In short
Year 12 of Akhenaten’s reign at Amarna (Akhetaten) culminates in a lavish “darbar” tribute ceremony, but the episode argues the revolution collapses rapidly: deaths begin within a year, Amarna is abandoned within two decades, and Akhenaten’s name is erased and his images destroyed.
Guest
Professor Aidan Dodson (University of Bristol), author of Amarna Sunset, described as a leading authority on the Amarna period.
Key claims
Amarna’s utopian, Aten-centered city (open-air temple, cliff tombs, distinctive art) is built around one man’s vision and becomes unsustainable when he falters. Early cracks include deaths of Akhenaten’s daughters (including Meketaten; likely also Neferneferuaten and Setepenre) and evidence of malnutrition and overwork among workers. A working hypothesis is a plague/pandemic introduced by diplomatic visitors. Foreign pleas in the Amarna letters (notably Rib-Addi of Byblos) go unanswered, reflecting worsening governance and/or neglect. After Akhenaten’s death, Aten worship is dismantled quickly; Ammon cult returns within 1–2 years; later, KV55 mummies are desecrated.
Notable examples
The mourning scenes for Meketaten; Hittite plague prayer; Rib-Addi’s repeated letters; KV55 deliberate face/insignia destruction; Tutankhamun’s Restoration Stela describing temples fallen into ruin.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOAkhenaten's Zenith and Collapse
0:46 to 2:01
Explore the peak of Akhenaten's power and the beginnings of his downfall.
“Dozens of figures prostrated before the king and his queen, the rays of the Aten pouring down on all of them, Akhenaten and Nefertiti, at the absolute zenith of their power, the revolution.”
Introducing Professor Aidan Dodson
2:01 to 2:28
Introduction of Professor Aidan Dodson, an expert on the Amarna period.
“Eric Klein brought us the world Akhenaten was born into.”
Life in Amarna: The New Capital
2:28 to 4:32
Discussion on the features and significance of Amarna as a new capital.
“And I can't not notice the enormous, and I'm going to call it a sarcophagus because that's what it looks like to me, Aidan, right behind you.”
Art and Culture of Amarna
4:32 to 7:50
Examination of the unique art style and cultural representations in Amarna.
“Because in the past, Thebes had been the religious capital, Memphis the political capital, and principal royal resident.”
Signs of Trouble in Akhenaten's Reign
7:50 to 11:28
Analysis of the early indicators of trouble during Akhenaten's reign.
“But when you're sort of at the right, at the optimum viewing distance, they're okay.”
Dark Realities of Amarna
11:28 to 14:01
Discussion on the darker aspects and repercussions of life in Amarna.
“And within probably a couple of decades, the place is just simply a village with a few rather dilapidated, ruinous buildings on the edge of it.”
The Human Cost of Akhenaten's Reign
14:01 to 17:08
Explore the dark realities behind the glamorous facade of Akhenaten's rule.
“They're dying in their 20s with skeletal problems and all these sort of things.”
Royal Mourning and Artistic Representation
17:09 to 19:24
Learn about the emotional depictions of royal mourning in ancient Egyptian art.
“So what are the scenes in the tombs that go along with these deaths?”
Pandemic and Plague in Akhenaten's Egypt
19:25 to 22:44
Understand the potential impact of disease during Akhenaten's reign and its aftermath.
“And the thing I wanted to say, it's a good adjacent next town.”
Diplomatic Appeals and Decline
23:02 to 28:00
Examine the unanswered pleas for help during the decline of Akhenaten's Egypt.
“Hattian storm god, my lord and you gods, my lords, it is so that people are dying in Hattiland.”
Show all 18 chapters
Debating Akhenaten's Leadership
28:00 to 29:50
Discussion on Akhenaten's rule, character, and public perception.
“of being in support of them from that direction.”
The Death of Akhenaten
29:50 to 33:32
Exploration of Akhenaten's death and its implications for Egypt.
“is being done or whether something is being done, but not as much as Ribaddy would like there to be.”
Post-Akhenaten Power Dynamics
33:32 to 38:10
Analysis of the political and social changes following Akhenaten's reign.
“because we mentioned at the beginning that he's remembered in ancient Egypt at the time as the criminal of Akhenaten.”
The Decline of Amarna
38:10 to 41:18
Discussion on the decline of the city of Amarna after Akhenaten's death.
“Before we get there, I'm looking to know if KV55 isn't him, have we got his mummy at all or has he been totally destroyed?”
Restoration of the Ammon Cult
41:18 to 42:01
Examination of the restoration of the Ammon cult after Akhenaten's reign.
“a few decades later, what they're doing is now knocking down the temples and reusing the stone for the foundations of new temples on the other side of the river.”
The Restoration of Temples Post-Akhenaten
42:01 to 45:02
Learn about the challenges faced in restoring temples after Akhenaten's reign.
“So the big thing is then, and this takes decades for them to actually restore all of this.”
Reading the Restoration Stella
45:02 to 45:58
Experience a reading from the Restoration Stella detailing the state of Egypt.
“Now when his majesty appeared as king, the temple of the gods and goddesses from Elephantine to the marshes of the delta had fallen into ruin.”
Akhenaten's Legacy and Cultural Shift
45:58 to 48:26
Explore the significant cultural shifts and legacies left by Akhenaten.
“Can I ask you, Aidan, just tell us, what do you think Akhenaten's legacy is?”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00William:If you want access to bonus episodes, reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community, discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.empirepoduk.com.
