Facts About Pharaoh Akhenaten: The Heretic King, His Religion, Family and Amarna

The basic facts about Pharaoh Akhenaten: he was a king of Egypt's 18th Dynasty who ruled for about 17 years, roughly 1353 to 1336 BC. He was born Amenhotep IV, son of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye, and in his fifth year on the throne he changed his name, put the sun disc Aten above all other gods and founded a new capital at Akhetaten, today's Tell el-Amarna. After his death his successors restored the old gods, pulled down his temples and left his name out of the king lists.

Below are the facts about Akhenaten that Egyptologists broadly agree on, the points that are still debated (his burial, his mummy, Tutankhamun's mother), and the places in Egypt where our guides show travellers his face today: the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the Luxor Museum, Karnak and Amarna itself.

Akhenaten came to the throne as Amenhotep IV at the height of Egypt's power. His father, Amenhotep III, had ruled a rich, peaceful empire for almost four decades and left huge building projects in Thebes (Luxor), among them the temple whose guardians are the Colossi of Memnon. Amenhotep IV was not the first heir: an elder brother, Prince Thutmose, died young, which put the younger son in line for the throne.

Some scholars argue for a few years of co-regency between father and son; most accept that Amenhotep III died before his son ruled alone. Either way, the new king began in the traditional manner, building at Karnak and appearing with the usual gods, before turning his reign into the most radical religious experiment in Egyptian history.

Why he is one of Egypt's most unusual pharaohs

• He raised one god, the Aten, above all others and closed or neglected the temples of the rest.
• He left Thebes, the city of Amun, and built a capital on empty desert ground.
• He had himself shown with a long face, narrow shoulders, a full belly and wide hips, in intimate family scenes no earlier king allowed.
• His successors treated him as if he had never reigned. Later documents refer to him only indirectly, as "the criminal of Akhetaten".

What was the Aten?

The Aten was the visible disc of the sun, an old aspect of the sun god Ra. Under Akhenaten it became the one god of the state. In art it is drawn as a disc whose rays end in small hands, some of them holding the ankh, the sign of life, to the faces of the king and queen. Only the royal couple worshipped the Aten directly; everyone else was expected to worship it through the king.

How the revolution unfolded

1. Years 1 to 4: the young king builds Aten temples at Karnak, including the Gempaaten, using small standard blocks called talatat (about 27 x 27 x 54 cm) that let workers build fast.
2. Year 5: he changes his name from Amenhotep to Akhenaten and announces the new capital, marking its limits with carved boundary stelae in the cliffs.
3. Middle years: the court moves to Akhetaten. The name of Amun is chiselled out of monuments across Egypt, and in some places even the plural word "gods".
4. Late reign: the Aten's name is rewritten to remove remaining links with other gods, and the state cult is the Aten alone.

Was Akhenaten the first monotheist?

He is often called that, and the claim is still argued. Many Egyptologists describe his religion as close to monotheism; others prefer "monolatry" or "henotheism", the worship of one god without denying that others exist, and point out that the king himself stood between the god and the people. The best text for judging it yourself is the Great Hymn to the Aten, carved in the Amarna tomb of the official Ay, who later became pharaoh. Its praise of a single creator who feeds every creature has often been compared with Psalm 104. Historians debate whether there is any direct link.

Why did he do it?

No text gives his reasons. The theories are personal faith, a political move against the rich priesthood of Amun at Thebes, or both. His father had already given the Aten more space, so the idea did not come from nothing; the extreme form it took did.

Nefertiti was Akhenaten's Great Royal Wife and is shown more often, and with more power, than almost any earlier queen: offering to the Aten beside the king, smiting enemies in the way only kings were drawn, and riding with him in a chariot. Her origins are unknown; one theory makes her the daughter of Ay.

The couple had six daughters: Meritaten, Meketaten, Ankhesenpaaten (later Ankhesenamun, the wife of Tutankhamun), Neferneferuaten Tasherit, Neferneferure and Setepenre. Meketaten died around year 13 or 14, aged about ten to twelve, and a relief in the royal tomb at Amarna shows the royal parents mourning her. Nefertiti disappears from the record late in the reign. Some Egyptologists think she became co-ruler under the name Neferneferuaten; others think she died.

