AKHENATEN AND THE AMARNA PERIOD

The New Kingdom emerged in 1550 B.C. when the Middle Kingdom collapsed with the invasion of Egypt by the Hyksos from the east. After Amosis expelled the Hyksos and built the Eighteenth Dynasty, the pharaohs’ objective was to make sure that the shameful and chaotic time the Egyptians encountered during the Hyksos invasion would not happen again.

One of the popular Eighteenth Dynasty pharaohs is Akhenaten, known for being the “heretic king”. His nonconformity to the Egyptian’s religious beliefs and traditions was highly recognized when he carried a revolution, also known as the Amarna Period, by rejecting the pantheon of Egyptian Gods, particularly dethroning Amun-Ra, the god of kings and the king of gods. He then attempted to impose the idea of monotheism as a concept of living, worshipping Aten as the supreme and only god, which was undeniably interpreted by the Egyptian art that had flourished, with sense of pure realism, under his reign. The king serves as the link between Aten and the people and uses art as the way of doing things way beyond tradition. Although in modern times, we could consider this concept as beautiful as well as majestic in its own way, there is no denying the effect of such representation to those Egyptians that have never been exposed to anything other than ancestral art.

The Amarna style sculpture showing Akhenaten, Nefertiti and their three daughters with Aten, symbolized by a disk with extending rays of protective hands, portrays their dialogue of love and royal intimacy. American art historian Helen Gardner wrote the following:

The sunken relief stele, perhaps from a private shrine, provided a rare look at this royal family. The mood is informal and anecdotal. Akhenaton lifts one of his daughters in order to kiss her. Another daughter sits on Nefertiti’s lap and gestures toward her father while the youngest daughter reaches out to touch a pendant on her mother’s crown. Such an intimate portrayal of the pharaoh and his family is unprecedented in Egyptian art. (p. 65-66)

Another example of this extraordinary form of realism in art, though not as popular as the one mentioned earlier, is the sculpture of Mai and his wife Urel, as part of a funerary banquet scene in the Tomb of Ramose in Thebes. The irrefutable similarities of these sculptures are the truly intimate expression of love and the appearance of what seems to be lotus flowers that symbolize eternal renewal. Even though there are certain distinctions in the sculptures; (1) the former had the two main figures facing each other while the latter’s figures were facing the right side, (2) Akhenaten and Nefertiti’s relief includes their children whilst Mai and Urel’s were portrayed with no trace of offspring, (3) Aten, who was worshipped by Akhenaten, is not present in the second sculpture; it is not really hard to see what both sculptures were trying to express: an attempt to show the purity of genuine love.

Though the Amarna period is still one of the things the Egyptian art should be proud of, it was destined to fail. Akhenaten’s successors, particularly Tutankhamun and Horemheb, created one might call a counter-revolution that restored the customary beliefs.



References

Gardner, H., Kleiner, F. S., & Mamiya C. J. (2005). Royal Intimacy. Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 66-65.