0:30Anita:Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnhem.
0:33William:And me, William de Rimpel. Now, in the 12th year of his reign, the pharaoh Akhenaten staged the most spectacular ceremony of his rule. From across the known world, delegations came to the new capital city of Amarna, bearing tribute, ivory and gold from Nubia, painted pottery from the Aegean, horses and lapis lazuli from the kingdoms of the Near East, exotic animals, bolts of fine cloth, cedar wood from Lebanon, the tomb paintings of Akhenaten's officials record it in extraordinary detail. Dozens of figures prostrated before the king and his queen, the rays of the Aten pouring down on all of them, Akhenaten and Nefertiti, at the absolute zenith of their power, the revolution.
1:28William:triumphant.
1:29Anita:It was also, as it turned out, the last great moment. Within a year, the deaths would begin. Within five years, Akhenaten himself would be dead. Within two decades, his city would be abandoned, his name erased from every single monument in Egypt. And the priests he had suppressed, well, they would have taken their revenge so thoroughly, so entirely, that he would be remembered in later Egyptian records when he was remembered at all as the criminal of Akhenaten. Eric Klein brought us the world Akhenaten was born into. Lloyd Llewellyn Jones brought us the theology of what he built. Today, the story of how it all fell apart.
2:12Anita:And there is no better guide to that story than our guest who joins us now for his first appearance in this series. He is the author of the definitive account of this extraordinary collapse, Amarna Sunset, the world's leading authority on the Amarna period. We're very happy to welcome Professor Aidan Dodson of the University of Bristol. Very warm welcome to you, Aidan. And I can't not notice the enormous, and I'm going to call it a sarcophagus because that's what it looks like to me, Aidan, right behind you. If you're listening, trust me, it's enorm.
2:44William:But you're not speaking from the British Museum, I take it though.
2:48Anita:Have you half-inched something precious and put it in your house? What's going on? Sadly, it's an inflatable one. Okay.
2:54William:No, it's not one of those many missing pieces from the British Museum that we keep reading about in the papers.
2:59Anita:I know, that was quite the scandalous story. Aidan, if you have anything to confess? Not at all. No, this was bought from the museum shop in St. Louis, Missouri, many, many years ago. That's very disappointing. So, William, where are we starting? Just remind us where we are at the moment.
3:14William:So, this is year 12 of the Amarna Revolution. The Great Bar is about to take place. And it's worth spending a moment looking at this city at its peak. And Nartan has had it built at astonishing speed. And some accounts say it's actually quite jerry-built that when you look inside the kind of gleaming exterior, they've sort of shoved all sorts of rubbish inside. And it's like one of those sort of Indian airports that get built at double speed and then all the bits fall apart.
3:43Anita:You're not flying in for some time to count.
3:46William:There was a, can you remember when the Olympics happened? Yes. All the crooks in Delhi built these bridges that fell as soon as the crowds turned up. Anyway, it was that sort of thing. And within a decade, a city of 20 ,000 or 30 ,000 people had risen from the Bear Desert. And this is a time when there are no other cities of 20 ,000 or 30 ,000 people, except possibly Babylon or Ur of the Cold. Are there any other 20 ,000 people cities at this period in history? One would suspect that Memphis in Egypt certainly is, because that's the really ancient capital. And probably Thebes is similar kind of size, but probably the idea is that...
4:27William:This is not Memphis as in Elvis Presley. No, this is one just outside Cairo. But no, the basic idea is that Amarna replaces Thebes and Memphis. Because in the past, Thebes had been the religious capital, Memphis the political capital, and principal royal resident. Amarna, Akhet Arten, as it was called in ancient times, was intended to replace them both as the political and religious capital. And just to describe it, I'd like to just sort of the image of this city. At its centre, the great temple of Arten, an open-air enclosure of unprecedented size. None of the dark inner sanctuaries of traditional Egyptian temples because Arten required no darkness, no ritual mystery.
5:09William:you just sunlight and you have all these complaints, don't you, from foreign dignitaries. Yes, it's too hot. Why are we sitting out here?
5:16Anita:It's too hot and too sunny. But nonetheless, that was the most important thing. It was the light. And you've also got the cliff tombs cut into the hills on the eastern edge of the city, where Akhenaten's officials were preparing for their eternal resting places. It looked, it felt different. It was all, you know, everywhere around you was the representation of this new religion. And there are scenes of astonishing intimacy as well. Kings and queens and chariots, daughters playing beneath chairs. I mean, they look almost, you know, sort of like the kind of Victorian offerings we have of, you know, mothers dandling their children and everybody loving everyone else.
5:53William:Rather prettier than Victorian versions. I mean, I have to say that I know that everyone is like down on that. I think it's the most, the supreme moment of Egyptian art. The art from this period is astonishingly gorgeous and there's very simple lines.
6:07Anita:You say that, but I think they all look like aliens. They are basically E.T.'s family. I don't like them at all. I think they look weird. So, you know. Now, Amarna art is a bit of a Marmite thing, I think. And I think that most people probably quite like what you might call the mature Amarna art style when it's gone beyond its real sort of shock value stuff at the very, very beginning of the reign. But certainly some of the early stuff where somebody as beautiful as Nefertiti and certainly her later representations and actually her very, very early ones. She's gorgeous. She looks like some kind of famine victim during those first few years.
