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Description
Akhenaten is widely remembered today as the "Heretic Pharaoh", which for most of ancient Egyptian history would've been an oxymoron. The Pharaoh was supposed to be the incarnation of the gods on Earth, the direct go-between for Heaven and the realm of mortals. Akhenaten, though, took this idea to a whole different ballpark. Widely cited as the founder of one of the world's oldest recorded monotheistic religions, Akhenaten is a complex character that can either be seen as a misunderstood revisionist or a zealous tyrant. Under his reign, which lasted from 1353 to 1336 BCE, he promoted the worship of the Aten. The Aten was the sun disc, which before was just an obscure aspect of more popular sun gods like Ra and Horus. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for sun worship. The sun is a 4 billion year old nuclear detonation 333,000 times the mass of our pale blue marble whose light and heat graciously permits us to exist while simultaneously having the power to annihilate society as we know it with one giant electromagnetic fireball. If there's any real physical object we should be appeasing, it's the eldritch monstrosity we call the sun. I'm not, however, a fan of abolishing everyone else's gods just because some lanky dude in a funny hat says his new OC do not steal is the bestest god ever now. That is, to use a historical term, totes uncool bro. But I'm getting ahead of myself. How did we get here? Well presumably you got here via the internet and I got here through a series of long difficult life choices, but you're not here to read my story. Wacka wacka.

Akhenaten started his life as Amenhotep IV, second son of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III. As his older brother Thutmose died before their father, the throne instead passed to Amenhotep IV when Amenhotep III died in 1351 BCE. Now this is pure speculation, but the man who would become Akhenaten is clearly dripping with daddy issues. See, towards the end of his life, Amenhotep III started to put heavy emphasis on sun worship, though he wasn't as antagonistic towards other gods as his son would be. The king would begin to identify himself directly as the sun god Aten, more so than the way Pharaoh's are usually deified. When Akhenaten started really getting into Atenism later in his reign, he would describe himself as the literal biological son of the Aten, and the only one who had any real connection to this god, who's totally gonna come back with the milk after buying cigarettes in Heaven guys! Indeed, while the Aten did have a minor following in scattered pockets throughout Egypt already, Akhenaten took the cult to an absolutely obsessive level.

When he took the throne, he almost immediately started building temples to the sun god Ra-Horakhty in Thebes and Karnak, places usually reserved for Egypt's chief deity, Amun. However, he kept cramming in these awkward epithets to identify Ra-Horakhty with the Aten, and in the fifth year of his reign he himself changed his name to Akhenaten, which means "Beneficial to Aten". Again, if we lean into the theory that his obsession with the Aten was linked to his father, man is just dripping with daddy issues. This really rubbed the priesthood of Amun the wrong way, and Akhenaten's totally rational response was to say "shuddup mom! You can't send me to my room, I send myself to my room!" or something like that. He proceeded to begin construction on an entirely new capital city in the middle of nowhere which I have mistakenly claimed was named after him in previous entries. The city was actually called "Akhetaten", which means "horizon of Aten". I know, how could I possibly have made such an obvious error. My foolishness has been amended and forty lashes have been issued.

Akhetaten, later renamed Amarna because clearly the ancients were just as confused as I was, was dedicated entirely to the Aten. Like entirely. There were no priests to Amun or any other gods established in this new city. The temples to the Aten constructed within the city were also designed differently, being predominantly roofless. Which to be fair, makes pretty obvious sense from a theological perspective, but if you've ever read a book, you know Egypt is smack in the middle of the desert. For four years, the workers hired to build the city had to suffer constant heat stroke just to build something that literally only Akhenaten was happy with. Hilariously, we even have actual records from Mesopotamian kings bitching to Akhenaten about how their ambassadors came back sunburnt. In addition to pissing off all his peers, the hip new artstyle that Akhenaten commissioned at Akhetaten was an existential nightmare for the people of Egypt. See, the reason why people in Egyptian art walk like an Egyptian is because they believed a person's body had to be portrayed in its entirety or else the person would be missing body parts in the afterlife. Akhenaten though said nah it's good and had himself depicted with strange proportions and in such settings most unbefitting a Pharaoh like… loving his wife and children. Gasp! Disgusting.

