Sorry, perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I am in no way under the impression that atenism was asdopted solely throughout the country by all people and the old gods disregarded. There is plenty of evidence to show otherwise in fact. Thanks for the information about the whip, I didn't know about that title. Do you think that the exclusiveness of the Aten to the Royal family was due to some childhood experiances which led Akhenaten to become an introvert? I always thought that it was his form of personal rebellion against a religion/establishment that hurt him. Why else would he take such drastic measures against the country? Was it a personal revenge against the god Amun?

Originally posted by PharaohKel



Yes there were indications that Amenhotep was beginning to tire of the power of the priesthood of Amun and don't forget, he added the name of the god 'Aten' to that of his youngest daughter by Tiy by naming her 'Baketaten' which I think is 'Servant of Aten' or something like that????? Whose to say he didn't do the same for Tut.

HAving said asll that I tend to go with the conventuional theory of him being Akhenaten's son. It seems to make more sense but i don't rule anything out.

We know thqat Tut's skill bears a remarkable resemblance to the KV55 Mummy, identified in all likelihood as Smenkhare and we know that there appeears to have been a first-degree relationship between the two: meaning that they were either both sons of Amenhotep III, both sons of Akhenaten or father and son themselves. I think this means that Smenkhare could not have been the brother of Akhenaten while Tut was just the son. Of course it all hunges on the identification of the KV55 mummy with Smenkhare.

Too many typos there but I think you get the gist:-:-)

You're welcome regarding the information about the whip Again, the idea that Akhenaten was some kind of introvert, and that some how the Amun priests had hurt him as a child is part of the old discarded theories. Today it is recongize that Amenhotep III had a large role in the creation and establishment of the Aten cult. And it was more widespread the once thought, temples finds in Karnak, Thebes, and Heliopolis are just some of the Atenist temples that are known today... either by real temple remains, or the names, titles of the Chief Priest of these titles.
As more information, discoveries are made about the Atenist cult the more it is generally accept Si-Amun that it was a calucated move by the Pharaoh's Amenhotep III and his son. So why did he take personal revenge against the god Amun? If the priests of Amun had not approved of the steps of the father Amenhotep III, such as having himself delified in life and becoming as Dr. Giles says the Avatar of the God's... his death may have allowed Akhenaten to move against Amun in revenge for problems he saw as killing his father. Or it was the next steps in the Atenists cult to move it foward to more people around Egypt. It isn't really possible to know somethings as much as it is distasteful for those asking the questions. Just to much time, and to much destruction has removed to many answers.
What drastic measures are you refering to?

Let me correct this... it is now generally believed that Amenhotep III had a role in the establishment of the Atenist cult. To what degree is still somewhat up in the air. Myself, i accept Dr. Giles theory published (2001) that it was a huge role. In the chronology of the time it works best if Amenhotep III had a huge role.
We do know that the Aten is first glorified by Thutmose IV, after a growing respect by even earlier Pharaohs of the 18th Dynasty. To suggest that Akhenaten was solely responsible for it is to suggest he was a "boy genius" capable of establishing temples in Karnak, Thebes, and Heliopolis mostly before he came to the throne. Have the theology worked out prior to his succession, set up the estates, priests etc all before he even becomes Pharaoh makes him a "boy genius". Then there is the ever growing delification of Amenhotep III and the increasing use of Atenist symbols, names, and cult activities that date to his last 10 years. Perhaps not now but in the next 20 years i do believe that Akhenaten is going to fade in the discussions of the Atenist cult and his father is going to be talked more of. The proof of such a situation is growing yearly. It just takes some time for everyone to come to agreed upon acceptance of new discoveries.

I dont think Amenhotep III was a big contributor to the Atenist cult becasue Akhenaten's birth name was Amenhotep IIII. Dont you think Amenhotep III wouldve named him Akhenaten in the beginning?

Didn't Amenhotep III merely make the cult of the Aten more poular? It was however under Akhenaten that the real "revolution" took place, at least that is what i thought. Gods had come into and out of fashion for centuries, (e.g. Amu himself rising to precedence and also the usurping of Bat by Hathor.) Amenhotep chiselled out part of the name of his father because of the Amen (Amun) reference in it. His closure of the temples was a far cry from the building and embellishing of the temples that his father had done, (e.g. at Karnak, building Luxor temple and embellishing Dendera temple). Amenhotep III may have given the Aten more attention than his predecessors but it was Akhenaten who started the real religous upheaval by denying Amun and the other gods, something his father would never had done. I have always wondered what Queen Tiy thought her son's "reforms", I would have thought she would have been quite disapproving. The evidence however doesn't support this, which I think is strange. To see the empire she once goverened jointly with her husband crumble before her must have been some kind of blow. What do you think of the stance of Queen Tiy?

