ShortHand: Akhenaten - The Heretical Forgotten Pharaoh

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It's not that fun. It's fun for me. I had fun writing it. Olden-timey episode of Shorthand. Everyone ready? Mmm. Ancient Egypt. A remarkable civilization which emerged around 3,150 BC. That is bonkers. On the shores of the River Nile in northeastern Africa. Did you know that ancient Egypt went on for so long that archaeologists. that archaeologist was a career in ancient Egypt? I've got it in this story. Have you? It's true. You don't need TikTok. You can do it here yourself. It's true. The ancient Egyptians gave us pyramids, mummies, and sparked an enduring fascination in history for modern children all over the world. We all read in awe about how they pulled the brains of their dead out through their nose and buried all the deceased organs in jars in their giant golden tombs. And if you're anything like me, you also wrote. Casted, directed, and starred in your own classroom play about Cleopatra. I wore my water-themed leggings, especially for you. I wish I'd brought a silk scarf to wave so I could be the Nile to your Cleopatra. Just the vision. The vision of a year five Cerruti. And it's true. Who can deny all of our obsessions? At some point, at least, I cannot believe that we all did not have a minor obsession with dinosaurs, the Tudors, and the ancient Egyptians. Tutankhamun and Cleopatra, probably top of the list. I always think it's quite amusing that Tutankhamun was actually an incredibly minor part of the story. We just happened to have stumbled across his grave, so we all give a shit. I'd be raging if I was a major pharaoh that they hadn't found. Definitely, definitely. Because arguably, Cleopatra and Tutankhamun are the most famous pharaohs. Cleopatra, yeah, fair dues. She did a lot. Last pharaoh, fair, fair play. Tutankhamun didn't really do very much at all. He was very busy being a quite sick, ugly, inbred boy king. But the same cannot be said for his father, the main character of our story today. Akhenaten may not be very well remembered, like his son is, but to be honest, a lot more people probably know his name now, 3,500 years later, and definitely will do by the end of this episode. You'll even be able to say it, I promise. More people know his name than did just 50 years after his own death. When Ramses the Great took over. And that's because, after Akhenaten's death, every preceding pharaoh, including his own son, Tutankhamun, did their best to wipe his name from history. Akhenaten, the heretic king, was maybe the most controversial pharaoh as far as the ancient Egyptians were concerned. And it wasn't even because he married his own daughters. That was the least of it. Want to know more? Of course you do. This is The Shorthand. Let's start, somewhere near the beginning, with his father, Amenhotep III. Or, Amenhotep the Magnificent. The 9th pharaoh of the 18th dynasty. If you had to choose, Saruti, the. What would be your. The. Signify, is that the right word? Honorific? Oh, yes. The. Something with an S, just for the flow. Saruti, the. The word sneaky. Keeps coming to mind, but. I was going to say sneaky as well. You're not actually that sneaky, though. Saruti, the. Sensational. Sensational. There we go. What about Hannah? Hannah, the. Cripplingly anxious. Honorable, but then it's not got the H. It's not got the H. Hard H. H is difficult. We'll come back to it. I'm going to have a think. Hannah, the. Nope. No good words begin with H. Under Amenhotep the Magnificent's rule, from 1389, 1888 to 1351 B.C., things were going great. He was a savvy diplomat, and he built strong alliances with neighbouring kingdoms, making it a peaceful and prosperous period for Egypt. It is also seen as the pinnacle of ancient Egyptian civilisation, both in terms of political power and cultural achievement. Amenhotep III was even the first pharaoh to issue royal news bulletins about his marriages, hunting trips and building projects, with the information being, inscribed on large stone scarab seals and sent out across the empire. So he had a mailing list. Interesting. And Amenhotep III also had a lot of children, because he had lots of wives, but most crucially, a son called Thatmos. Thatmos was the result of Amenhotep III's main squeeze, his great royal wife, Queen Ty. But son Thatmos died, and the position of heir to the throne fell to the second son. Quite controversial when that happens. And after Amenhotep III died, likely in his early fifties, after 38 years of rule, which is good innings, this second son took the throne in 1353 BC with the royal name Amenhotep IV. The name changed to Akhenaten. Comes later, so bear with us for now. Upon his ascension, to the throne, Amenhotep IV took Nefertiti. I know her. Mm-hmm. The other one that everyone knows. He took Nefertiti as his principal or great royal wife. Nefertiti, as Hannah has just shown us all, has displayed, is another very famous ancient Egyptian name that we all recognise today, much more than her husband. Largely thanks to a bust that was discovered in 1912. Ah, yes. It shows Nefertiti as a beautiful woman with almond-shaped eyes, high cheekbones, and a long, elegant neck. Fun fact, Nefertiti is actually now a type of neck Botox you can get. So that's quite the legacy for her. How do you feel about Morpheus VIII, by the way? Er, what? It's microneedling with lasers. We can talk