A quick look at the events surrounding the formation of the city of Akhetaten
The Amarna Period took place at the end of the 18th Dynasty in Egypt between 1353-1322 BCE and refers to the reigns of pharaoh’s Amenophis IV (Akhenaten), Nefernefruaten, Smenkhkare, and Tutankhamun, see Figure 1. The 18th Dynasty was a period which started the New Kingdom era and was also noted for the reign of Hatshepsut (c.1473-1458 BCE), the second confirmed female pharaoh. Under the reign of Amenophis III / Amenhotep III (c.1390-1353 BCE), Egypt saw unprecedented prosperity and reached the peak of its artistic and international power. Amenophis III embarked on many construction projects including the expansion of the temple of Karnak and the Colossi of Memnon built to guard the entrance to his mortuary temple the largest to have been built in Egypt (Kozloff, 2012, pp. 122–124). Before his death, Amenophis III had created more statues of himself than any other pharaoh totalling over 250 and was known as Amenhotep the Magnificent. However, at the time of his death the Amun priesthood, the most powerful of the religious cults, had grown in wealth to a point where they were a religious and political power potentially rivalling that of pharaoh (Reeves, 2019).
Figure 1, chronology of the Amarna Period (Kemp, 2012, p. 304)
After the death of Amenophis III his son Amenophis IV became pharaoh and proclaimed that both his father and the sun-god Aten had become one; a move towards re-establishing the divinity of the pharaoh. This meant that the kingship past, present, and future were fused as one divine entity through the Aten (Reeves, 2019). By elevating his father to that of a divine being and positioning himself as the sole earthly connection to him, Akhenaten was beginning a calculated move to ensure pharaoh was the supreme power throughout Egypt. By becoming the sole representative and ‘high priest’ of the Aten, the only way the people could connect with the Aten was through Akhenaten. To indorse this religious move, in year 5 of his reign, Amenophis IV changed his name from Amenophis, ‘The god Amun is content’, to Akhenaten, ‘He who is effective on the Aten’s behalf’.
To secure his new religion Akhenaten had to dismantle the power of the other religious sects and the most complete way of doing this was to abandon both Memphis, Egypt’s administrative capital and Thebes, the religious centre. A new religious and administrative capital would be built at the mid-point between the two from which the pharaoh could rule under the one god, the Aten. The location of the new city was to be on virgin land, untouched and unoccupied, therefore politically neutral. The cliffs to the east of the chosen site included a small valley entrance gap which resembled the hieroglyph akhet, ‘horizon’, where the sun-god would be reborn at the start of each day. The ‘Horizon of the Aten’ or Akhet-Aten was the name given to the area within which was built the city.
The move to Akhetaten began with the marking of the boundary through a series of proclamations carved into rock-cut stelae as to the extents of and structures to be constructed within Akhetaten. The first of the stelae to be discovered in modern times was by Claude Sicard in 1714 and has been given the name stela A with the remaining stelae also following an alphabetic nomenclature. The total number of stelae found to-date is 15 and their locations are shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2, locations of the boundary stelae (Barry Kemp)
Akhenaten set out in his proclamation what structures would be built (Kemp, 2017) and these included the House of Aten, the Mansion of the Aten, the Sun Temple for Nefertiti, the House of Rejoicing (for jubilee festivals), the Pharaoh’s Residence, and a residence for Nefertiti. In the cliffs he declared that his tomb and those of his wife Nefertiti and their daughter Meritaten would be constructed. Akhenaten also declared that a tomb for the Mnevis bull would be created, showing a tolerance to other religions which is slightly at odds with the general thinking regarding perceived fanatical monotheistic ideology. Within the northern cliff’s, tombs for his high advisers and priests would be built and to the south, tombs for high officials.
The construction of Akhetaten began with the building of the first altar to the Aten which would later become the Small Aten Temple. To the north of this was constructed a small palace and beyond this a larger temple was begun which would become the Great Aten Temple. The North and South Palaces followed shortly after and in year 6 Akhenaten moved his whole court to Akhetaten.
