devoted to his queen Nefertiti.

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THE AMARNA STYLE OF ART REVEALS THAT AKHENATEN HAD MARFAN SYNDROME…and other conspiracy theories

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We’re also led to believe that Akhenaten doted on the six — count ’em, six — daughters he had with Nefertiti. Most pharaohs would have been disappointed by not having at least one son who could become heir to the throne, but Akhenaten was so enamored of his daughters, he included depictions of them in the artwork he commissioned — an uncommon practice for the time. 

There’s evidence that The Hymn to the Aten influenced one of the Psalms in the Bible

The Great Hymn to the Aten

This controversial pharaoh was a man who loved nature, waxing poetic in the Great Hymn to the Aten, which it’s believed he wrote himself. This poem begins:

For you are risen from the eastern horizon and have filled every land with your beauty;
For you are fair, great, dazzling and high over every land,
And your rays enclose the lands to the limit of all you have made;
For you are Re, having reached their limit and subdued them for your beloved son;
For although you are far away, your rays are upon the earth and you are perceived.

When your movements vanish and you set in the western horizon, 
The land is in darkness, in the manner of death. 
People, they lie in bedchambers, heads covered up, and one eye does not see its fellow.
All their property might be robbed, although it is under their heads, and they do not realize it.
Every lion is out of its den, all creeping things bite. 
Darkness gathers, the land is silent. The one who made them is set in his horizon.

Scholars delight in pointing out how similar the Bible’s Psalm 104 is to the second stanza. It’s not too far-fetched to accuse the Psalm author, who wrote hundreds of years after the Aten hymn, of plagiarism.

Akhenaten and Nefertiti, with three of their daughters, basking in the holy rays of the sun, known as the Aten in Ancient Egypt

Who’s Worshipping Whom?

In his book Akhenaten: Egypt’s False Prophet, Nicholas Reeves argues that Akhenaten worshipped the sun, while the populace of Egypt worshiped Akhenaten. He sees the move to monotheism as a political ploy to strengthen the pharaoh’s power. This point is strengthened by the carvings found in the few tombs used outside of Akhentaten: Instead of gods and goddesses, they feature the royal family prominently.

Atenism created a new trinity. Instead of Amun, the father who jerked off to create the twin siblings, his son Shu and daughter Tefnut, you had the Aten, Akhenaten and Nefertiti. In fact, their six daughters rounded out the royal family, providing a new version of the Ennead, the nine gods of creation.

Aten’s temples were open to the air, a striking contrast to previous Egyptian places of worship, notably the dark and mysterious confines of the temples to Amun, known as the Hidden One. Other temples held a small chamber at the back, the sanctuary, or holy of holies, which housed the cult image of the deity. But with the Aten there was no need for a statue — the god could be seen blazing up in the sky, its warmth felt upon the skin during daylight.

A relief from the Karnak Temple shows Akhenaten worshipping the sun. The new religion was probably appealing at first, with its focus on life and beauty instead of death

Eat, Drink and Be Merry

Atenism’s popularity was short-lived, perhaps even beginning to wane while Akhenaten was still alive. But its initial appeal is easy to imagine. 

For centuries, Ancient Egyptians were obsessed with death; their great monuments, elaborate spells and mummification rituals were meant to assure a pleasant afterlife. But Atenism focused instead on the here and now, on life on this Earth. 

In the past, Egyptian tombs were located on the West Bank of the Nile, most notably the Valley of the Kings. But Akhenaten broke with tradition, designating the eastern hills as the site of the royal tombs and lesser cemeteries. No longer would death be associated with the west and the god Osiris, evoking the sunset and a bleak finality. Instead, death was now connected to the sun that rose from the eastern cliffside, offering light and hope each day.

The Militaristic Move to Monotheism

Most likely in the 10th year of his reign, Pharaoh Akhenaten ceased to tolerate any mention of other gods aside from the Aten, and launched an all-out war against the old deities, Amun and his consort Mut in particular. 

“An order went out from the palace to smash up the divine statues and hack out the names and images of these gods wherever they occurred — on temple walls, on obelisks, on shrines, on the accessible portions of tombs,” Reeves writes. 

The priesthood of the chief god, Amun, in particular, didn’t fare well under Akhenaten’s decree to worship only one deity: the Aten

The persecution spread to the common people as well. Eye makeup containers and commemorative scarabs from this time have been found with the hieroglyphs for other gods gouged or scratched out. 