6:48William:And there's that weird head of, I mean, not head, there's that colossus of Akhenaten himself in the Cairo Museum, isn't there, with these sort of weird lips and tummy, which was one originally of seven or eight lined up against the Temple of Aten. More of that. I think we quit. There were dozens of them originally. And in fact, they were a mixture of Akhenaten and Nefertiti. Although there's only one Nefertiti one surviving in a vaguely decent stage. But yeah, they are heavily distorted. Although somebody has pointed out that if you're standing directly below them and looking up, they're less distorted.
7:21Interesting. The artist has actually adjusted things so that when you're at their feet, because these things are what, about 10, 12 foot tall, if you're standing sort of looking up at them, everything isn't quite as out of line as…
7:36Anita:I love that. So, it's a perspective thing. So, it's actually, it's made for purpose. So, if you're an ant-like human, you'll see a… That's really interesting. I never thought of that. Yeah. And as you said, in some other colossal statues from Egypt of other periods, the ears appear a bit too high. But when you're sort of at the right, at the optimum viewing distance, they're okay. Willie used the word, apart from lapis lazuli, used the word darbar to describe that opening scene of, you know, this splendor and this wealth. And we should explain that the darbar is, Aidan, it's a show, isn't it? It's a show of gifts.
8:15Anita:It's a show of abasants, you know, that people are coming and they're bowing to the most powerful. and it's when you put all your glitz and glamour on full display. That's right, isn't it? Yeah, and the term is simply borrowed from the Indian Empire, whereby you've got the Durbars of George V and people like that. It's one of those cases where we've sort of picked up a word from another culture, and it just seems to be the most appropriate thing for this major event, with everybody coming to bring gifts to the king. To bend the knee, as it were. So, I mean, you know, this all has a utopian quality to it.
8:55Yeah. And I think that was sort of the concept of building this entire new city, was to start from the idea of the art possibly representing a year zero, but also the idea of building a completely new capital city from scratch on a completely virgin site as well, because all the other cities in Egypt go back thousands of years to...
9:18William:Were already incredibly ancient. Yeah, whereas this was taken, and in the texts which Akhenaten provides relating to its foundation, he makes that point. This belonged to no god or goddess. So he's starting from a clean sheet of paper, and in doing so, he then produces what presumably the city planners of the time thought was the optimum, what a capital city should be like. So in many ways, you could argue it being sort of an ancient Egyptian Brasilia or Canberra, or perhaps less kindly Milton Keynes. It's what was thought to be it. I can never look at a man in the same way again now. That's awesome.
9:58William:You're roundabouts with plastic cows on them. But it seems to me the idea is that clearly this is the opportunity for his engineers, his town planners, to build what they believed would work as a capital city. And it's also important to note it's not just simply the urban area. They've also taken over a whole slice of the Nile Valley on the other bank, which has got lots of fields. So the idea is the whole thing is a self-sustaining community with on the east bank, what you might call the urban area, and then on the west bank, many, many acres of fields to support that. And this is all one man's vision, but that contains within it the seeds of its own destruction, right?
10:43William:It's so personal and so centered on this one extraordinary figure that when he falters, and he doesn't bring everyone with him either. It's very much a classic case of revolution from above. You've got somebody who has come to a position of absolute power, and they decide they can do whatever they like, and they do. But of course, yeah, that does mean that often that kind of personal vision may not be shared by everybody or anybody else. It's imposed while that man is still alive. But after that, it's amazing how rapid the whole thing then just collapses. Within three years, the royal family's moved away, back to traditional areas.
11:28And within probably a couple of decades, the place is just simply a village with a few rather dilapidated, ruinous buildings on the edge of it.
11:37Anita:Now, is that possibly because this is such a personal revolution? I mean, it is obviously one man's vision. But let me ask you the question that you're never going to be asked in your lectures. Is it because Akhenaten had daddy issues? Because why? Why? Do we understand why? He suddenly woke up this morning and said, my father, my father's father, my father's father's father, and everyone else has got it all wrong. But I know the true way. I mean, do you have any theory as to why?
12:04William:Well, his daddy was quite keen on Akhenaten too. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a number of issues here. One, I think, is that during that period, not only in Egypt, but elsewhere in the Middle East, there is a move towards an idea of a singularity of divinity, to put it in those terms. Not necessarily one god, but the idea that there is a single sort of fundamental divinity and the gods may well be sort of various aspects. That's a bit of a way in Hinduism where you've got some of these various avatars of deities. So there's sort of a zeitgeist going on. And indeed, his father, Amenhotep III, had been particularly keen on elevating the status of the physical son.
12:50Not necessarily to a full-scale god, but in Egypt there's a bit of a fine line between being a god and not being a god, because there's only one word for divinity, which embraces what we would go from sort of saint all the way through to the flesh god. So Amenhotep III had been very much a promoter of this. And really what Akhenaten does is just takes it one step further from recognizing that the physical globe of the sun is a fundamental building block of life almost. He then takes it further and makes that thing an actual deity in its own right. So nobody had worshipped the Aten before Akhenaten.
13:31Anita:I mean, we talk about this in enormous detail with Lloyd in another podcast. I'd love to know from you, because this is all, you know, the moment of crumbling. When do the first signs of trouble start appearing? Because, I mean, if you went to that del bar, you'd think this is a man who's got it all sewn up. But it's not. So when do you see the first cracks appearing? It looks like it happens almost immediately afterwards. and those cracks you see in the form of the deaths of half of Akhenaten's daughters within probably two or three years and probably his mother as well um so he's lost half of his young family almost overnight and I suspect that that is that is sort of possibly seen as something of a bad omen to start with but also by that time probably people who don't share his vision are becoming more vociferous about it.