The Aten was not represented as a statue to be worshiped within a dark chamber deep inside a temple. The temple architecture did not follow the enclosed structures normally found elsewhere in Egypt and were built as open-air constructs to allow direct access to the sun-god. This design was a continuation of the Gem-pa-Aten (‘the Aten is found’) temple structure constructed by Akhenaten at Karnak a few years earlier (Montserrat, 2000, p. 15). As the god was visible throughout the daylight hours, the Aten was presented as a solar disk with its rays stretching outwards terminating in hands which, in later versions, would each hold an ankh, the symbol for ‘life’. The disc form of the Aten, along with the royal family worshiping it, decorated the temples and palaces throughout Akhetaten. The presence of the Aten is always shown as showering its rays of light only on the royal family and no one else, reaffirming the power of Akhenaten; a confusing situation given the sun-drenched nature of Egypt. The priestly hierarchy and daily routine of the old religion was streamlined (Teeter, 2011, p. 193) and the Aten priesthood’s primary function dealt with the daily offerings and acting as the servants of the god, which by default meant the pharaoh as the sole representative on earth.
Religion and politics have always brought about power struggles and bloodshed and, although we do not know the extent as to the dangers within the royal court, we can be confident that pharaoh would need to maintain a heightened state of security during the changes he was making. We also know that the idea of relocating the capital was not a new one for Egypt. The founder of the 12th Dynasty, Amenemhat I also known as Ammenemes I (1991-1962 BCE), had previously abandoned Thebes to establish a new capital named Amenemhat-itj-tawy (Itjtawy), in the Faiyum region. Unfortunately for Ammenemes I he was assassinated by his own guards while his son, Senusret I was on a campaign in Libya (Simpson, 2003a). The events are recorded in ‘The Teaching of King Ammenemes I to His Son Sesostris’ (Simpson, 2003b), written during the early Middle Kingdom (2040-1782 BCE) as is the first reported mention of the ‘itn’, Aten as a deity. It is highly likely that Akhenaten was aware of the teaching of Ammenemes I, recorded in the 18th Dynasty ‘Papyrus Millingen’, as two ostraca have been discovered at Amarna which mention the text (Parkinson, 2000).
It is fair to say that Akhenaten’s actions led to possibly the single biggest upheaval in ancient Egypt, affecting every level of society. The many gods to which the people relied on for daily assistance, had been demoted. The powerful cults of Amun, Horus, Isis, Osiris their statues, processions, rituals, and the offerings associated with them were suppressed. It is possible that the subjugation of these complex cults may have appealed in its simplicity to some Egyptians, but in doing so it also removed the infinite ways one could ask the gods for assistance and protection during daily life (Teeter, 2011, p. 186). How did they react to the loss of a god which was powerful one day and not the next? Did this invalidate their previous prayers and offerings? The priests had lost their power and financial income, what were they to do? The temple support staff and craftsmen employed to produce objects necessary for worship were also out of work. The transition was not likely to be easy and resentment certainly built up however it is entirely plausible that Akhenaten did not enforce the sole worship of the Aten but rather promoted the Aten as the most powerful, to which all others were subservient much in the way that Amun had been prior. Evidence of this can be seen at Amarna where the religion of the old gods continued albeit at a much less obvious way through private worship (Kemp, 2012). Akhenaten may have been a religious fanatic, or he could have been a ruthless politician, but he must also have been aware of the fate of Ammenemes I and would need to ensure he did not succumb to the same fate. The overthrow of the Amun priesthood and the construction of Akhetaten was only part of his plan and it was his religious reforms that would ensure the loyalty of his subjects.