We don’t just have to take Reeves’ word for how bad things got. Here’s what Manetho, a priest and historian from the Ptolemaic Kingdom in the early third century BCE, wrote about Akhenaten’s monomania:

…not only did they [pharaoh’s men] set towns and villages on fire, pillaging the temples and mutilating images of the gods without restraint, but they also made a practice of using the sanctuaries as kitchens to roast the sacred animals which the people worshipped; and they would compel the priests and prophets to sacrifice and butcher the beasts, afterwards casting the men forth naked.

Upon Akhenaten’s death, his son and successor, King Tut, returned Egypt to polytheism

King Tut Restores the Old Gods

After Akhenaten’s death, his son Tutankhamun’s reign didn’t last long — but did effect major change. Tut brought Ancient Egypt back to polytheism, after his father’s failed experiment. His Restoration Stela paints a bleak picture of how badly things had gotten in such a short time: 

…the temples and the cities of the gods and goddesses, starting from Elephantine as far as the Delta marshes … were fallen into decay and their shrines were fallen into ruin, having become mere mounds overgrown with grass. Their sanctuaries were like something which had not yet come into being and their buildings were a footpath [i.e., public] — for the land was in rack and ruin. The gods were ignoring this land. … if one prayed to a god, to ask something from him, he did not come at all; and if one beseeched any goddess in the same way, she did not come at all.

Akhenaten undeniably wreaked havoc upon the social order. His persecution of the gods that had been worshipped for millennia must have greatly unnerved the populace. He created countless enemies by stripping the priests of Amun of their power and stealing their great wealth to build his new capital city. He didn’t concern himself with the military or economics. For all his focus on hope, he left Ancient Egypt in worse shape than when he took the throne. 

But his revolutionary religious vision, even if it was self-centered, very well could have planted the seeds of the monotheistic religions that dominate the world today. –Wally

Controversial Theories About Akhenaten, Ancient Egypt’s “Heretic King”

The monotheistic pharaoh has spawned numerous crackpot theories, including his having Marfan syndrome and Nefertiti becoming king. 

Pharaoh Akhenaten: the face that launched a thousand conspiracy theories

Everything we think we know about Ancient Egypt can be completely upended with a new discovery of something as seemingly innocuous as a single stone carving. That being said, this article focuses on the research and theories of Nicholas Reeves, in his book, Akhenaten: Egypt’s False Prophet, republished in 2019.

Reeves poses some controversial speculations about the brief but mysterious Amarna Period, jumping to sensationalist conclusions with only the scantest of evidence. I want to believe him, though, especially since he served as the director of the Amarna Royal Tombs Project from 1998 to 2002.

Does the Amarna style of art reveal a hereditary disease?

It Runs in the Family? The Marfan Syndrome Theory

Egyptian art remained remarkably static for millennia. You can picture it in your head: The side-profile carvings and paintings with their legs bent and posed one in front of the other, inspiring the Bangles’ song “Walk Like an Egyptian.” But, much like the move from polytheism to monotheism, the Amarna Period also resulted in an intriguing new art aesthetic.

The unusual Amarna style, especially the statuary, has been a major reason some Egyptologists entertain the theory put forth by Alwyn L. Burridge that Akhenaten suffered from Marfan syndrome. The illness’ symptoms do include features found on the depictions of the pharaoh and his family: slender bones, a long face, an elongated skull, spidery fingers and a wide pelvis, among others.

This depiction of Akhenaten most likely was carved early in his reign and probably reveals what he actually looked like.

If this is indeed the case, the repercussions would have been severe: Akhenaten and his offspring would have been susceptible to sudden death due to a weakened cardiovascular system and would have likely gone blind in adulthood.

It would explain a lot, argues Reeves. A report that Akhenaten wanted “to see the gods” could have meant that he could only dimly discern the rays of the sun. He was skilled in music (“traditionally a vocation for the blind,” according to Reeves). Amarna art emphasizes the sense of touch and often depicted the pharaoh with a crutch or walking stick. And at least one of the fetuses mummified in the tomb of his probable son Tutankhamun, revealed skeletal deformities.

The desecrated sarcophagus in Tomb 55 in the Valley of the Kings

The Mummy in Tomb 55

In 1907, the archeologist Theodore M. Davis uncovered what he referred to as the Tomb of Queen Tiye, or Tomb 55. He found evidence that the tomb had been discovered before, a few millennia ago: 200 years after the remains were initially interred, Ancient Egyptian workers stumbled upon the sepulcher while digging away to build the tomb of Ramesses IX. Queen Tiye, the Great Royal Wife of Amenhotep III, was moved out of the tomb, perhaps to separate her from her “heretic” son, Akhenaten.