14:25And also, there's a more real recognition of the dark underbelly of what's going on at Amarna, in the sense that in the last couple of decades, we've found the cemeteries of various workmen who clearly have been worked to death at a very young age.
14:42William:They're showing signs of malnutrition? They're dying in their 20s with skeletal problems and all these sort of things.
14:50Anita:I mean, I found the thing in National Geographic was like 2013, where they went to the commoners cemetery. And they said that they found, I'll quote it to you, because it's just astonishing, with all of that, you know, sort of bling going on in the royal court, the most stressed and disease ridden of ancient skeletons of Egypt that have been reported to date. So Egypt, in fact, had never had it so bad as it had under Akhenaten. So I think what you've got, though, is there's the superficial glamour, but the actual cost of that, the human cost of that was vast. And I suspect that once they'd actually got to the point of having the big party, then people start looking at each other until you know, okay, this beautiful city, what's it actually done?
15:37And it wouldn't surprise me is if that is when real whispering against the king, where have we gone?
15:45William:We should say that these same workmen who are malnourished and looking as if they're being overworked and having a miserable time, they have as their gods, the old gods. They're not interested in all this sad nonsense. They're still wanting hippopotamus gods and bests if they're giving birth and all the things that they believe in, that their mothers believed in and grandmothers believed in, everything that really matters to these people. So when you go to the workman's villages, which are on the outskirts of Amarna, you're finding all these traditional amulets. So it looks as though, really, that although, of course, nobility is shown being favourable to the art, I suspect that most people actually had in their bottom drawers the old amulets.
16:37So I think most people, it was purely a show of devotion to the regime. And if one looks at history, that's a pretty good example where as soon as the man who has been dictating effectively what people believe has gone, everybody then reverts as rapidly as possible to what they've always believed.
16:58Anita:The commoners may have held onto their secret amulets and their eyes warding off the evil eye or whatever it is. But what about the royal family? Because you started talking about the deaths which preceded the collapse. So what are the scenes in the tombs that go along with these deaths? Can you describe them? Well, in the royal tomb, there's a couple of side chambers which were intended for members of the royal family. There's the king's main burial chamber and there's a number of side ones. And there are three examples of the same sort of stereotyped scene, whereby you've got a dead princess lying on a bed, leaning over it, her parents and her surviving sisters all mourning her.
17:46We've got three of those. One of those is labelled as the death of Meketarton, who is the second daughter. and then there are two more. Unfortunately, they're too badly damaged so we don't know, they're not labelled which ones. However, by approaches of elimination, they have to be the two youngest daughters, Nefer-Neferu-Re and Setepin-Re, who are likely to only have been no older than five at the time of their deaths. Meketartan is probably perhaps 10 when she dies.
18:17Anita:Willie, you dug up this really quite moving passage describing that tomb of Mechataten. I mean, can you maybe share it? Because you shared it with me earlier. Can you share it now with the class and read it for us in your sonorous voice? Is that all right?
Read the full transcript
18:32William:Of course, I'd be happy to. Would you? That's a pretty shocker. Okay, on you go then. In the chamber prepared for the dead princess, the walls show Akhenaten and Nefertiti standing before Abaya. Their bodies bent forward, their arms raised in the gesture of mourning. Beside them, attendants hold their hands to their faces. The king and queen weep openly, an image without precedent in Egyptian royal art, where the ruler was always shown in composed divine authority. Outside the chamber doorway, a nurse holds an infant. Scholars have debated for generations what that infant signifies. Did Meccatartan die in childbirth?
19:16William:Was it a ritual image of the princess reborn? We do not know. We know only that a father and mother stood in that chamber and wept.
19:26Anita:See, I knew you'd do that very well. And the thing I wanted to say, it's a good adjacent next town. The thing is, Aidan, what is to me quite striking about this, and I don't know whether it is true, This is the court of Akanaten where every image is so controlled. The way in which people see things is so organised and at a distance. And yet here you have something that anybody who's ever loved a child or a parent will understand. It's so human. And I think that's the thing about a lot of the art. It is that, that you see the king and queen operating as parents, you know, both at this sort of the worst time we've got here, but also in some of these other scenes where the children are shown playing on their laps.
20:21There's an amazing painting now in Oxford from one of the palaces, which shows all the various princesses lounging around on cushions at their parents' feet. So that's one of the most attractive sides of the whole Amarna episode is the way, is the humanity shown in the art, which in some ways then makes it even more jarring when, as we've been talking about, it appears that the...
20:45William:All the workmen are dying of starvation, yeah. The people who are building this vision are actually being treated probably worse than any other period of Egyptian history, which suggests to me something about Akhenaten's view of himself as being above everything.
21:02Anita:Yeah, the most plausible explanation is that the family is sort of dropping like flies, not because of overwork like the workers and everyone around them, but because of some kind of epidemic disease. I mean, what evidence do we have from that?
21:15William:I'll get you to read, Anita, soon. I think we need a Hittite plague prayer. Me? No. Okay, sure.
21:21Anita:But before we do that, is there actual evidence that there was a plague, she says, warming up her vocal cords? It's certainly circumstantial. And that we know that within a decade of Akhenaten's death, there is certainly a major plague raging in the Hittite lands. Given that we know that there is plague a bit later on, we've got this whole set of sudden deaths in Egypt, only a couple of, only a year or so after, half the known world has actually descended on Egypt. So although we can't prove it, I think a good working hypothesis is that the people who came into Egypt to bring the gifts from diplomatic gifts and so on for the Durbar also brought with them the bacteria or virus, which then becomes a major thing.