For a millennia people had believed that the darkness of night (and the afterlife) was inhabited by demons, gods, and all sorts of horrors which would devour all those who did not live their lives honourably. The fate of an individual had always been in their own hands and that by living a virtuous life they would be rewarded with a rich and good life in the hereafter. However, in the Amarna Period the realm of the dead was simply the absence of light (and life) from the Aten. It was Akhenaten, as the earthly representative of the Aten, who gave life after death and as such the safety of the eternal soul was not found through the good deeds you did in life but in your devout service to the pharaoh. This is evidenced in the tomb paintings which traditionally would have focused on the daily life and achievements of the deceased alongside their dutiful worship of the gods. In the Amarna tomb paintings, the occupant is relegated to a small figure and the focus is on the royal family worshipping the Aten and bestowing gifts to the deceased for loyal service. It was palace life and the processional activities of the royal family throughout the city which were made large, not the residence or accomplishments of the deceased. The tomb occupant no longer had any real control over their own eternal life, which was at the mercy of the pharaoh. Traditional belief also held that the ba (energy) of the deceased would leave the tomb at sunrise as a human-headed bird and re-join the living, free to go where it pleased and drink from the Nile. In the Amarna Period the ba was allowed to visit the city, mix with the living, enjoy the rays of the Aten, and eat the ‘unused offerings of your father Aten’ from the altars in the Great Aten Temple (Murnane, 1995, p. 112). Akhenaten was not only the almighty power in life, but he was in complete control of the afterlife. The people had to pledge their loyalty or risk their very existence in eternity.
Between years 8 and 12 Akhenaten refocused his attention back to the cult of Amun who had continued to function albeit in a reduced capacity in opposition to the new religion. This time a true persecution was to take place as Akhenaten instigated a purge of the god Amun’s name from all monuments. The fear was so great that the Egyptian people themselves ground out and removed the name of Amun from personal possessions to not be caught. Paranoia gripped the population; there was a real danger that watchful eyes were ready to inform on one another to the authorities (Reeves, 2019, p. 152).
If Akhenaten was moving towards establishing total control of his people, the same cannot be said for the foreign powers. Akhenaten was so concerned with his domestic issues that he neglected his foreign affairs. The Amarna tablets show evidence of this as correspondence between Egypt and its foreign territories (Moran, 1992; Mynářová, 2007; Rainey, 2015). This was most noticeable in year 12 when a revolt occurred in Nubia and Akhenaten ordered the King’s son of Kush, Thutmose the Viceroy of Nubia, to deal with it. In the north towards Syria, vassal kings pleaded with Akhenaten for support to quell local fighting between countries for fear of losing their lands. However, in the same year 12 there is evidence of foreign dignitaries paying tribute to Akhenaten and Nefertiti, probably at the site of the Desert Altars, depicted in the tombs of Huya and Meryre II shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3, paying tribute to Akhenaten in year 12, tomb of Meryra II (de G. Davies, 1905, p. pl. XXXVII)
The period between year 12 and 14 brought sorrow to Akhenaten’s’ court in the death of Meketaten the second daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, along with Kiya the secondary wife of Akhenaten, and Queen Tiye the mother of Akhenaten. In grief it may have been that Akhenaten decided to focus on a rebuild of the Great Aten Temple as there is evidence of the site being cleared in part and a rebuild having taken place at this time (Kemp, 2014, p. 6).
The last few years of Akhenaten have caused much debate. Nefertiti may have ruled alongside him as coregent (alluded to in the tribute wall painting where she is sitting alongside her husband as an equal) or have fallen out of favour for possibly moving away from the Atenist religion back towards the old gods. In year 17 Akhenaten died and his successor was named as Neferneferuaten or Smenkhare. Scholars have argued whether this was a brother of Akhenaten, another son of his, or Queen Nefertiti (Aldred, 1968; Kemp, 2012; Reeves, 2019). However, within two years this king disappeared from the record, and Tutankhaten ascended the throne transferring the capital back to Thebes, reinstating the worship of the old gods in the process, and changing his name to Tutankhamun. Within nine years he too would be dead whether through illness or foul means and his successor Ay took the throne. This again was to be a short reign as four years later General Horemheb succeeded in becoming the last pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty.
Horemheb ensured that the ‘heretic’ Pharaoh Akhenaten and his successors Neferneferuaten, Smenkhkare, Tutankhamun, and Ay were removed from the historical record. As part of this, Horemheb had all representation of these Pharaohs erased from public record and began the systematic dismantling of the city at Amarna. The inscribed King’s Lists at Abydos (inscribed 1290-1279 BCE) and Saqqara (inscribed 1279-1213 BCE) both show Horemheb immediately following Amenhotep III, Akhenaten’s father, as Pharaoh (Figure 4). As time passed it may have been that the memory of the Amarna period faded. However, by the third century BCE the Egyptian priest Manetho wrote a history of Egypt in Greek, the Aegyptiaca, an important source of information regarding the chronology of the pharaohs of ancient Egypt (Waddell, 1940). Manetho constructed the king list in the form of dynasties where the kings were grouped by location or extended genealogy, establishing a framework still in use today. The 18th dynasty Amarna period pharaohs are difficult to determine accurately, with Akhenaten potentially identified as Chenchres or Akencheres (St. J. Thackeray, 1926, p. 200). It is during the reign of ‘Achencheres’ that Manetho states Moses became the leader of the Hebrews in their exodus from Egypt and thereby fuelling the minds of many modern authors as to a connection between Akhenaten and Moses (Waddell, 1940, p. 119; Montserrat, 2000; Osman, 2011).
