Sometime in Ramesses II’s reign, royal artisans dismantled the city of Akhet-Aten (Amarna). Carefully, methodically, they removed the talatat blocks and carted them away to the nearby town Hemenu (Hermopolis) for reuse in a temple. This demolition of the Horizon of Aten remains a matter of debate among scholars: why now, and what motivated it?
Meanwhile, Ramesses II has a problem. His sons keep dying. Between regnal years 25–55, at least twelve princes “passed to the west.” We meet the designated heirs (and the spares), and see who finally got the top job…
Music: Keith Zizza and Luke Chaos.
Funerary mask (of Khaemwaset?) from the Serapeum Leser Vaults (Louvre Museum N 2291; photo Finoskov, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons).
The Ramessid Demolition of Amarna
One day, during the reign of Ramesses II, a team of royal workers came to the city of Akhet-Aten. The horizon of the sun disc, constructed for the ruler Akhenaten and his queen Nefertiti, the town was a sprawling mass of temples, palaces, suburbs, and tombs. At least, it had been, for a brief period around 1350 BCE. Now, several decades later, Akhet-Aten languished in obscurity. A small population, perhaps, made their homes on the floodplain. The temples to Aten, though, no longer operated; the great palaces, and the suburbs, were the home of birds and rodents rather than people.
Still… Akhet-Aten had one last purpose to serve.
The transport barges tied up at the east bank of the river. Royal overseers disembarked, along with dozens (probably hundreds) of workers. They unloaded equipment, including chisels, hammers, wooden sleds, and pieces of scaffolding. The labourers arrived at Akhet-Aten to do work. Not building work, but… unbuilding. They were here to deconstruct Akhenaten’s city.[1]
Masons fanned out among the monuments. The two magnificent sanctuaries, which we know as the Great and Small Aten Temples, were target #1. Then, there was the Grand Palace and administrative buildings, in the city centre. The workers were not interested in the mud brick structures (houses, outbuildings, and so forth). They wanted the stone. Erecting scaffolding around the temples, they clambered up the walls. With small chisels, they broke the mortar between layers of stone bricks. Then, one by one, the masons extracted those blocks, lowered them to the ground, and carried them to the boats.
That was easier than it sounds. When Akhenaten commissioned his monuments, he favoured speed over scale. As a result, most of that King’s monuments are made of small bricks that historians call talatat. They’re usually about 54cm long (21 inches),[2] still sizable but small enough for a man to carry on his shoulder. That approach had hastened the initial construction. Now, it accelerated the demolition.
The workers did their jobs carefully. This was not a wanton ransacking or destruction of the city. Had they come in hatred, or anger, they might have smashed buildings to pieces, leaving piles of rubble.[3] That was not the case. Instead, the workers did their job methodically. They dismantled walls, taking them away brick by brick, for reuse.[4]
Soon, the great barges departed Akhet-Aten, carrying the talatat on their decks. They weren’t going far, just a few miles downriver, to a town called Hemenu (better known today as Hermopolis).[5] This was an ancient town, sacred to the god Djehuty (Thoth); and King Ramesses II had plans for a new temple at the site. The talatat were going there.
In the 1930s, a German archaeological project found the temple at Hermopolis. Lo and behold, many of the larger structures (like the pylon towers and major walls) had talatat blocks embedded in their cores. The ancient builders had used the remains of Akhenaten’s city as filler material to strengthen their buildings.[6]
Block by block, the temples came down. The Horizon of Aten gradually crumbled, and as it did so, the dream of Akhenaten ended for good.
Fortunately for history, that reuse preserved many of the blocks. And across the thousands of pieces, enough survived to give a sense of the ancient decorations. Today, the talatat from Amarna (and others from Karnak) are some of the best-preserved of Akhenaten’s art. Ironically, many artistic scenes actually showed builders carrying those same blocks to build the temples.[7] So, as the Ramessid labourers deconstructed the monuments, they reversed (both literally and artistically) the work of their forebears.
That being said… some of the blocks were damaged. Select sections, mainly images of Akhenaten himself, had been erased by ancient vandals. Whoever damaged the blocks had a particular issue with that king. [8] Unfortunately, we don’t know who did this. It could have been the Ramessid workers, on the orders of pharaoh; but it could have happened earlier, under Sety, Horemheb, or even Tutankhamun. The ancient vandals did not sign their desecrations with a date; so, it remains speculative, awaiting further study.