22:07William:This is like sort of Boris Johnson's 10 Downing Street. This is a place where... But also then what interestingly happens, if it's came in there, it's then re-exported again at the end of Tutankhamun's reign, when the Hittite plague prayers say that the people who brought in the infection, which kills half the Hittite royal family, actually came from Egypt. So I think what we've got here is a pandemic, which is sort of, there's a wave of it comes into Egypt in one direction, and then possibly with mutations and so on, then goes back out again, and then kills even more people. So this is the perfect cue for our Jane Fonda.
22:50Anita:That's a current reference. It's fine. I'll take it. She's amazing. Okay, let me do this. So this is one of the plague prayers from the Hittites. Hattian storm god, my lord and you gods, my lords, it is so that people are dying in Hattiland. The plague has been rampant in Hattiland ever since the time of the Egyptians were brought back as prisoners. The matter of plague I have not suppressed. I have told it to the storm god, my lord. Now the storm god, my lord, save me, save me. Let the plague cease in Hattieland. Oscar, Oscar nominated performance, Jenny Buckley. At the least. I feel we should take a break here.
23:37William:To recover from the perfection of that performance.
23:40Anita:Join us after the break and when we talk about sort of the rest of this collapse of an extraordinary moment in ancient Egyptian history.
24:01Anita:Welcome back. So while you were all having a little eye down and recovering from that epic reading, I was informed by our learned guest. Yes, Anita, Hattie rather than Hattieland. Hattieland sounds like something out of Alice in Wonderland. Hattie is what I should have said. Anyway, I hope that didn't attract from any of your enjoyment. Willie, I mean, you know, let's talk more about this deteriorating situation because we have a really good glimpse into how bad it got, don't we?
24:28William:We do. And we touched on this with our Eric episode about the Amarna letters, these wonderful little bits of rivita that were dug up, as Anushka likes to put it, our producer. All these extraordinary letters that were dug up when someone was looking for fertilizer. And they contain the diplomatic archives. And what they have over and over again, Aidan, we believe, is that they please for help from Egyptian allies further north that remain unanswered. And people write in and in and in without ever getting a reply saying, what's happened?
25:01Anita:To the point where the pharaoh actually says, would you stop writing to me now? It's really important. Would you stop? Stop writing now. I think the issue here is actually, there's an area where we have some scholarly debates, as you're probably well aware that we have quite a bit of that, is how far these, because these pleas for assistance all come from one guy, a guy called Rib Addy. And there's a question whether or not he is symptomatic of Achenarten, of ignoring pleas for help.
25:30William:Just Achenarten didn't like him very much and was longing for him to be overthrown. Well, the fact that he is simply somebody who is a tension seeker. A notorious boar of Byblos. Basically, yeah. And that's the other view. That actually, and all the people who allegedly are the enemies of the king are actually just his local personal enemies. And he simply wants to use Egyptian forces to put down his local quarrels. And this is one of those problems when we've just simply got these things. And also, the problem with the archive is that by its nature, it's only the incoming post.
26:06Anita:You don't know what the replies are. Yes. Exactly. There's a couple of odd drafts, but nothing to do with Ribadi particularly. So I think there's an issue here of whether or not this represents another aspect of the decline of what's going on in Egypt. I mean, that he's so worried about plague and whatever, he's not actually helped doing sending. Or alternatively, he's just saying, look, we know this guy just has been whinging for years. We'll just forget about him. Okay. Just to give you some idea of Ribhada's enthusiastic writing from Byblos, six or more letters to the pharaoh, each one more desperate than the last.
26:48Anita:And he is a loyal Egyptian vassal. He claims to be. Okay. He claims to be. You're very scantic about Rudabadi. Pretty much everything. I mean, I think I quite like him because he is a moaner, but he's consistent. And he's saying he's watching his city being eaten away. And he writes quite poetically about how awful things are. And I put it to you, expert friend Aidan, that if you have a man in charge like Akhenaten, who doesn't care about his workers, who doesn't care about the people who are right around him, it isn't such a stretch to think he doesn't care about people who are further away. I mean, he's not the most caring.
27:28Anita:We've seen pharaohs, for example, in the past who have responded to famine in that area, who have said, you know, OK, you're having a hard time. I will send grain. Egypt is the centre for all of this. But here you've got a man who's in charge who doesn't really seem to give much of a damn. Yeah. The question is, if we knew what might let us move in the other direction. And this is the trouble. I think all we're looking at is just one side of the correspondence. And this is the biggest problem in academia in general, is that whether one tries to remain even-handed over this, or whether or not one sort of then becomes more involved and is sort of being in support of them from that direction.
28:10So it's a tricky line.
28:12Anita:I have made no secret to the fact I don't like this pharaoh. He's my least favourite pharaoh.
28:17William:This is the first argument we've had since Roger Kipling.