Her painted limestone bust, found at Amarna in 1912 in the workshop of the sculptor Thutmose, is now in the Neues Museum in Berlin. Our article on Queen Nefertari covers a different queen who is often confused with her.

Very probably. DNA studies of the royal mummies published in 2010 showed that the man buried in tomb KV55 in the Valley of the Kings was Tutankhamun's father, and that his mother was a mummy known as the "Younger Lady", who was also the sister of the KV55 man. Most scholars identify the KV55 man as Akhenaten; a minority prefer his short-lived co-ruler Smenkhkare, and the age of the bones is still debated. Kiya, the secondary wife, is another candidate often proposed as Tutankhamun's mother.

Tutankhamun was born Tutankhaten ("living image of the Aten"). Within a few years of taking the throne as a child he changed his name, left Amarna and restored the cult of Amun. Read more in our facts about King Tut.

Akhenaten chose a bay of desert on the east bank of the Nile, roughly halfway between Memphis and Thebes, where the cliffs frame the sunrise. He said the Aten itself had shown him the place, which belonged to no other god. The city held open-air temples to the sun (the Great Aten Temple and the Small Aten Temple), palaces, government offices, workshops, a workmen's village and large private villas. The tombs of the officials were cut into the cliffs to the north and south, and the royal tomb in a wadi to the east.

Akhetaten was occupied for only about 15 to 20 years. When the court returned to the old centres under Tutankhamun, the city was abandoned and later quarried for stone. That short life is why archaeologists value it: it is one of the few Egyptian cities whose street plan survives almost complete, and it gives a rare view of daily life in a capital.

The Amarna letters

In 1887 local people found clay tablets at the site, written in cuneiform, mostly in Akkadian, the diplomatic language of the time. In total 382 tablets are known, recovered between 1887 and 1979. They are letters between the Egyptian court and the kings of Babylon, Assyria, Mitanni and the Hittites, and the rulers of cities in Canaan. They show that foreign kings expected gold from Egypt, and that some vassals in the Levant begged for help that did not always come. Most are now in museums in Berlin, London and Cairo.

Amarna art is recognisable at a glance. The king has a long jaw, full lips, a thin neck, a rounded belly and broad hips; the queen and the daughters share the same shapes. The royal family is shown kissing, playing with the children and eating, under the rays of the Aten. Nature scenes, birds in papyrus thickets, calves running in fields, are drawn with new movement.

Why the king looks this way is still debated. Older theories of a disease such as Marfan syndrome have little support since the KV55 bones showed no such condition; most scholars now read the style as religious, with the king shown as a divine figure combining male and female, mother and father of his people. The style softened later in the reign, and its freer line survived into the art of Tutankhamun's tomb. More on this in our guide to ancient Egyptian art.

This was the old picture, drawn mainly from the Amarna letters, in which vassals in Canaan complain that Egypt ignored them. Historians now see it as too simple: Egyptian garrisons stayed in the Levant, foreign tribute still arrived (a great reception of foreign gifts is recorded in year 12), and the letters show active diplomacy. What is true is that the king's energy went into religion and building, and that Egypt lost ground to the Hittites in northern Syria during these years.

Akhenaten died in or soon after his 17th regnal year, probably in his late thirties; the cause is unknown. A royal tomb was cut for him in the Royal Wadi east of Amarna (tomb TA26). It also held the burial of Meketaten and perhaps other family members. Fragments of a sarcophagus, a canopic chest and more than 200 shabti figures were recovered there, but no royal mummy.

When Amarna was abandoned, the royal dead were most likely moved to Thebes. Tomb KV55, found in the Valley of the Kings in 1907, held a damaged coffin whose names had been cut out, objects of Queen Tiye and other Amarna material, and the skeleton that DNA links to Tutankhamun's father. That makes KV55 the strongest candidate for Akhenaten's reburial, though the question is not closed.