What we can say is that the erasures were not thorough. While many of Akhenaten’s images were erased, along with his cartouches, there were still plenty of scenes left only partially damaged, or even intact. More notably, depictions of the Aten were totally fine; so were the figures of Nefertiti and the princesses. Whoever attacked these talatat had no particular issue with the Queen or the god; they disliked Akhenaten himself.
That pattern might give us a clue to the culprits. You see, around the same time that workers were deconstructing Amarna, another Egyptian had a problem with that “heretic” pharaoh. It was serious enough to go to court.
The “Wretched One of Akhetaten”
In the early reign of Ramesses II, a man named Mes (or Mose) was embroiled in a lawsuit.[9] Someone had (allegedly) stolen land, belonging to Mes’ family. It had been in their family for centuries, going all the way back to the start of the 18th Dynasty. Now, Mes was trying to get it back. In the process, he appealed to the higher officials, gone to the government archives, and even called witnesses regarding the land. In the process, he made a curious reference.
When the witnesses came forward, one of them described events taking place in the time of Akhenaten. But they didn’t call the pharaoh by name. Instead, they referred to the event as being “…in the time of The Enemy (pA xrw) of Akhet-Aten…”[10] The phrase he used was pA-xrw, that can mean “enemy,” “rebel,” or “the fallen one.” Which sounds pretty badass. The point is someone involved in a court case needed to refer to the Amarna Period but didn’t even want to name the King.
Hatred or Pragmatism?
This kind of cultural hostility might give some context to the demolition of Amarna. Again, though, we must remember. The talatat recovered from Hermopolis showed some damage to the King’s figure and name; but the erasures were haphazard, unsystematic. They also didn’t attack Aten, or Nefertiti, or the princesses. Whatever the anger was, it was directed mainly at the pharaoh.
With that in mind, Egyptologists remain divided on the motivations for destroying Amarna. In the 20th century, scholars like Pendlebury, Hari, and Aldred saw it as a vengeful project, driven by hatred of the “Heretic Pharaoh.”[11] Nicholas Reeves, in his book Akhenaten: Egypt’s False Prophet goes even further, suggesting “the foundations of the Great Aten Temple at el-Amarna finally cemented over ‘to seal in as it were the infection of the accursed spot’. Further occupation of ‘Horizon of the Aten’ may have been prohibited…”[12] That’s an extreme view, going a bit far beyond the archaeological record. But you see the tone of some historical interpretations.
On the other side of things, there is a more pragmatic view. Archaeologist Barry Kemp, who led excavations at Amarna for decades, noted how “half-hearted” many of the erasures were. He also pointed how some monuments, like Akhenaten’s Boundary Stela, were left completely alone, despite being highly visible and easy-to-access.[13] And Rainer Hanke, who studied the talatat blocks from Hermopolis, noted how (at Amarna) the demolition was systematic and clean. There were no piles of rubble, smashed up, from angry vandals. The Ramessid workers did not “obliterate” Amarna; they had simply “un-built” it, treating the site like a quarry of unusually accessible stone.[14] Subsequently, the town was abandoned. Local farmers raided the suburbs for mudbricks, which they ground up and used as fertiliser.[15] Occasionally, they broke a statue into pieces, hauling away the larger sections (like torsos) to use as building material. That had happened before, with Thutmose III and Hatshepsut; when a King fell into obscurity, or was officially ignored, their monuments were fair game.[16] So, not necessarily “hatred” so much as “these people are forgotten and abandoned; let’s use the stone.”
Anyway…
In the reign of Ramesses II, workers de-constructed the royal monuments of Akhet-Aten. Removing the talatat blocks, they loaded them on transport ships and carried them away to Hemenu. There, in a temple of Djehuty, they used the blocks for new masonry. As a result, much of the art of Amarna survived (though damaged in some places). The city, meanwhile, began to crumble away.
For our story, Amarna is gone.
==
Splitting Heirs
By 1243 BCE, regnal year 50, the King of Egypt Ramesses II (or Wasmuriya Satepnaria, Riamessessa Maiamana) was approaching seventy years old. An incredible run, far exceeding his father, his family’s patron Horemheb, and pretty much any ruler in recent history. Only Thutmose III (Men-kheper-Ra) had exceeded such a record, reigning 54 years in total. But Thutmose had come to the throne as a child, and the first two decades had been a regency under Hatshepsut. Likewise, the distant ancestor Pepy (II) had reigned over sixty years (maybe); but he too came to power as a child, probably with little influence at first.
Ramesses, meanwhile, had been at least 18, maybe older, when he took power. From day one, he had exercised authority and led decision-making as a fully-fledged ruler. By any metric, therefore, Ramesses had reigned longer (and with more personal involvement) than any pharaoh in history.