First off i am not aware of Akhenaten denying any god save Amun. I would appreciate your source on this.
By the time Akhenaten was wiping out his father's name with Amun in it, his father's name had changed to the "Nebmaatra, the Living Splendor of Aten." This name was not destroyed to my knowledge. So what was he wiping out? His father's rejected name or his father?
His father built a palace that would have outraged the Priests of Amun, Malkata palace which is the Arabic name for what Amenhotep would have known as the "the palace of the dazzling Aten" located on the Theban West Bank. It was opposite side of the river from Karnak but at the other end of the city where Karnak was located.
In the last years of Amenhotep's life he became delified while living! Something no other Pharaoh had done, except Ramesses II did at a much later date. I don't believe there is anything that Amenhotep/Nebmaatra would not have done if it threatened his beliefs regarding himself.

As for the widowed Queen Tiy, late in the reign of her son she moves to his new city...as the delified Hathor, and avatar of the other goddess' of Ancient Egypt. She apparently didn't suffer all that much on behalf of Egypt during her son's reign. Now if like me you accept a long coregencey between father and son... Tiy's late move into Akhetaten isn't unsual, but acceptable. It is only in the rejection of such a belief that her moving so late into Akhetaten becomes a problem that needs explaination.

Originally posted by Pharaohkel



Hardly conclusive! Perfectly natural for a son to be named after his father. You could even argue that, if Amenhotep had contributed greatly to the Atenist cult, he had named his son 'the new Amenhotep (IV)' in order to emphasise the fact that this 'new amenhotep' would carry on the reforms of the last. Just speculation. Amenhotep was a popular name in the 18th Dynasty as Tuthmosis had been.

In his Hymn to the Aten Akhenaten says this of the Ate, "thou sole god". If he believed there were still other gods then why would he write this. Amenhotep III did not carry out the religous reforms to the same degree as his son. Calling Malqata !The Place of the dazzling Aten" would be just as blashemous as naming a place after Hathor, Isis or Horus. The Aten was afterall an ancient god, just a previously obscure one. I personally do not believe in a long co-regency, maybe one of only two or possibly three years. With regard to Tiy I was not working on historical fact, only trying to understand how she was thinking at the time of her sons reforms and the disintergration of much her husband had fought to keep. What was happening in her mind, did she really support her son, or was that just the official representation. Although Amarna art was far more realistic than previous art it was also very representative and a little idealistic in its portrayal of emotion. For example the Aten basks its light on the Royal Family, but on nobody else. Was this a reality, or merely the idealistic portrayal by a Pharaoh wishing to show his personal closeness to the Aten?

Hi again Si-Amun,
In the reign of Amenhotep III, his architects, the twins Suti and Hor in their Hymn to the Aten, proclaim ... "He alone"... Surely you're not implying that recognizing one god alone shows no other gods/goddess' exist?

As for 3 words from one line in one hymn shows proof, that Akhenaten wiped out all the other gods/goddess' of Egypt. i am sorry Si-Amun i not convinced. i remind you that he brought the Mnevis bull to Akhetaten. This bull was identified with Ptah before and after Akhenaten.

I ask again please give me your sources for Akhenaten's outlawing, destroying gods/goddess' other than Amun. If you are right, surely finding sources to give me will not be hard.

As for the palace it isn't so much the name i was referring to as outraging the priests of Amun, but it's location. As far as possible from the temple of Amun at Karnak. This combined with the name makes it very maddening and disrespectful to the god Amun.

As for Tiy, since i accept the growing evidence that 1) Amenhotep III started the major Atenist reforms, and 2) that there was a long coregencey between father and son. Your wondering does not come into play as she would have been in full support of husband and son.

As for your wondering about her with regards to the legions of Egyptianologists that still agree with you. i have never read a discourse about it, implying to me they have no clue and for once don't care to speculate! i wonder why?

