Amarna
Amarna is an extensive ancient Egyptian archaeological site containing the ruins of Akhetaten, the capital city during the late Eighteenth Dynasty. The city was established in 1346 BC, built at the direction of the Pharaoh Akhenaten, and abandoned shortly after his death in 1332 BC.
The site is on the east bank of the Nile River, in what today is the Egyptian province of Minya. It is about south of the city of al-Minya, south of the Egyptian capital, Cairo, and north of Luxor. The city of Deir Mawas lies directly to its west. On the east side of Amarna there are several modern villages, the chief of which are l-Till in the north and el-Hagg Qandil in the south.
Activity in the region flourished from the Amarna Period until the later Roman era.
Name
The name Amarna comes from the Beni Amran tribe that lived in the region and founded a few settlements. The ancient Egyptian name Akhetaten means "the horizon of the Aten".English Egyptologist Sir John Gardner Wilkinson visited Amarna twice in the 1820s and identified it as Alabastron, following the sometimes contradictory descriptions of Roman-era authors Pliny and Ptolemy, although he was not sure about the identification and suggested Kom el-Ahmar as an alternative location.
City of Akhetaten
The area of the city was effectively a virgin site, and it was this city that Akhetaten described as the Aten's "seat of the First Occasion, which he had made for himself that he might rest in it".It may be that the Royal Wadi's resemblance to the hieroglyph for horizon showed that this was the place to found the city.
The city was built as the new capital of the Pharaoh Akhenaten, dedicated to his new religion of worship to the Aten. Construction started in or around Year 5 of his reign and was probably completed by Year 9, although it became the capital city two years earlier. To speed up construction of the city most of the buildings were constructed out of mudbrick, and white washed. The most important buildings were faced with local stone.
It is the only ancient Egyptian city which preserves great details of its internal plan in large part because it was abandoned almost completely shortly after the royal government of Tutankhamun quit the city in favor of Thebes. The city seems to have remained active for a decade or so after his death, and a shrine to Horemheb indicates that it was at least partially occupied at the beginning of his reign, if only as a source for building material elsewhere. Once it was abandoned, it remained uninhabited until Roman settlement began along the edge of the Nile. However, due to the unique circumstances of its creation and abandonment, it is questionable how representative of ancient Egyptian cities it actually is. Amarna was hastily constructed and covered an area of approximately of territory on the east bank of the Nile River; on the west bank, land was set aside to provide crops for the city's population. The entire city is encircled with a total of 14 boundary stelae detailing Akhenaten's conditions for the establishment of this new capital city of Egypt.
The earliest dated stele from Akhenaten's new city is known to be Boundary stele K which is dated to Year 5, IV Peret, day 13 of Akhenaten's reign. It preserves an account of Akhenaten's foundation of this city. The document records the pharaoh's wish to have several temples of the Aten to be erected here, for several royal tombs to be created in the eastern hills of Amarna for himself, his chief wife Nefertiti, and his eldest daughter Meritaten as well as his explicit command that when he was dead, he would be brought back to Amarna for burial. Boundary stela K introduces a description of the events that were being celebrated at Amarna:
This text then goes on to state that Akhenaten made a great oblation to the god Aten "and this is the theme which is illustrated in the lunettes of the stelae where he stands with his queen and eldest daughter before an altar heaped with offerings under the Aten, while it shines upon him rejuvenating his body with its rays."
Site and plan
Located on the east bank of the Nile, the ruins of the city are laid out roughly north to south along a "Royal Road", now referred to as "Sikhet es-Sultan". The Royal residences are generally to the north, in what is known as the North City, with a central administration and religious area and the south of the city is made up of residential suburbs.North City
If one approached the city of Amarna from the north by river the first buildings past the northern boundary stele would be the North Riverside Palace. This building ran all the way up to the waterfront and was likely the main residence of the royal family. Located within the North City area is the Northern Palace, the main residence of the royal family. Between this and the central city, the Northern Suburb was initially a prosperous area with large houses, but the house size decreased and became poorer the further from the road they were.The North City was an administrative area. It contains the ruins of royal palaces, especially the Northern Palace and other administrative buildings and occupies an area between the river and the cliffs that terminate the plains to the north of the city itself.