28:20Anita:Yes, I know. And it's almost as heated. but you know I don't know whether it's such a stretch Aidan to think that a man who didn't care about his workers but loved his wife God but he didn't care about anyone other than his immediate family I mean you know it's Trumpian in many ways but you know people are starving in his kingdom there's plague he's not really doing very much so is it such a stretch to think he doesn't really give that much of a damn about people further away I mean I really want to know Aidan what do you think okay my own view this is problem being as an academic is whether you're sort of going with your heart or your head or a combination of the other two always go with your heart always go with your heart i've always taken the view that ribadi is over is over is overdoing it right that's always been my sort of gut reaction to the whole correspondence however certainly in the context of akhenaten in general and also there is a later text of tatam khamun's which basically says that egyptian foreign policy went to rats under his predecessor we actually have that yes because we also have
29:27William:the fact that the hittites are clearly making gains they are moving southwards aren't they indeed so there is a the question is really whether or not that there's certainly the scenario is that there is probably there are problems up that end of the levant but the question is whether or not ribaddies please should we take an at face value i nothing is being done or whether something is being done, but not as much as Ribaddy would like there to be.
29:57Anita:I understand. You think Ribaddy is moaning myrtle. I think he's quite justified in his begging bell for someone who doesn't give a damn. Okay, fine, fine. Can we then talk about Akhenaten's own death? When does that happen and what do we know about it? All we know is it happens in his 17th regnal year. Well, that's the last regnal year we have recorded for him, so we assume it's happening again. Which means he's what, about 30, 35? Probably, I suppose. The trouble is we don't know how old he was when he came to the throne. Although the fact he was unmarried at the time would suggest he's in his late teens.
30:30Oh, early teens, yeah. Well, somewhere in his teens anyway, when he comes to the throne.
30:35William:But we have got no real... The normal time of marriage for an ancient world was 14 or 15, wasn't it? It's certainly somewhere around there. But again, we haven't got enough... We have very, very little data on the actual ages of most ancient Egyptians. We don't know. They don't happen to say that I'm 16 years old or whatever. It's very, there's a couple of people who we date. It's very unusual to have that stated. So anyway, we've got, so it's, so yeah, that's probably a reasonable kind of thing, you know, from if he gets married around 15, 16, and then is dying in year 17. That's probably, that adds up quite well.
31:09William:And as he's dying, or as he seems to be approaching the end, there's some sense that there's actually desperation isn't there the the iconoclasm of previous gods increases that he wipes out everything that's left that he hasn't already wiped out yeah well one of the big one of the big questions about back in artan is at what point he starts persecuting the god amun there's also there's two levels this because going back into um about when about year five is when the artan becomes the sole god who he's actually gonna bother with whether he actually believes he is the sole god or the only god who wants to worship is another completely different debate then most of the other gods are instantly ignored they've basically in modern terms have their funding withdrawn but there's no real attempt to actually sort of remove them people like putar and all the other great gods there's no attempt there's no then their names aren't erased the exception is amon the previous king of the gods and my view is the reason why they he's got it in for Ammon, is because Ammon's title is King of the Gods, which of course is almost blasphemy if he believes that the Aten is the supreme god.
32:21The date he starts attacking Ammon is another matter for debate. I'm very much of the view that it's very much towards the end of his reign, because there are mentions of Ammon around about year 12.
32:35William:Does that mean he's getting more fanatical or he's getting desperate? What do you think? I think it's a bit of both. And I think that he may be deciding that the person to blame for his misfortunes, the death of his mother, his daughters, may be Ammon. So I think I'm of the opinion that the attack on Ammon, which basically destroys every extant image of the god, also erases every mention of his name on inscriptions, that should be dated to the last couple of years and is possibly part of a mental collapse of Akhenaten. in the face of these various calamities.
33:15Anita:Okay. So, I mean, look, he does die eventually. Very sad for some.
33:20William:I'm not sure that's quite an emotional farewell to our friend. No, I don't care at all. I don't care at all. Who you've seen through three episodes now.
33:25Anita:Can I just say what I am very interested in knowing is at what point do people start turning on him? because we mentioned at the beginning that he's remembered in ancient Egypt at the time as the criminal of Akhenaten. So at what point do they start turning on the dead pharaoh and there's this visceral defacing that goes on? Tell us about that. I think it probably takes a decade or so to get to that level because, of course, immediately after his death, the power is in the hands of his widow Nefertiti now a female pharaoh and also his son Tutankhamun now later Tutankhamun so I think and what seems to happen is that the dismantling of the idea of of the Aten being the soul god happens very very rapidly within the first three years after his death but actually any attacks on Akhenaten himself in the sense of erasure of figures and so on is probably after Tutankhamun is safely in his tomb, if not even beyond, slightly beyond that.
34:35Anita:Can we talk about what it was? I mean, there was a mummy that's found in a tomb called KV55 in the Valley of the Kings. And that mummy is clearly subject to deliberate desecration, it looks like.
34:47William:Had literally his face beaten in. Yeah, just destroyed.
34:50Anita:And the royal insignia chiselled off. Now, was that Akhenaten? Now, I think we're into something which could be about three podcasts worth. All right. Okay, we haven't got that. Okay, let me rephrase it. What do you think, Aidan? Do you think it was Akhenaten? Poor Aidan has been put on a rack to make a decision here. Do you think it was Akhenaten? No. Oh, okay. I better expand on that. Okay, but this tomb, KV55, what it originally was, was the evacuation team from Amarna. So when Amarna is shut down as the capital city, they evacuate the royal tomb. And three of the mummies which were in that royal tomb were moved to KV55.
35:37And is that the girls? No, we don't know where the girls... We assume the girls went to another tomb in the same area of the Valley of the Kings. But KB55 has certainly had Akhenaten in it originally, Queen T, his mother, and the third individual. And T and Akhenaten were both removed from the tomb at a later date, leaving one body behind, which, as far as I'm concerned, is Svenkare, who was Akhenaten's short-lived co-ruler around about year 1314.