As for your wondering about the Aten's rays and hands only upon the royal family being realistic or idealistic? Since my own beliefs only distress you, i suggest you do some readings taken from the tombs of nobles in Amarna. The love poem by Kiya to AKhenaten. Some of the experts like Grimal, Redford, Giles, and Flecter. Or even the Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw. They will tell you as i am now, it was realistic. All blessings from the Aten came by mediation of the royal family preferrably Pharaoh. But please don't take my word for it, read the experts.

In Akhenaten Pharaoh of Egypt a New Study.By CYRIL ALDRED he states "In the Great Hymn to the Aten...nowhere in it is the slightest mention of other gods.There was but one god and Akhenaten was his prophet."

Thank you Ankhesenamun3, perhaps you can find in that book where it is documented that Akhenaten destroyed the other gods, and goddess'.
i do not disagree with your above statement, i do disagree with Si-Amun's statement that he destroyed the other gods and goddess'. For this, i ask for a source because i have never read that. I have read time and time again that his war was against Amun, not Ra, Osiris, Hathor, Isis etc, etc. This is what i am asking support for. Granted the other gods/goddess' were not very important to Akhenaten but i would like sources for where he destroyed their temples, and priesthoods as he did Amun.

Firstly malqata is, I admit a long way from Karnak, but not so far from the Temples of Luxor and the West Bank. it was also the palace that Amenhotep III spent his last years. He built away from the city of Waset, which co-incidentally is also where most of the major temples were located (those to Amun, Montu, Mut and Khonsu). There is i admit plenty of evidence that the old gods were worshipped at Akhetaten by the ordinary people, there are however no depictions of the king and the old gods save the Aten. There are no other temples at Akhetaten save those to the Aten. I am sorry if it seems that I constantly disagree with you on this subject, but i am merely trying to make sense of a period which is immensely confusing. If you would please kindly expand my knowledge on it then I probably wouldn't. I am far more specialised in much later Egyptian history, especially the Ptolomaic lines. Regarding Tiy, I did not merely mean the changes her son (and husband) made to religion but also the way in which Akhenaten lost much foreign territory. If you want my source on that it is:

Letter No. 1:
I have written repeatedly for troops, but they were not given and the king did not listen to the word of his servant. And I sent my messenger to the palace, but he returned empty-handed - he brought no troops. And when the people of my house saw this, they rediculed me like the governors, my brethren, and dispised me.
Letter No. 2:
The king's whole land, which has begun hostilities with me, will be lost. Behold the territory of Seir, as far as Carmel; its princes are wholly lost; and hostilities prevail against me. As long as ships were upon the sea the strong arm of the king occupied Naharin and Kash, but now the Apiru are occupying the king's cities. There remains not one prince to my lord, the king; every one is ruined. Let the king take care of his land and let him send troops. For if no troops come in this year, the whole territory of my lord, the king, will perish. If there are no troops in this year, let the king send his officer to fetch me and his brothers, that we may die with our lord, the king.
Letter No. 3:
Verily, they father did not march forth nor inspect the lands of the vassal-princes. And when thou ascended the throne of thy father's house, Abdashirta's sons took the king's lands for themselves. Creatures of the king of Mittani are they, and of the king of Babylon and of the king of the Hittites.
Letter No. 4:
Who formerly could have plundered Tunip without being plundered by Thutmose III? The gods of the king of Egypt, my lord, dwell in Tunip. May my lord ask his old men if this not be so. Now, however, we belong no more to our lord, the king of Egypt. And now Tunip, thy city, weeps and her tears are flowing and there is not help for us. For twenty years we have been sending to our lord, the king of Egypt, but there has not come to us a word - no, not one.

These are taken from the Tel-el-Amarna tablets.
On regard to the supposed monotheistic attitude of Akhenaten i will leave you with 2 extracts from his Hymn to the Aten:

Thou sole God,
There is no other like thee

From Winton Thomas's English translation published in Documents from Old Testament Times.

I will apologise again if I have displeased you, but I am merely trying to widen the thoughts and arguments that I have heard in the past from others. I believe for example that the Aten cult was a very personal religion, that is why there is so much evidence for continuation of old beliefs amongst the poor. It is amongst the royal family though that the Aten cult must be studied, as only they had closer access to their "god".

Perhaps you could use your source for me saying that the old gods were destroyed. I admit that I used the word disregarded, but not destroyed. Can you dispute the fact that many gods were neglected under the rule of the heretic? I also talk of his revenge against Amun, not against all other deities. I think that Amunism was the victim of Akhenaten, not polytheism.