You have to wonder how that impacted his family. Specifically, his sons.
Over the decades, Ramesses had fathered many, many, many children. But only a few rise above the lists to become known figures, with visible titles and roles in government. The most visible, of course, are the heirs. Men whom we might call the “Crown Princes.”
During the Ramessid era, the Egyptian royal house didn’t have a single word or phrase to designate the heir. Instead, they used a cluster of titles to mark out seniority, position in society, and roles within the military, civil, and religious spheres of government. Under Ramesses II, the sons who became “Crown Prince” tend to share a certain combination of titles.[17] First, they are called iry-pat, or “Member of the Elite.” That is combined with the title sA-nsw-smsw, or “Eldest Son of the King.” Eldest here doesn’t mean first-born, just “oldest one still alive.”
These two titles are reasonably common, by themselves. But only certain sons have them in combination. Can you guess which ones? Yeah, the most prominent sons of the King.
For the first three decades, only one prince has the combination iry-pat and sA-nsw-smsw. This was Amun-her-khopeshef, son of Nefertari, first surviving male of Ramesses’ new lineage. Across multiple monuments this boy, and he alone, bears that combination of titles (along with others marking him as a general, priest, and member of royal society).[18]
Ramesses Jr.
When Amunherkhopeshef died, power passed to his younger brother. Half-brother, I should say. The prince Ramesses (Jr) was the eldest male child of Queen Iset-Nofret. He was probably born in the days of Sety I, and when Amunherkhopeshef passed, he may have been in his late twenties or early thirties. Still healthy; he would make a vigorous king when the time came; if it ever did.
Once his half-brother died, Ramesses Jr. starts showing up as the “Eldest King’s Son” and the “Member of the Nobility.” Unfortunately, as Crown Prince, we hear very little about him. A few inscriptions here and there, but nothing particularly informative. It seems that Ramesses Jr. had the misfortune to become heir at a time when his father was still healthy, vigorous, and dominating political affairs. So, as far as the monuments go, prince Ramesses Jr. didn’t get a chance to step into the spotlight.
Even the date of the prince’s death is terribly uncertain.[19] It may have been quite early, around Year 35, or as late as the early 50s. There is a massive gap in the written record; and the only secure date historians can work with is Year 55. By that point, another son shows up as Crown Prince.
That son was Khaemwaset.
Khaemwaset
Following the death of Ramesses Jr., the King’s fourth son took up the role of Crown Prince. We don’t know the exact year, but possibly 1241 BCE (regnal year 52).[20] The surviving records, such as they are, suggest a smooth transition. Statues of the prince begin to depict him with the supreme titles; and administrative records from this time show him managing affairs in Men-nefer (Memphis). He oversaw temple construction, sent deputies to retrieve runaway servants, may have helped demolish some older monuments (more on that later), and led rituals for the great gods.
Ironically, that also included Aten.
On one of his shabti figures (now in the Louvre), the prince made offerings to great and powerful gods; and he hoped for a successful journey to the afterlife. Within that text, he invoked the old sun disc we know so well:
“Hereditary Noble, foremost in Rosetau… companion of Horus, King’s Son, Sem-Priest, Khaemwaset, true-of-voice, says: ‘Clear your vision, so that you may see the Aten, that you may adore it in life! You shall be invoked in Rosetau (the necropolis of Giza and Saqqara)… You shall traverse the Valley to Upper(?) Rosetau; you shall penetrate the secret cavern; you will dwell (‘sit’) within the Sacred Land, just like the crew of the mighty ones who are together with Ra.”[21]
I mentioned earlier how, while Amarna was demolished (and Akhenaten himself erased in many cases), the god he favoured remained intact. We’ve seen this repeatedly in the years after Akhenaten. As Kings like Horemheb, Sety, and Ramesses II erected monuments to the great god Ra, they still mentioned and honoured Aten. The sun disc was no longer “supreme” as Akhenaten had encouraged. Nor was he a major player in the pantheon. But Aten retained some of his ancient status, a meaningful symbol of the creator god, and a recognised aspect of his power on earth.
Apparently, he was prominent enough that, when looking ahead to his immortality, Khaemwaset (son of the man who demolished Amarna) still invoked the luminous qualities of that shining god.
It’s a good example of how complex the post-Amarna story can be.
Sadly, we don’t know much about Khaemwaset’s time as Crown Prince. It seems that his ascendancy was short-lived.[22] The clue for that comes, ironically, from one of Khaemwaset’s own crowning achievements. The catacombs that we call the Serapeum.