36:09Anita:But okay, if you don't think it's Akhenaten, which made me gasp, it is somebody associated with him. So it does show anger and rage. And we do know that Akhenaten is called a criminal. So, I mean, just when, just in a nutshell, when do we see that bubble over and change what comes next, if you like? it's either directly following the death of tutankhamun or directly following the death of i his immediate successor and we don't on it we don't know we know this this this is all all well underway once you get significantly beyond that but the exact point but i don't think anything will happen before tutankhamun dies because while you're not going to start he's the same family well you wouldn't dare diss his dad and also i may actually have been his father in Akhenaten's father-in-law so possibly not but certainly once you're getting into the reign of Horemheb that's definitely happening but there's been lots of debate over exactly when KB 55 is desecrated some have argued within weeks of Tutankhamun's death but others have suggested it could be significantly later and unfortunately the archaeological evidence which is all to do with flood debris in the Vale of the Kings is there's been it seemed it was it had all been made clear.
37:31And then somebody pointed out some major methodological errors in the assessment. So, again, it's going to be somewhere within five years, probably, of Tutankhamun's death. But whether it's right on his death or a little bit later on, we simply don't know at the moment.
37:49Anita:Okay, and we're going to do a whole episode on Tutankhamun and, you know, get into that mystery of, okay, if he still was so loyal to his dad, why did he change his name? and then go back to the Amun bit rather than his dad's sun god bit. But we'll save that for another episode. What actually happens to Amarna after the death of Akhenaten?
38:10William:Before we get there, I'm looking to know if KV55 isn't him, have we got his mummy at all or has he been totally destroyed? My personal view is that what happened when they decided to clear KV55 is that T is moved off to a new location. Smen Kharay is deprived of his identity, but left in place. And Akhenaten is taken off and burnt. That's my personal view of what happened. There's a graduated sort of view that T, okay, she had a dodgy son, but she's okay. And her mummy is now in Cairo. Smen Kharay probably misled, wasn't a bad lad. will take his names away, but we will leave his body, will survive.
38:59Akhenaten, completely beyond the pale. And the worst thing which can happen to an ancient Egyptian is to be consumed by fire.
39:05Anita:Because what? They don't enter the underworld then? It seems to be that. And when you read the Book of the Dead, one of the things which the dead are terrified of is fire. So therefore, I think the most logical solution is that he was taken and a bonfire kindled in the middle of the Vale of the Kings. Yeah, okay. That's my personal view anyway. Okay, no, I don't know. I mean, goodness me, you know more about this than anybody. If you do want more mummy moving chat, we've got a bonus episode about the curse of Tutankhamun just for our members. So do sign up for our brilliant club and you'll get that extra.
39:45Anita:So it's a rip-roaring story. But just getting back to the people of Amarna. So after the death of Akhenaten, what happens to them? Do we know if they thrive after he's gone or do they continue a downward spiral? I think basically within three years of Akhenaten's death, they've decided Amarna is finished. And therefore, what seems to happen is that everybody who is living there, royal family downwards, start going back to where they'd always been. So probably the people who had been building the tombs at Amarna go back to the workman's village at Thebes, at Luxor, where they've always been. And everybody else starts drifting back to their own, to wherever they were.
40:27I suspect the majority will have gone back to either Memphis or to Thebes, which are the two older capitals. And then the whole place, and in doing so, they start dismantling their houses because there are bits which are made of good quality imported wood. So gradually, the whole thing starts falling into ruin. We know that there is still something going on in the reign of Horemheb there. The Riverside Temple is still active. It looks as though the whole place rapidly falls down from being the capital city of an empire through down to simply being...
41:00William:The Milton Keynes roundabouts get overgrown. It's getting to that sort of level. And as far as we can tell, it just simply withers away. And by the time, a few decades later on, it's basically tumbleweedies going down the streets. But the important point is that by that time, when you're talking to the reign of Ramesses II, a few decades later, what they're doing is now knocking down the temples and reusing the stone for the foundations of new temples on the other side of the river. Now, at what point do we get the sensation that the old priesthood, some of whom have been sent off to the quarries and really had quite serious punishments and ostracism?
41:35William:Some killed, some exiled, some sent to the Egyptian equivalent of the Gulag.
41:39Anita:Yeah. When did they rise up?
41:40William:When did they begin to kind of trickle back? and... Immediately. Because we've got the Ammon cult is up and running again within a year or two of Achenar's death. So it's quite clear that it's the moment, well, those cases, a bit like when the death of Stalin, when suddenly the... Bloody Mary in the English Reformation, yeah. Back to Protestantism again. The moment that the tyrant or whatever you want to call him is dead, I think immediately everybody goes, breathes a sigh of relief and simply says, okay we're going to forget all that happened let's so let's just move on and and say it looks at we've certainly got Ammon cult back without any kind of um kind of problems almost immediately the big issue is is tidying up the mess because you've had temples which have had no funding for you know for a decade and you've also got the Ammon temples with no statues of Ammon left because they've all been pulverised by Akhenaten.
42:39So the big thing is then, and this takes decades for them to actually restore all of this.
42:46William:Now, at what point do we get the Restoration Stellar? Because this is a crucial piece of evidence, isn't it? Yeah, this is the early part of the reign of Tutankhamun. Unfortunately, the year date is broken away. It's typical of these kinds of inscriptions. But people kind of agree it's 1332, that sort of date? Wait, wait, wait. My view is it's probably year three. Because I think year three is the crucial point, I think. Because I think that year three is probably when Nefertiti dies. I feel another Gielgud moment coming on. I have to keep up with Liz Taylor over there and do another.