The mummy cache found in KV55

Queen Tiye, the mother of Akhenaten

Reeves thinks there’s a good chance the remaining coffin and mummy in Tomb 55 is that of Pharaoh Akhenaten, who ruled from 1353-1336 BCE, especially given the violence of its desecration: “The names were systematically cut out, and the identifying face torn away to destroy the eyes, nose and mouth and effectively deny the king’s spirit sight, air and sustenance; for good measure a stone was hurled at the coffin’s head just before the party left,” Reeves explains. 

Kiya, who shared wifely duties with Nefertiti, was a scapegoat for Akhenaten’s questionable decisions

The Other Wife: The Mysterious and Maligned Kiya

While Nefertiti was the pharaoh’s chief wife, Akhenaten had a secondary spouse, Kiya, whom he also greatly loved, if we can infer that from the fact that she had a lavish estate of her own at Amarna. While Nefertiti gave birth to one daughter after another, Kiya is believed to have borne Akhenaten a son: the famous Boy King, Tutankhamun. 

Reeves posits that Kiya might well have been a princess of the Mitanni people. Her name essentially meant Monkey, Reeves informs us. But behind her playful façade, he says that she was “cruel and self-seeking” and “may even have been regarded, by posterity, as the evil genius behind many of Akhenaten’s excesses.”

A canopic jar with Kiya’s head upon it — other artifacts depicting her were viciously vandalized.

Her inscriptions have been scratched out, and her statues have had their eyes gouged out. References to Kiya were superimposed with figures and texts of Akhenaten’s daughters, and her coffin and canopic jars were repurposed for the pharaoh’s reburial. 

Did Princess Meritaten simultaneously give birth to her daughter and granddaughter?!

Who Says Incest Is Best?

As I’ve mentioned, Reeves loves a good conspiracy theory, and another one rears its head when discussing the historical record of Akhenaten’s progeny. Two additional daughters get mentioned: Meritaten-tasherit and Ankhesenpaaten-tasherit. The -tasherit ending equates to “Jr.,” and the first part of the names are the same as two of the pharaoh’s daughters by Nefertiti. 

Was Akhenaten a bit too fond of his daughters by Nefertiti?

“The implications of this are serious, however,” Reeves writes, “since the father of these children can have been none other than Akhenaten himself.”

Case closed?

Is this a carving of Akhenaten’s gay lover — or a woman who became his co-pharaoh?

Smenkhkare: The Unknown Pharaoh — and Akhenaten’s Gay Lover?

Confusing matters even more, a new pharaoh emerges on the scene while Akhenaten still sat upon the throne. Who was this co-regent? 

A small stele, or stone monument, from this time, made for a military officer named Pase, depicts two kings sitting side by side. One has his arm around his co-pharaoh, who is turning to affectionately touch the other’s chin. Because they’re both styled as kings, Egyptologists in the 1920s and beyond were convinced that this single stone revealed that Akhenaten was gay — never mind all the children he had. 

More recent discoveries have revealed that there’s a likely suspect right under our noses: Pharaoh Smenkhkare was probably none other than his famous wife, Nefertiti. –Wally

The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt’s Amarna

Akhenaten moved the capital from Thebes to an undeveloped stretch of land in the middle of the country. It didn’t last long.

Unlike the other monuments of Ancient Egypt that are well preserved, little remains of the short-lived capital of Amarna

Pharaoh Akhenaten, now disparaged as a heretic, made some bold decisions that completely uprooted thousands of years of Ancient Egyptian tradition, including the move to the worship of a single god. This brief era, lasting less than two decades, is known as the Amarna Period and took place in the 1300s BCE. Not surprisingly, all that remains of Akhenaten’s legacy are fragments here and there, some of which had been buried for thousands of years in the sand, some of which were torn apart and repurposed in construction projects elsewhere in the country — and some of which surely have yet to be discovered.