He was followed by one or two short reigns, of Smenkhkare and of a ruler named Neferneferuaten (possibly Nefertiti or Meritaten), and then by Tutankhamun.

For the kings who came after, the Amarna years were a break in the order of the world. Tutankhamun's Restoration Stela at Karnak describes temples that had fallen into ruin and gods who had turned away from Egypt. Under Horemheb and the early Ramesside kings, Akhenaten's temples were dismantled and his talatat blocks reused as fill inside the pylons of Karnak and in buildings at Hermopolis. His name, and those of Smenkhkare, Tutankhamun and Ay, were left out of the official king lists, such as the list in Seti I's temple at Abydos.

The irony is that this demolition saved him. Tens of thousands of talatat came out of the Karnak pylons in the 20th century with their paint and carving intact, and they are the reason we can study Amarna art so well today.

Few travellers realise how much of Akhenaten can be seen on a normal Egypt itinerary. These are the places our guides use to tell his story:

• Egyptian Museum, Tahrir (Cairo): the Amarna room holds colossal statues of the king from his Karnak temple, family stelae and a coffin from KV55. Objects have been moving between the Cairo museums since the Grand Egyptian Museum opened, so ask your guide to confirm a piece before you go. See our guide to the Egyptian Museum.
• Karnak Temple (Luxor): his Aten temples are gone, but the pylons where their blocks were hidden still stand. Combine it with our facts about Karnak Temple.
• Luxor Museum: a wall rebuilt from talatat blocks shows the king and workers in Aten temple scenes, with original colour.
• Valley of the Kings: KV55 is a small, usually closed tomb, but the valley holds the tomb of his son Tutankhamun.
• Tell el-Amarna (Minya): the city itself, the boundary stelae, the tombs of the nobles and the royal tomb. It is far from the usual routes, about four to five hours by road south of Cairo, so it suits travellers with a special interest in the period; the Minya region also has the tombs of Beni Hassan.

Our advice: see the Amarna room in Cairo before you travel south, and the Karnak pylons and the Luxor Museum wall will make much more sense.

Forgotten for three thousand years, Akhenaten was rediscovered in the 19th century when travellers and early Egyptologists copied the Amarna tombs and the boundary stelae. Since then he has been cast as a prophet, a poet, a fanatic and a tyrant, and he appears in novels, an opera (Philip Glass's Akhnaten) and countless documentaries. The evidence supports a narrower picture: a king who used his power to impose one god, whose reforms did not outlive him, and whose family, through Nefertiti and Tutankhamun, became the most famous in ancient Egypt. For the wider dynasty, see our guide to Amenhotep III and our facts about the pharaohs.

To follow Akhenaten's story on the ground, start in Cairo and continue to Luxor. Our 3 days in Cairo and Luxor covers the Egyptian Museum, Karnak and the Valley of the Kings in a short trip, and our Luxor day tours add the east and west banks with a private Egyptologist. If you want Amarna itself, ask us and we will plan the drive through Minya.

When did Akhenaten rule Egypt?

For about 17 years, roughly 1353 to 1336 BC in the most used chronology (1351 to 1334 BC in another), during the 18th Dynasty.

Why is Akhenaten called the heretic pharaoh?

Because he raised the sun disc Aten above all other gods, closed the temples of Amun and moved the capital. His successors restored the old religion and erased his name.

Was Akhenaten the father of Tutankhamun?

Very probably. DNA tests published in 2010 showed that the man in tomb KV55 was Tutankhamun's father, and most scholars identify that man as Akhenaten.

Where is Akhenaten buried?

His tomb at Amarna held no royal mummy. The skeleton in tomb KV55 in the Valley of the Kings is the strongest candidate for his reburial, but the identification is still debated.

Can you visit Amarna?

Yes. Tell el-Amarna is in Minya province, about four to five hours by road south of Cairo. The tombs of the nobles, the royal tomb and the boundary stelae can be visited with a guide and a driver.