This was unpopular enough, but it really started to become an actual problem when Akhenaten ordered that all temples to all other gods be desecrated, as he believed only the Aten was the supreme being of all creation. He had a particular grudge against temples of Amun, which has led some to suspect he was trying to curb the influence that the priesthood of Amun had over the government. He might have, we just don't know, but he didn't do it particularly well either. He just replaced a well-established institution of bureaucrats that were popular with all walks of Egyptian life with his own personal throne at the expense of everyone else's religion. The economy crashed as all of Egypt's funds went into speed-building Akhenaten's new city, and the Heretic Pharaoh spent most of his despotic reign suppressing revolts and sending secret police to make sure no one was worshiping Amun behind his back. All this taken into account, it's not that surprising that when he finally kicked the bucket in 1336 BCE, his successors would go out of their way to literally scratch his name out of every historical record they could find. When his very young son Tutankhaten took the throne in 1334 BCE, his viziers pretty much used the kid as a mouthpiece to undo all of his father's policies. He even changed his name from Tutankhaten to Tutankhamun, and presumably was given a lollipop for being such a good little Pharaoh. Akhenaten was thus largely forgotten until agents of Napoleon discovered the ruins of Amarna centuries later. Since the Heretic Pharaoh has reentered the historical record, his tale can be similarly dug up. Apparently there's even an opera that's been made of his life. I tried to watch it, got about 5 minutes in, and then realized that I hate opera. I don't think that necessarily reflects on Akhenaten per se, but now you have a new cocktail fact.

Design notes, this one was tricky. Since most depictions of Akhenaten have been purposefully destroyed, there's only a handful of reference images and statues to draw from. In Akhenaten's desecrated tomb, KV55, there's only two articles of clothing I could find in my research, and both of them are pectoral necklaces. After throwing those over his shoulders, I kinda had to improvise the rest. Obviously, Akhenaten is most famous for his unique art style, and I wanted my version to reflect that in some way. In the works that survive, he's got this spindly look with weird proportions and rocking some serious dad bod. This has led some to conclude that he must've actually been an alien or some sort of alien hybrid, because of course, we can't go five minutes talking about ancient Egypt before someone kicks down the door to scream about aliens. I wanted to incorporate the Aten iconography into his outfit, too, which certainly took some finagling, but I got there eventually. This is certainly my favorite out of all the drafts I sketched through, and I'm actually quite happy with how it came out. I can't claim to like the man, but I hope I did justice to a guy who was nearly wiped from history.

Description
Akhenaten is widely remembered today as the "Heretic Pharaoh", which for most of ancient Egyptian history would've been an oxymoron. The Pharaoh was supposed to be the incarnation of the gods on Earth, the direct go-between for Heaven and the realm of mortals. Akhenaten, though, took this idea to a whole different ballpark. Widely cited as the founder of one of the world's oldest recorded monotheistic religions, Akhenaten is a complex character that can either be seen as a misunderstood revisionist or a zealous tyrant. Under his reign, which lasted from 1353 to 1336 BCE, he promoted the worship of the Aten. The Aten was the sun disc, which before was just an obscure aspect of more popular sun gods like Ra and Horus. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for sun worship. The sun is a 4 billion year old nuclear detonation 333,000 times the mass of our pale blue marble whose light and heat graciously permits us to exist while simultaneously having the power to annihilate society as we know it with one giant electromagnetic fireball. If there's any real physical object we should be appeasing, it's the eldritch monstrosity we call the sun. I'm not, however, a fan of abolishing everyone else's gods just because some lanky dude in a funny hat says his new OC do not steal is the bestest god ever now. That is, to use a historical term, totes uncool bro. But I'm getting ahead of myself. How did we get here? Well presumably you got here via the internet and I got here through a series of long difficult life choices, but you're not here to read my story. Wacka wacka.

Akhenaten started his life as Amenhotep IV, second son of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III. As his older brother Thutmose died before their father, the throne instead passed to Amenhotep IV when Amenhotep III died in 1351 BCE. Now this is pure speculation, but the man who would become Akhenaten is clearly dripping with daddy issues. See, towards the end of his life, Amenhotep III started to put heavy emphasis on sun worship, though he wasn't as antagonistic towards other gods as his son would be. The king would begin to identify himself directly as the sun god Aten, more so than the way Pharaoh's are usually deified. When Akhenaten started really getting into Atenism later in his reign, he would describe himself as the literal biological son of the Aten, and the only one who had any real connection to this god, who's totally gonna come back with the milk after buying cigarettes in Heaven guys! Indeed, while the Aten did have a minor following in scattered pockets throughout Egypt already, Akhenaten took the cult to an absolutely obsessive level.