A map of Amarna, with a large temple to the Aten at the top

The Move to Amarna: The New Capital of Akhenaten

At this time, the cult of the chief deity, Amun, held great power, particularly in Thebes, modern-day Luxor, which had become the religious and political center of Egypt. Perhaps as an attempt to reduce the power of the Amun priesthood, Akhenaten (the name he adopted, as he was previously known as Amenhotep IV) decided to decree that all worship be shifted away from Amun and the rest of the pantheon to a minor sun god, the Aten. On top of that, he moved the capital to an unoccupied stretch of desert along the Nile, bordered to the east by cliff walls that would house the royal tombs. He named the new city Akhentaten (Horizon of the Aten), confusingly similar to his new name. The city is now referred to as Amarna. The site was located on a barren stretch of the desert that lay between Lower Egypt’s capital, Memphis (200 miles to the north), and Upper Egypt’s capital, Thebes (250 miles to the south), making it a good spot to administer both lands.

Why did Akhenaten make this drastic move? Despite the fact that many Egyptologists delight in thinking it was the doing of a religious maniac who decreed that the old gods were false and that only one deity, the sun, deservered reverence, it was “dictated less by theological insanity than by court intrigue and politics,” writes Nicholas Reeves in his book Akhenaten: Egypt’s False Prophet, republished in 2019.

When you declare that all of the old gods are forbidden but one, as Pharaoh Akhenaten did, you’re going to piss off a lot of people — especially the wealthy and powerful priesthood of Amun, the former chief deity

An Assassination Attempt?

Reeves, always one to lend credence to a conspiracy theory, hints that a brush with death could have led to the move. “If Akhenaten had narrowly escaped assassination — and his subsequent persecution of the Theban god does indeed suggest a grudge of considerable magnitude — then he was now moving cleverly and decisively to outflank the opposition.”

While the Amun priesthood certainly had their gripes with a sudden loss of power and wealth, Reeves suggests that the population, the younger ones in particular, viewed the move to a new capital as an exciting adventure, “a contrast to the staid and perhaps stale atmosphere of conservative Thebes,” he writes. “For the new generation, pharaoh was the hero of the hour, the man who had re-established true order on the Egyptian world. There was energy in the air; the people believed.”

All that remains of the once-impressive north palace of Amarna

Akhentaten: Nearly a Decade in the Making

It was nine years before Akhentaten celebrated its official inauguration — “and to judge from the number of wine-jar dockets of this date recovered from the site, it must have been quite a party,” Reeves writes.

Although Akhenaten wasn’t known for his economic aptitude, he started out with overflowing coffers. Much of the wealth of his new capital came from the pilfered stockpiles of the old gods, Amun in particular.

Akhenaten and his family can be seen worshipping the Aten (aka the sun) in a tomb carved into the cliffs outside of Amarna in this photo from 1903

Amarna art focused on nature, reflecting the lush oasis Akhenaten created

Today Amarna is a desert wasteland, so it’s difficult to imagine that it once was a lush, green oasis, filled with trees and bushes, as depicted in the reliefs of the time. One of the highlights of the city were its gorgeously painted pavements showing scenes of nature. They were uncovered by the archeologist Flinders Petrie (amusingly described by Reeves as “legendary but dour”) in 1891. Petrie took great pains to preserve these works of art — but a local farmer destroyed most of them in a fit.

Even Hitler fell under the spell of the beautiful Nefertiti, as depicted in her famous bust

Hitler and the Famous Bust of Nefertiti

The palace and major temple were located in the north, so it’s interesting that many of the higher-end villas, like that of the vizier (a role we might now call prime minister), were built in the south — as far as possible from the pharaoh to still be within the boundaries of Akhentaten.

It was in one of these villas, owned by the artist Thutmose, whose house doubled as his studio, that the famed one-eyed bust of Nefertiti was found. If you want to see it in real life, you’ll have to visit the Berlin Museum. There was talk that the sculpture would be returned to Egypt during World War II, but Hitler liked Nefertiti’s “Aryan” appearance, declaring, “What the German people have, they keep!”

If you want to see the bust of Nefertiti, you’ll have to go to Berlin, as these visitors from 1963 did

A political cartoon in an Egyptian newsweekly from 1940: The woman, who represents Europe, is shouting, “Oh, no! Hitler, is this the new order you preached about?!”

This statue of Nefertiti was a particular favorite of Adolf Hitler’s, and for four years had been kept inside a fortified anti-aircraft gun tower next to the Berlin Zoo. 

Napoleon During His Campaign in Egypt by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1863

Napoleon and Amarna

Amarna remained undiscovered for so long in great part because the local population, “whose habit of shooting first and greeting later deterred the curious from taking an interest in the area,” according to Reeves.