Khaemwaset had overseen multiple burials for the Apis Bulls, during Ramesses’ long reign.[23] Finally, in the sixth decade, workers dug a new chamber in the catacombs.[24] Within, they interred the mummified remains of… something. When excavators opened this chamber in the mid-1800s, they found a mass of bones and resin.[25] It had been wrapped up in a vaguely human shape; and it bore a beautiful gold mask on the “head.” The mask is now in the Louvre in Paris.[26] It doesn’t look like your traditional Egyptian mummy mask, with the lovely headdress or wig and jewellery. Instead, this one is a thin piece of gold foil, awkwardly shaped into a human head and face. The ears stick out prominently on the side. The mask might be a representation of Khaemwaset, perhaps in the final years of his life or even a “death mask” after his passing. That, unfortunately, is speculative; as is the nature of the “mummy” on which the mask lay. The mass of bones could possibly be the last remnants of the prince himself; or an Apis Bull, whose body was arranged like a human (perhaps connecting him with the first mummy, Osiris). All of that is speculative, tentative, hypothetical at best.[27]
Nearby, a stone stela shows the Apis receiving offerings from a prince. It is no longer Khaemwaset, but rather his younger brother, Merneptah.[28] Upon the stela, we find the titles “King’s Eldest Son, Member of the Elite (or iry-pat), Supreme General, Royal Scribe, Merneptah.” It seems that, around Year 55, Khaemwaset was gone.
The prince deserves an epitaph. What should we say? Well, maybe the prince can give his own eulogy. One of Khaemwaset’s best preserved monuments is a statue, now in the British Museum.[29] It shows the prince as a high-ranking priest of the great god Usir (Osiris), and it probably comes, originally, from Abydos. The statue is lovely, but most people can’t read the prayer that’s written upon it. Which is a shame, because it’s quite evocative. It speaks of Khaemwaset (as Crown Prince) and his devotion to Osiris, Lord of Abydos and Master of Eternity. It hopes that Khaemwaset, through his statue, will receive a long memory, and many offerings to sustain his spirit. The prayer reads:
“Oh Atum, may you give breath to the Sem-Priest and King’s Son… Khaemwaset… (He has) made as his monument his statue for a million (years), to be in (Abydos)… A fitting place for offerings, a major place for the endowment of what is offered; a sacred necropolis for giving praise to the effective ones (the dead); that it may open its way to this effective-spirit, even as its site bears the statue of the King’s Eldest Son, his beloved, the Sem-Priest Khaemwaset… May you grant to him life, stability, and prosperity, he abiding and remaining in your temple; for he is your son and your champion…”
If the burial in the Serapeum was not Khaemwaset. Where is he? The most likely candidate is a small hill not far from the Serapeum.[30] A Japanese excavation in that region has found monuments, like a small chapel, devoted to the prince; as well as a tomb belonging to his daughter. Khaemwaset may be buried in that area. If so, the tomb hasn’t come to light just yet, but that seems a good bet. For now, excavations continue.
Merneptah
With the passing of Khaemwaset, the fourth son, power now shifted to the thirteenth son, Mer-ny-Ptah (or “Beloved of Ptah”).[42]
Like all of the prince after Amunherkhopeshef, Merneptah was the son of Queen Iset-Nofret. She had died when he was very young. For the next thirty-odd years, the boy grew to be a man and take part in his father’s courtly society. We don’t hear much of him in that time. A few images on temple walls, mainly part of processions.
But once he became the Crown Prince, Merneptah stepped up in a big way.[43] Suddenly, monuments proliferate, recording Merneptah as King’s Eldest Son and Member of the Elite, those two supreme titles of the designated heir. He went further than that, though, accumulating a host of government and honorary titles, establishing his position. For example, Merneptah began wielding authority as the Hry-tp tAwy, “Chief of the Two Lands;” the imy-r mSa-wr, the “Great Overseer of Troops” or “Supreme General;” the xrp-nTrw or “Director of the Gods” (perhaps referring to the priesthoods and divine statues). Finally, he called himself the heir of Ramesses quite explicitly with titles like iwa Gb “the heir of Geb” and cty-Gb “in the place of Geb.” A reference to the Earth God, one of Egypt’s first divine kings. It’s possible that, as pharaoh Ramesses stepped back from day to day business, Merneptah presented his father in the guise of that god; and himself as acting “in his father’s place” so to speak.[44] In short, Merneptah’s monuments go way further than his older brothers, presenting him more and more as the representative of royal authority. He wasn’t King, or even co-regent, but he had many of the powers of a ruler, wielded on his father’s behalf.[45]
At this point, we can say without fear of spoilers. Merneptah would be the final Crown Prince of Ramesses II’s reign. When the old king died, this was the son that finally inherited the throne.