43:22Anita:You're so current. Come on, then. So cutting edge.
43:27William:Jesse Muckley, here we go. So my view, and I think the general view is, there are other views available. but um is the right year three is when it happened is the key point because at the point when nefertiti dies and also with her any sort of moderation because i got the feeling i tend to get from what's happening during those first three years when nefertiti is still in charge is in charge is she's trying to triangulate between the old and the new she's keeping wants to keep at the art and going but also is perfectly happy for him to be coexisting with the older gods once she's out of the way um that is the point probably where you've got new people deciding what's happening because remember Tutankhamun is still his child when this is all happening and we'll be discovering of course we'll be exploring this in the in the in the later in later podcasts but once that's gone that's when he gets his name changed from Tutankhamun to Tutankhamun and they start and the Aten it starts to be forgotten I think it's a I think at that point it's a question of they're doing what Akhenaten did to all the other gods forget about it I remove your funding or whatever.
44:36Anita:Delete, delete, delete, delete is what it is. But it's not until you then get him dead and therefore the last blood link with Akhenaten's gone is when they write, and now let's erase all of this from history. And to sum up that kind of decrepitude of a once great civilisation, I hand over to William Dalrymple, who is going to read from the Restoration Stella of Tutankhamun.
45:03William:Now when his majesty appeared as king, the temple of the gods and goddesses from Elephantine to the marshes of the delta had fallen into ruin. Their shrines had become desolate and had grown to mounds overgrown with weeds. Their sanctuaries were as though they had never been. Their halls were a footpath. The land was in confusion. The gods had forsaken this land. If an army was sent to Dejahi, which is Palestine, to extend the boundaries of Egypt, no success of theirs came at all. If one prayed to a god to ask something of him, he did not come. If one beseeched any goddess in the same way, she did not come either.
45:50William:Their hearts were weak in their bodies, and they destroyed what was made.
45:58Anita:The Basil Rathbone of podcasts. Thank you very much, William. Can I ask you, Aidan, just tell us, what do you think Akhenaten's legacy is? There's a couple of things, I suppose. One, which isn't really often mentioned, is the fact that in his public pronouncements, he used the current form of the Egyptian language rather than more archaic ones. So actually from that point onwards, we have a much more, it's in some texts, public texts, a much more up-to-date version of Egyptian being used. The other, I think, is that… That's quite niche. Yes, but it's quite important.
46:39William:For a man who built this wonderful city and did all this stuff. The other thing, though, is his reign represents a very much a watershed. There is very much a before and after. A bit like almost nowadays we talk about before and after Covid almost, that his reign marks that. And although on the face of things, things return back to normal, in detail they don't. A really good example of that is when you look at the decoration of private tombs in Egypt. Before Akhenaten and going back thousands of years, a major part of the decoration of a private tomb was representations of agricultural scenes, recreating the world which the dead person wanted to be in in the next world.
47:23After Akhenaten, they've gone completely and never come back. All the scenes in tomb chapels are now to do with ritual, funerary processions and so on.
47:34William:Does that imply that the priesthood has now increased in power? It's come back with a vengeance? No, I completely reject the idea of the priesthood power being a major issue here. I think it's actually due to genuine belief. And I think what it is, is that having had everything thrown up in the air, people start to rethink, to start thinking again about what matters. How do things work? How should things work? And so on and so forth. And I think part of that is rethinking how tombs should be decorated, because they've had a point where no tomb has been decorated in the traditional way for a decade or so.
48:16Now they're thinking again. I think there are other areas where, again, there's a different feel after Akhenaten because they've had to restart, start thinking again. Another one, an interesting one, is that prior to Akhenaten, the royal family was very rarely shown on public monuments. After him, and certainly when the new dynasty, the 19th, comes in a couple of decades later, the royal family appears regularly in spades. So although the reason why the royal family was being shown by Akhenaten was probably to do with the theology of the Aten, the idea that the royal family was now a thing to be shown on temple walls has now come in and Ramesses II does it massively later on.
49:03So I think it's a fault line in Egyptian history that things sort of come back to normal, but in some ways they don't.
49:11Anita:Okay, okay. Always a good place to end it, Aidan. Thank you so much. Professor Aidan Dodson and Akhenaten gone but not forgotten. Amarna Sunset is Aidan's brilliant book which covers this period of time. Highly readable.
49:25William:Top book. Really, really wonderful. It's short but absolutely brilliant.
49:29Anita:Short but very, not sweet. I mean, it's quite awful stuff happens. But it's very interesting. Thank you very much.
49:34William:Our next episode is all about one of the most beautiful and easily recognisable women of all ancient history, Nefertiti. If you want early access to that, then join the Empire Club at empirepoduk.com and you'll get exclusive access to our fantastic bonus on the curse of Tutankhamen's tomb.
49:58Anita:Till the next time we meet, though, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnon. And goodbye from me, William Gielgud-Durimple.
50:14Thank you.
From the publisher
**Unlock the entire Ancient Egypt series early and ad-free by joining the Empire Club at empirepoduk.com**
Why did Akhenaten’s name get struck from the historical record after his death? Why did he build a new city in the sparse desert? Who ruled after he died?
Anita and William are joined by Aidan Dodson, author of Amarna Sunset, to discuss the collapse of the Amarna Revolution.
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