Figure 4, Royal Cartouches of the 18th Dynasty Pharaohs at Abydos. No 73 is Amenhotep III and No 74 is Horemheb.
(image Wikimedia Commons)
The Amarna Period, although short lived, is a fascinating narrative but one which plays out at the topmost levels of society. The city of Akhetaten at Amarna however allows for the stories belonging to its inhabitants to be explored as a snapshot of Egyptian life during this period. Expeditions and surveys conducted since the 1700s have brought about a wealth of archaeological material much of which can be used to construct the environment as it may have been in antiquity along with the daily activities of those who lived there at the time.
Aldred, C. (1968) Akhenaten: Pharaoh of Egypt. London: Thames and Hudson.
de G. Davies, N. (1905) The Rock Tombs of El Amarna: Part II. The Tombs of PANEHESY AND MERYRA II. London: Egypt Exploration Society.
St. J. Thackeray, H. (1926) Josephus. With an English translation. In Eight Volumes. Vol. 1: The Life / Against Apion. London: William Heinemann.
Kemp, B. (2012) The city of Akhenaten and Nefertiti: Amarna and its people. London: Thames and Hudson.
Kemp, B. (2014) ‘Horizon 15’, The Amarna Project and Amarna Trust newsletter. Cambridge, U.K.: The Amarna Trust.
Kemp, B. (2017) Amarna the Place: Boundary Stelae, The Amarna Project. Available at: https://www.amarnaproject.com/pages/amarna_the_place/boundary_stelae/index.shtml (Accessed: 14 February 2020).
Kozloff, A. P. (2012) Amenhotep III: Egypt’s Radiant Pharaoh. Cambridge University Press.
Montserrat, D. (2000) AKHENATEN: History, fantasy and ancient Egypt. London/New York: Routledge.
Moran, W. L. (1992) The Amarna Letters. London: John Hopkins University Press.
Murnane, W. J. (1995) Texts from the Amarna Period in Egypt. Atlanta: Scholars Press.
Mynářová, J. (2007) Language of Amarna – Language of Diplomacy. Prague: Czech Institute of Egyptology, Charles University in Prague/Agama.
Osman, A. (2011) Moses and Akhenaten: The Secret History of Egypt at the Time of the Exodus. Vermont: Bear and Company.
Parkinson, R. B. (2000) ‘The Teaching of King Amenemhat I at el-Amarna: EA 57458 and 57479’, in Leahy, A. and Tait, W. J. (eds) Studies on Ancient Egypt in Honour of H. S. Smith. London: Egypt Exploration Society, pp. 221–6.
Rainey, A. F. (2015) The El-Amarna Correspondence (2 vol. set): A New Edition of the Cuneiform Letters from the Site of El-Amarna based on Collations of all Extant Tablets. Edited by W. M. Schniedewind and Z. Cochavi-Rainey. Leiden / Boston: Brill.
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Teeter, E. (2011) Religion and Ritual in Ancient Egypt. Cambridge University Press.
Waddell, W. G. (1940) Manetho, with an English translation. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
The ancient capital of Akhetaten lies some 365 miles south of Cairo in a natural amphitheater between inhospitable cliffs. This narrow opening exists for some twelve kilometers along the Nile River and has a half rounded depth of about five kilometers.
This is the place where, in about the fifth year of the king's reign, we are told that by divine inspiration, Akhenaten build his capital.
