Akhenaton

From Philosopedia

Akhenaton (Ikhnaton) (14th Century B.C.E.)

The oldest known monotheist?

In Egypt, Ikhnaton was king of Egypt of the XVIII dynasty, son and successor of Amenhotep III. Upon becoming king, he changed his name to honor the god Aton, and because of his religious innovations has been called “the heretic king of Egypt.” First, he abandoned his early polytheism and became a monotheist. The sun, called Aton, was god, and god alone, and Ikhnaton declared he was Aton’s son. The new capital was named Akhetaton [the modern Tel-El-Amarna}, and new provincial capitals were founded in Nubia and Syria. Because the sun nourished everything, artists to show the power of the sun turned to scenes from nature.

Akhenaton, because of his fanaticism, defaced all statues on which the previously greatest god, Amon, had appeared. This so infuriated large numbers of Egyptians that the cult of Ikhnaton/Akhenaton died and, with it, Egypt lost Nubia and Syria, provinces which he had seriously neglected.

Joy Collier, in The Heretic Pharaoh (1972), mentions the most familiar relic today of that time, a bust of Ikhnaton’s wife, Nefretete. His successors, Sakere and Tutankhaton (Ikhnaton’s son), inherited only Egypt and some of the upper valley, not Nubia and Syria. Tutankhaton, because his father had replaced Amon with Aton, changed his name to Tuthankamen, restored the name of Amon to monuments his father had defaced, and returned the capital to Thebes.

Joseph McCabe complains that it is remarkable how, when King Tut’s tomb was discovered, apologists and others continued to pretend that the Hebrews had first introduced monotheism. However, it was Ikhnaton, five centuries before the first prophet appeared in Judaea, who first had imposed monotheism. {CE; RE}

Family

Amenhotep IV was married to Nefertiti at the very beginning of his reign, and the couple had six known daughters. The following is a list with suggested years of birth:

• Meritaten - year 1.
• Meketaten - year 2.
• Ankhesenpaaten, later Queen of Tutankhamun - year 3.
• Neferneferuaten Tasherit - year 5.
• Neferneferure - year 6.
• Setepenre - year 8.

His known consorts were:

• Nefertiti, his Great Royal Wife early in his reign.
• Kiya, a lesser Royal Wife.
• Meritaten, recorded as his Great Royal Wife late in his reign.
• Ankhesenpaaten, his third daughter, and who is thought to have borne a daughter, Ankhesenpaaten-ta-sherit, to her own father. After his death, Ankhesenpaaten married Akhenaten's successor, Tutankhamun.

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

• Smenkhkare, Akhenaten's successor and/or co-ruler for the last years of his reign. Rather than being his male lover, however, Smenkhkare might 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. According to The Alyson Almanac,

Akhenaten and his lover, Smenkhkare, were also the first historically documented male couple in history. Their homosexuality does not seem to have bothered Akhenaten's contemporaries, but his challenge to the clergy brought his downfall. The priests joined forces with the army and assassinated Akhenaten and Smenkhkare, and Tutankhamen was made Pharaoh.

• Tiy, his mother. 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 Tiy the model for his mother/wife Jocasta. Not all Egyptologists take these speculations seriously.

Mural Depicting Akhenaton Worshipping Aton]]