Central City
Most of the important ceremonial and administrative buildings were located in the central city. Here the Great Temple of the Aten and the Small Aten Temple were used for religious functions and between these the Great Royal Palace and Royal Residence were the ceremonial residence of the king and royal family, and were linked by a bridge or ramp. Located behind the Royal Residence was the Bureau of Correspondence of Pharaoh, where the Amarna Letters were found.This area was probably the first area to be completed, and had at least two phases of construction.
Southern suburbs
To the south of the city was the area now referred to as the Southern Suburbs. It contained the estates of many of the city's powerful nobles, including Nakhtpaaten, Ranefer, Panehesy, and Ramose. This area also held the studio of the sculptor Thutmose, where the famous bust of Nefertiti was found in 1912.Further to the south of the city was Kom el-Nana, an enclosure, usually referred to as a sun-shade, and was probably built as a sun-temple., and then the Maru-Aten, which was a palace or sun-temple originally thought to have been constructed for Akhenaten's queen Kiya, but on her death her name and images were altered to those of Meritaten, his daughter.
City outskirts
Surrounding the city and marking its extent, the Boundary Stelae describing the founding of the city are a primary source of information about it.File:TutankhamunBerlin.jpg|thumb|Tutankamun Amarna portrait. Altes Museum, Berlin
Away from the city Akhenaten's Royal necropolis was started in a narrow valley to the east of the city, hidden in the cliffs. Only one tomb was completed, and was used by an unnamed Royal Wife, and Akhenaten's tomb was hastily used to hold him and likely Meketaten, his second daughter.
In the cliffs to the north and south of the Royal Wadi, the nobles of the city constructed their Tombs.
Life in ancient Amarna/Akhetaten
Much of what is known about Amarna's founding is due to the preservation of a series of official boundary stelae ringing the perimeter of the city. These are cut into the cliffs on both sides of the Nile and record the events of Akhetaten from founding to just before its fall.To make the move from Thebes to Amarna, Akhenaten needed the support of the military. Ay, one of Akhenaten's principal advisors, exercised great influence in this area because his father Yuya had been an important military leader. Additionally, everyone in the military had grown up together; they had been a part of the richest and most successful period in Egypt's history under Akhenaten's father, so loyalty among the ranks was strong and unwavering. Perhaps most importantly, "it was a military whose massed ranks the king took every opportunity to celebrate in temple reliefs, first at Thebes and later at Amarna."
Religious life
While the reforms of Akhenaten are generally believed to have been oriented towards a sort of monotheism, or perhaps more accurately, monolatrism, archaeological evidence shows other deities were also revered, even at the centre of the Aten cult – if not officially, then at least by the people who lived and worked there.
... at Akhetaten itself, recent excavation by Kemp has shown the presence of objects that depict gods, goddesses and symbols that belong to the traditional field of personal belief. So many examples of Bes, the grotesque dwarf figure who warded off evil spirits, have been found, as well as of the goddess-monster, Taweret, part crocodile, part hippopotamus, who was associated with childbirth. Also in the royal workmen's village at Akhetaten, stelae dedicated to Isis and Shed have been discovered.
The Amarna letters
In 1887, a local woman digging for sebakh uncovered a cache of over 300 cuneiform tablets. These tablets recorded select diplomatic correspondence of the Pharaoh and were predominantly written in Akkadian, the lingua franca commonly used during the Late Bronze Age of the Ancient Near East for such communication. This discovery led to the recognition of the importance of the site, and led to a further increase in exploration.Amarna art-style
The Amarna art-style broke with long-established Egyptian conventions. Unlike the strict idealistic formalism of previous Egyptian art, it depicted its subjects more realistically. These included informal scenes, such as intimate portrayals of affection within the royal family or playing with their children, and no longer portrayed women as lighter coloured than men. The art also had a realism that sometimes borders on caricature.While the worship of Aten was later referred to as the Amarna heresy and suppressed, this art had a more lasting legacy.