The General Area
The plan of the area of el-Amarna
Located on the eastern side of the Nile River, El-Amarna, like all other ancient Egyptian capitals, was made up of temples, government establishments, utilitarian facilities such as grain silos and bakeries, palaces and common mudbrick homes, several necropolises, as well as a number of zoos, gardens and other public buildings. In fact, the scope of this city is somewhat amazing if one considers that it was founded in about 1350 BC and abandoned only some twenty years later. The population of the city has been estimated to have been between twenty and fifty thousand inhabitants.
The area of the city and its surrounding property was fixed by copies of decrees carved on fourteen tablets embedded in the cliffs on either side of the river. Hence, these stone slabs are known by Egyptologists as boundary stelae. They not only encompass the city itself, but also fields and villages on the west bank. The most impressive of these today is Stela U, which measures about 7.6 meters from top to bottom and occupies almost the entire height of the cliff in a little bay to the north of the entrance to the Royal Wadi. At the base of this Stela on both sides are the remains of a group of carved statues of the Royal Family.
The Central City
These stelae give a vivid account of the king's selection and dedication of the site for his capital, following instructions from his father Aten when he illuminated a certain spot on the desert at sunrise. Much of the western side of the area, including houses, harbors and the main palace of the king, was obscured under the modern cultivation. However, there are a large number of structures that have been preserved in the desert to the east, and in general, most of the layout is discernable from foundations.
The area is divided into suburbs, with the so-called "central city" housing the Royal Palace and The Great Temple (The Per-Aten), as well as various buildings archaeologists have labeled official (police, taxes...). It is here in one such building, the 'records office', that the Amarna Letters were found by a peasant woman. This area of Amarna was completely excavated in the 1930s. The other residential areas consist of the North City or Suburb, the Main or South City, and the worker's village.
The central City was apparently carefully planned, while the other residential zones where not. In these other areas, the spaces between the earliest large houses was gradually filled up with smaller clusters of homes.
The Central City
There was an ancient road that led in from the north to the Central City, which took an identical path to the modern road of today. It is the central city that the scenes in the North Tombs depict, though the layout of this part of the area requires time and patience to follow now due to decay. Within a generation of Akhenaten's reign, most of the building material was removed, leaving mud brickwork that is now mostly gone.
The chronology of the buildings here can be fairly well determined. The Chapel in the Great Temple and the royal estate were built first, followed closely between year six and nine by the temenos wall of the Great Temple and its sanctuary, replacing the earlier chapel. The palace was begun but never completed.
The main street here is the Royal Road which is a modern name. It comes from the south and passes through the old South City moving into the Central City between the official palace and the royal estate, where it is spanned by a bridge and broadens into a square in front of the entrance facade of the Great Temple. To the east runs the West Road, continuing the High Priest Street of the South City and passing by the Records Office and stopping at the temple magazines.
Layout of the Central City
The city was dissected by two east-west streets that met the West road. The southern one stretches between the king's house and the small temple and then the records office and the clerks' houses to the south and reaches the army headquarters. The second street passes to the north of the royal estate along the southern side of the magazines. This entire district was deserted in the third year of Tutankhamun's reign.
The Temples
Here, we find the Great Aten Temple as well the Small Aten Temple. Temples at Amarna are considerably different then most cult temples of ancient Egypt. They were, of course, solar temples, with the essential elements consisting of a small obelisk on a high base and an altar. Though solar temples had been built during the Old Kingdom, the worship of the Aten did not require the equipment and architectural elements found in these older establishments, with the exception of the altar. There was no need for a naos because there is no deity to be sheltered.
However, some temple elements are essential. These attributes include a general rectangular plan enclosed within a tremenos wall which is symmetrically about a longitudinal axis and orientation with the facade facing the west. There are also the pylons as entrance fronts to courts together with a circuitous entrance to conceal the interior from the eyes of the uninitiated. There must also be a slaughter court, the altar and trees flanking the entrance approach. Most of these features, which had been characteristic of Egyptian Temples since Archaic Period, could not easily be absent even at Amarna.
The most basic element of an Aten temple is the altar, to which a ramp or stairway ascends from the west in the middle of the court, surrounded by a temenos wall. The altar platform could occasionally be surrounded by a wall and fronted with a porch. Some also could be abutted by four ramps oriented toward the cardinal points. The altar was usually surrounded by rows of offering tables. The court housing the altar could also be preceded by another court or more.
