Akhenaten (Part 3): Revelation of a Religion.
Soon after he came to power, Amunhotep IV (later Akhenaten) began to reveal his unique vision of god and the world. A remarkable amount of evidence survives for this crucial period: from a royal speech, magnificent temples at Karnak and a massive artistic shift, the King revealed his strange and fascinating ideas…
Special Thanks to my Patrons!
(April Subscribers)
Select Bibliography
ATP – Smith and Redford, Akhenaten Temple Project, 1976.
Dorothea Arnold, Lyn Green and James Allen, The Royal Women of Amarna: Images of Beauty from Ancient Egypt, 1999 (MetMuseum).
Aidan Dodson, Amarna Sunrise, 2014.
Aidan Dodson and Dyan Hilton, The Complete Royal Families of ancient Egypt, 2010.
Earl L. Ertman, “Images of Amenhotep IV and Nefertiti in the Style of the Previous Reign,” in Causing His Name to Live: Studies in Egyptian Epigraphy and History in Memory of William J. Murnane, 2009 (Google Books).
James K. Hoffmeier, Akhenaten & the Origins of Monotheism, 2015.
Donald B. Redford, “A Royal Speech From the Blocks of the Tenth Pylon,” Bulletin of the Egyptological Seminar 3 (1981).
Donald B. Redford, Akhenaten: The Heretic King, 1987.
Lise Manniche, The Akhenaten Colossi at Karnak, 2010.
William J. Murnane, Texts from the Amarna Period in Egypt, 1995.
Ray Winfield Smith and Donald B. Redford, The Akhenaten Temple Project: Initial Discoveries, 1976.
Joyce Tyldesley, Nefertiti’s Face: Creation of an Icon, 2018.
Richard H. Wilkinson, The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, 2003.
Hi, I have a question. In the episode you mentions a building in Karnak called gemet-pa-aten. I know this building as Gem-pa-aten.
What is the difference between them? Is it a faminine form of “gem” (like in “nebet”)? And why are there two forms of this building?
Great episode as always.
Hi Koen,
Gmt-pa-Aten and Gm-pa-Aten are the same monument, but the ancients wrote the name in two different ways. There is no definitive translation yet, but the most likely answer is that Gm(t) is either passive or relative, meaning “the Aten is Found (Here)” or “That Which the Aten Has Found.” To avoid confusion, I chose Gmt-pa-Aten and stuck with that, but the other reading Gm-pa-Aten is equally common. My source on this was James Hoffmeier’s book which discusses the grammar problem and the various readings, with references (hoffmeier 2015: Akhenaten and the Origins of Monotheism, pages 98-101).
I hope this helps!
Thanks Dominica,
Yes it helps a lot. Keep going with the good stuff.