The first Westerners to lay eyes on Amarna were members of Napoleon Bonaparte’s expedition of 1789-1799. The French had come in search of a new passage to India. On all French ventures at the time, scholars were brought along to study and record the culture and history of the lands they passed through, and this was no exception. In fact, Napoleon had 139 of these “savants” in his party.

Very little remains of Amarna today — most buildings were used in other construction projects or simply abandoned

All’s Well That Ends Poorly

The new capital was, ultimately, a failed experiment. It only lasted 17 years. There’s no record of how or when Akhenaten died, but Reeves, of course, wouldn’t be surprised if he was the victim of foul play.

Whatever the cause, the Egyptian people weren’t too bummed at the city’s (or pharaoh’s) demise. As Reeves writes:

For ordinary folk, there is little doubt that Akhenaten’s actions as king over time inflicted the greatest misery: the people were confused by the man’s religious vision, frightened by the ruthless manner in which it was imposed, and quite likely appalled by his personal behaviour. Denied the celebration of the traditional religious festivals which gave form to their year, and brought to the very verge of bankruptcy by their king’s over-ambitious schemes and administrative incompetence, disillusionment was clearly widespread.

Akhenaten’s successor, none other than Tutankhamun, moved the capital back to Thebes, and reverted to polytheism — changing the end of his name from -aten to -amun to signify an allegiance with the previous chief deity, Amun. 

History hasn’t looked favorably upon Akhenaten, a pharaoh whose drastic actions and lack of acumen in ruling nearly ran the legendary empire into the ground. –Wally

A Brief History of King Tut

The all-too-short life of the Boy King, Tutankhamun, who gained fame when Howard Carter discovered his tomb — one of the only ones in the Valley of the Kings that wasn’t plundered by grave robbers.

This is what King Tut’s tomb looked like when Howard Carter discovered it in 1922

Ever since I was a young boy, I’d yearned to visit Egypt. I was fascinated by King Tutankhamun and the discovery of his mostly intact tomb, with its wealth of magnificent, well-preserved artifacts. 

For starters, the Boy King’s legacy is fascinating. Filled with political corruption, incest, religious upheaval and a possible murder, his history is just as epic as the eight seasons of George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones — and, much like the addictive HBO adaptation, it all collapsed in the end. 

Born in 1341 BCE, his given name was Tutankhaten, Beloved of the Aten, the solar disc of the sun worshipped at Amarna, the capital city established by his father, Akhenaten, the revolutionary heretic king who embraced Aten as the sole supreme being for Egyptians to worship. 

A sphinx bearing the head of Tutankhamun at the Luxor Museum

The Boy King

Tut was nicknamed the Boy King because he ascended the throne around the age of 8 or 9. Some historians have suggested his vizier, Ay, was the real power behind the throne, citing that it was Ay’s decision to abandon the new capital city of Amarna and restore the authority of the priests and the polytheistic pantheon of Thebes. Whatever the case, when Tut died without an heir, Ay briefly became king. 

Like other pharaohs, Tutankhamun took five royal names, and most of us know him by his fifth nomen, Tutankhamun, after he dropped the -aten suffix in favor of -amun, chief among the old gods. Ancient Egyptians, though, would have called him by his prenomen or throne name, Nebkheperure, which essentially meant Ra Is the Lord of Manifestations to honor a different sun god. 

A goddess guards Tut’s canopic shrine

Incest Is Best?

Tutankhamun was married to his half-sister, Ankhesenamun. The practice of incest to keep the royal bloodline pure was common among the ruling class of Ancient Egypt. They regarded themselves as representatives of the divine on earth. Atum, the god of creation, produced his children Shu and Tefnut by his own hand (aka jerking off). His daughter Tefnut married her twin brother Shu, and voilà! Nut and Geb were added to the ever-expanding pantheon of incestuous liasons. 

Tut and Ankesenamun had two stillborn daughters, likely casualties of genetic deficiencies from generations of inbreeding. Their tiny mummified fetuses were buried in Tutankhamun’s tomb. A DNA study revealed that one was 5 to 6 months old and the other 9 months old. 

Because of his link to the scandalous Akhenaten, Tut’s reign was eventually struck from the record by his successors. Between the ever-shifting desert sands and the Ancient Egyptians attempt to remove all traces of the “Amarna heresy,” Tutankhamun was literally out of sight and out of mind. This in all likelihood helped to preserve his tomb. 

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The Abydos Kings List

Tutankhamun, Akhenaten (aka Amenhotep IV), Ay, Hatshepsut and Meryneith were some of the rulers stricken from the official record. 