The Great Temple of the Aten
The Great Aten Temple is on the northern edge of the Central City. It is partly covered over by the modern cemetery of el-Till. The enclosure wall for this temple extended back from the modern road for some 750 meters, and is now represented by a low, straight ridge. Within, the sanctuary was very similar to that in the Small Aten Temple and is marked by a group of isolated rubble heaps near the back.
Bakeries
There is a long, low mound to the south of the temple running east-west with visible broken pottery. This pottery is actually broken bread moulds, and the line marks the site of the central bakeries.
The Bridge
At the end of this ridge is the massive foundations for a bridge that crossed the so called Royal Road in front of the King's House by means of brick piers. There remains some ancient timbers that once bound the brickwork together. On the far side of the road was the Great Palace, consisting of a complex of courts and halls of which only foundations remain.
The Small Temple of the Aten
In recent years, some consolidation and restoration has been carried out at the Small Aten Temple. This included the erection of a replica column. A prominent brick enclosure wall also remains, which was once strengthened by towers on the outside. There are brick pylons at the entrance, and others which subdivided the interior of this building. In the back of the temple stood the sanctuary originally built of limestone and sandstone.
This temple had a foundation layer of gypsum that is now covered over by sand. However, modern stone blocks have been laid atop the sand in order to provide the basic outlines of this temple.
A circular walk beginning at the middle of the north side of this small temple's enclosure wall reveals other parts of the Central City. There is a tall ridge of sand and some rubble that runs northward from across the street through the middle of a small palace built of mud brick. Known as the King's House, it probably accommodated the Royal Family on their visits from their North Palace. Behind the King's House and the Small Aten Temple (further from the Nile River) were a group of government buildings built of mud brick. This is actually where the famous Amarna Letters were discovered by a peasant lady in 1888.
The Main City Sometimes Known as the South Suburb
A view into the ruins of house of Nakht
Southwards from the Small Aten Temple is The Main City, which was the principal residential area of the ancient city that ran south to the vicinity of the modern village of el-Hagg Qandil. It was the part of the city occupied by the most important people (other than the king), including the vizier Nakht, the high priest Panehsy, the priest Pawah, General Ramose, the architect Manekhtawitf and the sculptor Tuthmosis (Thutmose). Probably connected to this quarter was a river temple, still in use under Ramesses III and even later through perhaps the 26th Dynasty.
It was probably laid out just after the Central City. There is a platform here built in order to allow visitors to view the interior of one of the private houses which has been cleared and repaired in recent years. Though probably a senior official, the owner of the house is unknown. Here, there are also the ruins of grain silos.
Further south, roughly half way between el-Hagg Qandil and the desert edge of the site on the edge of the Main City, the famous bust of Nefertiti was discovered in Thutmose's workshop.
Elsewhere the city has grown up, as cities will, in an irregular haphazard way, as citizens erected buildings where they felt it was convenient. Some suggest Akhenaten lacked the resources to control the rapid growth of his new city and regulate its plan (other Egyptian cities are much more carefully laid out).
North Suburb
The North Suburb is separated from the Central City by a depression. It was apparently dominantly inhabited by essentially a middle-class including a strong mercantile component. It was not begun until the middle of Akhenaten's reign and was abruptly abandoned, apparently at the end of his reign. Afterwards, apparently the houses were re-inhabited by those who could not afford to travel back to Thebes after the end of the Amarna Period.
There were large estates built here initially between the West and East roads, and subsequently middle class houses and slums which apparently even blocked the streets were added.
The North Palace (Palace of Nefertiti)
Still further north is the North Palace that the locals call "The Palace of Nefertiti" (Kasr Nefertiti). This was a self contained residence built along three sides of a long open space, which itself was divided by a wall and pylon. The residential part had gardens and reception rooms with columns along its rear. In the northeast corner is the most famous part of this residence, consisting of a garden court. A central chamber on the north side, known as the "Green Room", was painted with a continuous frieze representing the natural life of the marshes. Each room has a window from which the sunk central garden could be viewed. In recent years, the walls have been somewhat restored and some of the missing column bases have been replaced with modern replicas. There were animal pens further to the west on the north side and also a court containing three solar altars, of which nothing now exits but their foundations. This palace was probably originally built for one of Akhenaten's major queens, but was later converted for use by Princess Meritaten.