When he took the throne, he almost immediately started building temples to the sun god Ra-Horakhty in Thebes and Karnak, places usually reserved for Egypt's chief deity, Amun. However, he kept cramming in these awkward epithets to identify Ra-Horakhty with the Aten, and in the fifth year of his reign he himself changed his name to Akhenaten, which means "Beneficial to Aten". Again, if we lean into the theory that his obsession with the Aten was linked to his father, man is just dripping with daddy issues. This really rubbed the priesthood of Amun the wrong way, and Akhenaten's totally rational response was to say "shuddup mom! You can't send me to my room, I send myself to my room!" or something like that. He proceeded to begin construction on an entirely new capital city in the middle of nowhere which I have mistakenly claimed was named after him in previous entries. The city was actually called "Akhetaten", which means "horizon of Aten". I know, how could I possibly have made such an obvious error. My foolishness has been amended and forty lashes have been issued.

Akhetaten, later renamed Amarna because clearly the ancients were just as confused as I was, was dedicated entirely to the Aten. Like entirely. There were no priests to Amun or any other gods established in this new city. The temples to the Aten constructed within the city were also designed differently, being predominantly roofless. Which to be fair, makes pretty obvious sense from a theological perspective, but if you've ever read a book, you know Egypt is smack in the middle of the desert. For four years, the workers hired to build the city had to suffer constant heat stroke just to build something that literally only Akhenaten was happy with. Hilariously, we even have actual records from Mesopotamian kings bitching to Akhenaten about how their ambassadors came back sunburnt. In addition to pissing off all his peers, the hip new artstyle that Akhenaten commissioned at Akhetaten was an existential nightmare for the people of Egypt. See, the reason why people in Egyptian art walk like an Egyptian is because they believed a person's body had to be portrayed in its entirety or else the person would be missing body parts in the afterlife. Akhenaten though said nah it's good and had himself depicted with strange proportions and in such settings most unbefitting a Pharaoh like… loving his wife and children. Gasp! Disgusting.

This was unpopular enough, but it really started to become an actual problem when Akhenaten ordered that all temples to all other gods be desecrated, as he believed only the Aten was the supreme being of all creation. He had a particular grudge against temples of Amun, which has led some to suspect he was trying to curb the influence that the priesthood of Amun had over the government. He might have, we just don't know, but he didn't do it particularly well either. He just replaced a well-established institution of bureaucrats that were popular with all walks of Egyptian life with his own personal throne at the expense of everyone else's religion. The economy crashed as all of Egypt's funds went into speed-building Akhenaten's new city, and the Heretic Pharaoh spent most of his despotic reign suppressing revolts and sending secret police to make sure no one was worshiping Amun behind his back. All this taken into account, it's not that surprising that when he finally kicked the bucket in 1336 BCE, his successors would go out of their way to literally scratch his name out of every historical record they could find. When his very young son Tutankhaten took the throne in 1334 BCE, his viziers pretty much used the kid as a mouthpiece to undo all of his father's policies. He even changed his name from Tutankhaten to Tutankhamun, and presumably was given a lollipop for being such a good little Pharaoh. Akhenaten was thus largely forgotten until agents of Napoleon discovered the ruins of Amarna centuries later. Since the Heretic Pharaoh has reentered the historical record, his tale can be similarly dug up. Apparently there's even an opera that's been made of his life. I tried to watch it, got about 5 minutes in, and then realized that I hate opera. I don't think that necessarily reflects on Akhenaten per se, but now you have a new cocktail fact.

Design notes, this one was tricky. Since most depictions of Akhenaten have been purposefully destroyed, there's only a handful of reference images and statues to draw from. In Akhenaten's desecrated tomb, KV55, there's only two articles of clothing I could find in my research, and both of them are pectoral necklaces. After throwing those over his shoulders, I kinda had to improvise the rest. Obviously, Akhenaten is most famous for his unique art style, and I wanted my version to reflect that in some way. In the works that survive, he's got this spindly look with weird proportions and rocking some serious dad bod. This has led some to conclude that he must've actually been an alien or some sort of alien hybrid, because of course, we can't go five minutes talking about ancient Egypt before someone kicks down the door to scream about aliens. I wanted to incorporate the Aten iconography into his outfit, too, which certainly took some finagling, but I got there eventually. This is certainly my favorite out of all the drafts I sketched through, and I'm actually quite happy with how it came out. I can't claim to like the man, but I hope I did justice to a guy who was nearly wiped from history.