LEARN MORE about the Kings List in the Abydos Temple. 

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Lord Carnarvon, his daughter Evelyn and Howard Carter

The Untouched Tomb

Unlike other royal tombs, which were looted in antiquity (often by the very laborers who built them), 5,000-some items were found inside King Tut’s tomb. 

British archaeologist Howard Carter was no stranger to the Valley of the Kings and had been obsessively searching for the elusive burial site of Tutankhamun for years. In 1914, his financier George Herbert, the 5th Earl of Carnarvon, secured a license to excavate a parcel of land close to the tomb of Ramesses VI. Carter hired a crew of workers to help find the tomb, but was halted by World War I.

By 1922, Lord Carnarvon, frustrated with the lack of progress and financially spread thin, informed Carter that he would only extend funding for one more season unless Carter struck pay dirt. Like sand in an hourglass, time was running out, when, on November 4, while excavating the very last plot, the crews’ waterboy discovered a step that appeared to be part of a tomb. Carter immediately wired his employer, and the excited Lord Carnarvon arrived two and a half weeks later, with his daughter Lady Evelyn Herbert. 

Carter made a tiny hole in the plaster-sealed entrance. By the light of a candle, he was stunned by what he saw and wrote in his diary:

Presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues and gold — everywhere the glint of gold. For the moment — an eternity it must have seemed to the others standing by — I was struck dumb with amazement, and when Lord Carnarvon, unable to stand the suspense any longer, inquired anxiously, “Can you see anything?” it was all I could do to get out the words, “Yes, wonderful things.”

Carter and an assistant unveiled the remains of Tutankhamum

Next came the laborious task of cataloging and removing each artifact from the tomb, beginning with the antechamber. Carter called upon the skilled archaeological photographer Harry Burton, who happened to be among the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Egyptian expedition team working at the nearby site of Deir el-Bahari. Burton captured the contents of the tomb as they were found. Then, a sketch and description were made on numbered cards before the object was carried out on wooden stretchers. Carter would eventually catalog thousands of artifacts from the tomb. The final contents were finally removed 11 years later, on November 10, 1933.

Did breaking this seal unleash a curse upon all present?!

The Curse of King Tut’s Tomb

Shortly after the burial chamber was opened, stories of the legendary mummy’s curse began surfacing. Rumors quickly spread that Carter had found a clay tablet over the tomb’s entrance that read, “Death shall come on swift wings to whoever toucheth the tomb of the Pharaoh.” 

Near the end of February 1923, Carnarvon was bitten on the cheek by a mosquito. He reopened the bite while shaving, a seemingly innocuous event that would prove fatal. Carnarvon died in Cairo two weeks later from sepsis-abetted pneumonia. 

Even the likes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who by this time had stopped writing his popular Sherlock Holmes mysteries in favor of spiritualist leanings, weighed in, declaring to the press that “an evil elemental may have caused Lord Carnavon’s fatal illness. One does not know what elementals existed in those days, nor what their form might be. The Egyptians knew a great deal more about these things than we do.” 

Carter, however, seems to have escaped the mummy’s curse and lived on until 1939, when he died of lymphoma at the age of 64.

You’ll have to pay an extra $15 or so to see King Tut’s mummy and tomb

Visiting King Tut’s Tomb

While exploring the Valley of the Kings, Wally and I decided to pay the extra fee of 250 Egyptian pounds (about $15) to see KV62, the tomb of Tutankhamun. The site isn’t included with the three tombs that are part of the 200 L.E. fee to the royal necropolis. I imagine this cost is a measure put in place by the Department of Antiquities to limit the amount of visitors entering the tomb. Moisture from breath and perspiration increase humidity levels in the subterranean rock-cut chambers, which in turn damage the lime plaster wall paintings covering the walls. 

The small tomb is less impressive than the other ones you’ll visit in the Valley of the Kings and lacks the elaborate linear design predominantly used by New Kingdom pharaohs — the sun god Ra would find himself challenged, having to follow some twists and turns as he makes his nightly descent at sunset. 

Unlike other tombs, which are covered with paintings, only Tut’s burial chamber is decorated

Tut’s mummified remains lie on display in a climate-controlled glass box in the tomb’s antechamber. We were the only ones inside at the time and were followed around by a guard, probably to make sure we didn’t take pictures. I incorrectly assumed that my photography pass would be valid and that I could take non-flash pictures while inside. I learned that was not the case when I tried to take a shot of the Boy King’s remains. –Duke