The North City
A model of an Armana Estate
Farther to the north where the cultivation ends at the cliffs there is also a North City, which was a separate residential area that served a major palace known as the North Riverside Palace. The palace itself is located just north of the residential area. This was probably the main residence for Akhenaten's family. Most of this is now gone, but there is a length of a massive brick enclosure wall pierced by a huge gateway at the palace.
The Desert Altars
On the road to the North Tombs, one passes a watchmen's house, and a short distance to the west and north of this lie the remains of three large mud-brick solar altars in the form of square platforms with ramps that are known as the Desert Altars. The northernmost of these had four ramps of well-rammed sand and probably an altar in the center.
The Necropolises
The necropolis consists of more than twenty-five tombs facing the base of the cliff front that is located on the east side of the desert plain, which reaches a height of about eighty-five meters and south of the Royal Wadi Six tombs are located at the north side near Darb El-Malik and known as the North Tombs. These were probably tombs owned by fairly high officials, while nineteen more tombs are located in the south and known as the South Tombs. These southern tombs were owned by a mix of officials.
These tombs are built to be highly complicated to ensure that they are protected from thieves. Most of them start with an open court that leads to three chambers. Within these chambers there are papyrus columns that meet in the rear end. There a statue of the dead would have been placed looking toward the entrance.
The North Tombs were once encroached upon by an ancient Coptic Christian settlement, and groups of little stone huts on the hillside below the tombs belong to these people, who converted tomb number six into a Church. From these tombs, there is an excellent view of the valley below.
The South Tombs are the larger of the two groups of tombs. They are cut into the flanks of a low plateau in front of a major break in the cliffs, where the rock is of poor quality. However, here one finds tomb number 25 which was built for the "God's Father", Ay, who would later become pharaoh. Though often not as imposing as the tombs in the north, they do have their charm, as well as more variety. On the other hand, many of the South Tombs contain little or no decoration and some had barely been started before the city was abandoned. Some of these tombs were also used for later burials, and amongst them are pot shards mostly dating from between the 25th and 30th Dynasty.
The Workers (or Eastern) Village
To the east in a little valley on the south side of a low plateau that runs out from the base of the cliffs between the Royal Wadi and the southern tombs there is an interesting settlement dubbed "the workmen's village". It is a walled enclosure of very regular houses along several parallel streets. Archaeologists believed it housed workers working on the rock tombs nearby (which, incidentally, though built for the royalty and courtiers, were mostly never occupied). However, this walled town had a guard house at the only exit, and it seems more likely to have been to keep the workers in than anything out (the main city was protected by no such wall, for the whole site, including the workmen's village, is enclosed by high cliffs).
The Royal Tomb
The Royal Tomb built for Akhenaten lies in a narrow side valley leading off of the Royal Wadi some six kilometers form its mouth. Its basic design and proportions are not unlike those of the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings on the West Bank at Thebes (modern Luxor). However, it was intended for several people, including the king, a princes and probably Queen Tiy so there are additional burial chambers. There is also an unfinished annex that may have been intended for Nefertiti. Here, the quality of the rock is poor, and so the decorations of the tomb were cut into a thin layer of gypsum plaster. Hence, most of the decorations have not survived and most of what is left is in the chambers of princess Meketaten.
Other Ruins
At Kom el-Nana, south of the main city and east of the modern village of el-Hagg Qandil is an enclosure thought to have surrounded another of Akhenaten's sun temples. Recent excavations have revealed brick ceremonial buildings and the foundations of two stone shrines. The northern side was occupied by a Christian monastery during the 5th and 6th centuries, AD. There is also far south of the city an unusual cult center known as the Maru-Aten. While it has completely disappeared under the cultivated land, this appears to have been a special function cult structure. Amarna is unique in Egypt. Even cities built up by foreign rulers did not suffer its fate. It was established most probably from scratch, and appears to have been completely abandoned a short time after Akhenaten's death. Today, considerable research continues at this location that should eventually uncover more of the secrets of the most interesting pharaoh's reign.
Source: touregypt.com
Author: Jimmy Dunn
