Quick answer
Akhenaten, born Amenhotep IV, ruled Egypt for about 17 years, around 1353–1336 BC. He raised the sun disc, the Aten, above all other gods, closed down the cult of Amun, founded a new capital at Amarna and sponsored a startlingly new style of art. After his death his successors abandoned his religion and later kings tried to erase his memory.
Who was Akhenaten?
Akhenaten was the younger son of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye, who inherited the richest state in the ancient world around 1353 BC and spent his reign remaking its religion. He became heir only after his elder brother, Crown Prince Thutmose, died. He came to the throne as Amenhotep IV, “Amun is satisfied”, and for the first few years he looked like a conventional king, though one unusually devoted to the sun.
Whether he shared the throne with his father for a time is one of the longest-running arguments in Egyptology, with proposals ranging from no overlap at all to about 12 years. Most scholars now favour a short co-regency or none.
Around his fifth year he changed his name to Akhenaten, “effective for the Aten”, and the experiment began in earnest. His father’s long reign is covered in our guide to Amenhotep III, whose own interest in the sun disc may have set the scene.
What did Akhenaten believe?
Akhenaten taught that the Aten, the visible disc of the sun, was the one creator who sustained all life, and that only he and his family could approach it directly. The Aten was shown not as a human or animal but as a disc whose rays end in small hands, offering the ankh, the sign of life, to the royal family. Ordinary people were expected to worship the king and queen as the Aten’s intermediaries.
The finest statement of his faith is the Great Hymn to the Aten, carved in the Amarna tomb of the courtier Ay. Its praise of the sun waking birds, fish and people has been compared to Psalm 104 in the Bible, though whether there is any direct link is disputed.
Was this monotheism? Scholars disagree. Late in the reign agents were sent to hack the name of Amun, and even the plural word “gods”, from monuments across Egypt, which looks like a rejection of the other gods. But the king himself was treated as divine, and household gods such as Bes still turn up in Amarna houses. Our guide to the Aten explains the god itself.
Why did Akhenaten build Amarna?
He wanted a city belonging to the Aten alone, on land no other god had claimed, and in about his fifth year he chose an empty bay of desert on the east bank of the Nile in Middle Egypt. He called it Akhetaten, “Horizon of the Aten”, and marked its limits with more than a dozen boundary stelae carved into the surrounding cliffs. Within a few years it held palaces, open-air temples full of offering tables, government offices and homes for tens of thousands of people.
Before the move he had already built a ring of Aten temples just east of Karnak, under the noses of Amun’s priests. They used small standard sandstone blocks called talatat, about 52 cm long, light enough for one man to carry, which made fast building possible. After his death these temples were dismantled and tens of thousands of blocks were packed inside later pylons at Karnak, which preserved their paint.
Akhetaten was abandoned within a few years of his death and never reoccupied, which is why archaeologists value it so highly: it is one of the few ancient Egyptian cities whose street plan can be traced. The Tell el-Amarna guide covers visiting the site.
Why does Akhenaten look so strange in his statues?
The long face, narrow eyes, thick lips, swelling hips and belly were almost certainly a deliberate artistic style, not a portrait of a disease. Earlier writers suggested Marfan syndrome or a hormonal disorder, but the mummy usually identified as Akhenaten (from tomb KV55) and that of his son Tutankhamun show no sign of these conditions. Many Egyptologists read the androgynous body as a statement about the Aten as both father and mother of creation.
Amarna art also broke with tradition in what it showed: the king kissing his daughters, the royal couple dandling children on their knees, and the queen as an active, sometimes dominant figure. The style softened in the later years of the reign, and the famous bust of Nefertiti belongs to this calmer phase.
What are the Amarna letters?
The Amarna letters are about 380 clay tablets of diplomatic correspondence, written mostly in Akkadian cuneiform, found at Amarna in 1887. They include letters from the kings of Babylon, Mitanni, Assyria and the Hittites, who addressed the pharaoh as “brother” and bargained for gold and royal brides, as well as pleas from vassal rulers in Canaan and Syria. The ruler of Byblos, Rib-Hadda, wrote dozens of letters begging for troops that do not seem to have come.
The letters once fed the view that Akhenaten neglected the empire while he worshipped. Historians now see a more mixed picture: Egypt lost ground in northern Syria to the Hittites, but the vassal system largely held. Most tablets are in museums in Berlin and London, with some in Cairo.
How did Akhenaten die, and who came after him?
He died in about his 17th regnal year, around 1336 BC, cause unknown, and what followed is the most tangled succession in Egyptian history. Two rulers appear briefly between Akhenaten and Tutankhamun: Smenkhkare, a man, and Neferneferuaten, a female king. Some scholars think Neferneferuaten was Nefertiti, others Akhenaten’s eldest daughter Meritaten; some even think Smenkhkare and Neferneferuaten were the same person.
He was buried in a royal tomb in a wadi east of Amarna, but his body seems to have been moved to Thebes when the city was abandoned. The male mummy found in 1907 in tomb KV55 in the Valley of the Kings is now usually identified as Akhenaten, partly on DNA evidence linking it to Tutankhamun, though its age at death and identity are still argued over.
Within a few years Tutankhamun restored Amun, and Horemheb and the Ramesside kings later struck the Amarna kings from the official king lists. A later legal text from Saqqara refers to his time only as the years of “the enemy of Akhetaten”. Our Amarna period guide follows the aftermath.
Where to see Akhenaten in Egypt today
Amarna itself is the place to feel his world, while the museums of Cairo and Luxor hold his most arresting portraits.
- Tell el-Amarna: the rock-cut tombs of his officials, carved with the royal family under the Aten’s rays, the royal tomb and a reconstructed boundary stela. It lies roughly 300 km south of Cairo near Minya; see our Middle Egypt guide, and check current travel arrangements and Smartraveller advice before planning.
- Luxor Museum: a long wall rebuilt from talatat blocks of his Karnak temples, still bright with paint.
- Egyptian Museum, Tahrir, and the Grand Egyptian Museum: the colossal statues of the king from Karnak and the Amarna collections. Displays have been moving between the two museums, so check which pieces are where at the time of your visit.
- Karnak: nothing of his temples stands, but your guide can point out the area east of the main temple where they rose.
Frequently asked questions
Why is Akhenaten called the heretic pharaoh?
Because he abandoned Egypt’s traditional gods, especially Amun, in favour of the Aten, and his successors condemned his reign. The label is modern, but later Egyptians clearly saw him as an enemy of the old order.
Was Akhenaten Tutankhamun’s father?
Most Egyptologists think so. A 2010 DNA study matched Tutankhamun to the KV55 mummy, generally identified as Akhenaten, though both the identification and the DNA methods have critics.
Was Akhenaten the first monotheist?
He came close, but scholars disagree on the label. He promoted one god and attacked Amun, yet the king himself was treated as divine and some traditional household gods were still honoured.
Can you visit Amarna?
Yes, from Minya, usually as a long day trip. Travel in Middle Egypt can involve security procedures, so arrange it with a licensed operator and check current advice first. See our Tell el-Amarna guide.
Where is Akhenaten’s mummy?
No mummy carries his name. The KV55 mummy is the most likely candidate; it is kept in Cairo and has not been on regular public display.