But that is a story for another day…
[1] Kemp, B. J. (2013). The City of Akhenaten and Nefertiti: Amarna and Its People, 301—302.
[2] Arnold, Encyclopedia Ancient Egyptian Architecture, 238.
[3] Hanke, R. (1978). Amarna-Reliefs aus Hermopolis: Neue Veröffentlichungen und Studien, 78.
[4] Hanke, Amarna-Reliefs, 76—85.
[5] Wilkinson, Complete Temples, 139—140.
[6] Roeder, G. (1969). Amarna-Reliefs aus Hermopolis: Ausgrabungen der Deutschen Hermopolis-Expedition in Hermopolis 1929-1939, Band II.
[7] Roeder, Amarna-Reliefs aus Hermopolis, pl. 58.
[8] Hanke, Amarna-Reliefs aus Hermopolis, 80—81.
[9] Gardiner, A. H. (1905). The Inscription of Mes: A Contribution to the Study of Egyptian Judicial Procedure; Gaballa, G. A. (1977). The Memphite Tomb-Chapel of Mose; Allam, S. (1989). Some Remarks on the Trial of Mose. The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 75, 103–112. https://doi.org/10.2307/3821902; KRI III, 418:5—435:15; KRITA III, 302—312; KRITANC III, 315—320.
[10] Gardiner, The Inscription of Mes, 11; KRI III, 433:12; KRITA III, 311.
[11] Pendlebury, City of Akhenaten, III, 4; Hari, Horemheb et la reine Moutnedjemet, 325; Aldred, Akhenaten, 256.
[12] Reeves, N. (2019). Akhenaten: Egypt’s False Prophet (2nd edn), ch. 9.
[13] Kemp, Amarna and Its People, 302.
[14] Hanke, Amarna-Reliefs, 77—78.
[15] Hanke, Amarna-Reliefs,
[16] Wong, J. Y. (2025). The afterlife of Hatshepsut’s statuary. Antiquity, 99(405), 746—761. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2025.64
[17] Brand, Ultimate Pharaoh, 263 n. 93.
[18] Fisher, The Sons of Ramesses II, I, 43—70; and II (Catalogue), 63—78.
[19] Fisher, Sons of Ramesses II, 78—79.
[20] Kitchen, Pharaoh Triumphant, chart 2.
[21] KRITA II, 584—585; https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010023655.
[22] Brand, Ultimate Pharaoh, 439; Fisher, Sons of Ramesses II, I, 105.
[23] See episode 229.
[24] Dodson, “The Early Years of the Serapeum at Sakkara,” 27—28.
[25] Mariette, Serapeum (1882), 58—59.
[26] Louvre N 2291, https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010018029
[27] Dodson, “The Early Years of the Serapeum at Sakkara,” 27—28.
[28] Louvre IM 3747 https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010019719; KRITA II, 207—208; Mariette, Serapeum (1857), pl. 21; Fisher, Sons of Ramesses II, I, 112,
[29] KRI II, 889—890; KRITA II, 578—579; BM EA947, https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/Y_EA947.
[30] Yoshimura, S., & Takamiya, I. (1994). A Monument of Khaemwaset at Saqqara. Egyptian Archaeology, 5, 19–23.
[31] Brand, Ultimate Pharaoh, 256.
[32] Fisher, Sons of Ramesses II, 107.
[33] Fisher, Sons of Ramesses II, 107—108.
[34] Fisher, Sons of Ramesses II, 108 (4.13); Weeks, KV5 Preliminary Report, 109.
[35] Fisher, Sons of Ramesses II, 108.
[36] Fisher, Sons of Ramesses II, 109—110 (9.7); Weeks, KV5 Preliminary Report, 104—118.
[37] Fisher, Sons of Ramesses II, 111; Weeks, KV5 Preliminary Report, 104—118.
[38] Fisher, Sons of Ramesses II, 111.
[39] Brand, Ultimate Pharaoh, 262 n. 82.
[40] KRI II, 907; KRITA II, 592; KRITANC II, 612.
[41] KRITANC II, 612, cf. Gordon, Ugaritici Manual, III, 489.
[42] Brand, Ultimate Pharaoh, 256.
[43] Iskander, Reign of Merneptah, 6—66.
[44] Iskander, Reign of Merneptah, 33 n. 74.
[45] Kitchen, RITANC II, 607.