about that later. Let's talk on under the doobie. Okay. And another fun fact I have for you about Nefertiti is that the famous bust of Nefertiti was a particular favourite of Adolf Hitler's. And for four years, he had it kept inside a fortified anti-aircraft gun tower next to Berlin Zoo. I think it's still in Berlin, that bust. Yes, it is still in Berlin. With the big blue gate. Yeah, yeah. So as we said, Nefertiti was Amenhotep IV's main wife. But over the years, he'd marry at least five more wives, including two of his own daughters. More on that later. But Nefertiti was absolutely the one that Amenhotep IV was the closest to. She gave him six daughters. And she was a very, very influential queen. And during Amenhotep IV's reign, Nefertiti was the second most important person in all of Egypt. When Amenhotep IV took the throne, he inherited a thriving empire. And everyone was basically like, just keep doing what your dad did for nearly 40 years and everything's going to be completely fine. Did he listen? Did he fuck? They never do. Amenhotep had big plans. Plans that would earn him the nickname, the Heretic King. Hannah the Heretic, obviously. Hannah the Heathen. Heretic's better. He earned that name as he set about turning centuries of religious belief upside down. And to put into context the massive upheavals that this pharaoh's going to embark on, we need to understand a little bit about ancient Egyptian history. Like for a start, ancient Egypt as a civilization spanned such a long period of time that during the time of the pharaohs, the study of ancient Egypt already existed as a concept, a thing, a school of thought. By the 14th century, when Amenhotep IV came to power, Egypt was already over a millennium old. And there had been several major periods. The pre-dynastic, the early dynastic, the old kingdom, the middle kingdom, and the second intermediate period. And his rule marked the beginning of the new kingdom. Throughout all of those eras, and rulers. Egypt had changed and grown. But, crucially, the religion followed by the ancient Egyptians had remained remarkably stable. They worshipped nearly 2,000 gods in an elaborate pantheon of spiritual deities. And yes, of course, depending on the economy, the politics, or the preferences of the king at various points, the main god that was in fashion would change. But there were also cults that followed basically every deity. These cults, it's important to note, are not cults in the way we think about cults today. In the context of history, cult refers to the religious practices, rituals, and temples dedicated to a specific deity, god, or saint. Each god would have a cult, led by priests, dedicated to that particular deity. And these cults, depending on their wealth and savviness, could elevate themselves and their god, into the upper echelons of society. And at the time of Amun-hotep IV's rise to power, the king god, the big dog, was Amun-Ra. Amun-Ra, or the Hidden One, was at first just a local fertility god. But when his cult moved to the capital, Thebes, he gained national notoriety and met Hercules. And also grew in power and prestige. During the Middle Kingdom, Amun merged with the sun god, Amun-Ra, in the Middle Kingdom, and became Amun-Ra, the king of the gods, representing the fusion of hidden power with visible solar energy. And by the start of the New Kingdom, the cult of Amun was by far the most powerful and wealthy, And by the start of the New Kingdom, the cult of Amun was by far the most wealthy, is that Akhenaten was an absolutely terrible king. He completely neglected diplomacy and politics and he actually undid a lot of the work his dad had done and destroyed many alliances that had been hard work to build. For example, a key way to maintain relations with other rulers is to help them out when they ask. We know that the king of Byblos wrote to Akhenaten over 50 times asking for the pharaoh's help fighting a Canaanite leader. His peasants were also revolting and he was in big trouble. But Akhenaten didn't give a shit. He only responded once, basically telling his fellow king to fuck off. He also royally pissed off another ruler whose daughter Akhenaten had married. In exchange, he was supposed to send the king two solid gold statues but he sent wooden ones that had been gold-plated instead. Big no-no in ancient world. Bad faux pas. But once again, Akhenaten felt untouchable. He was far more concerned with his life in the palace and all of his religious reformation. Which is what makes us think that he really did just care about Aten. If he was so bothered about simply consolidating power, surely he would care a bit more about the connections he had with other leaders. Who you might need if you're in power. If your own people decided to kick back at you. Having said that, by this point Akhenaten was now openly referring to himself and Nefertiti as living gods on earth. Which could explain why he didn't care so much for the squabbles of other earthly rulers. During this time, it's believed that Akhenaten also married his two daughters. Now it's debated, however, and the records are not clear. So I can't confirm it for sure. But it's certainly not impossible. Incestuous marriages were commonplace. Common amongst ancient Egyptian royal families to maintain bloodlines and inheritance. Brother-sister marriages were pretty common. With the president for it having been set by the gods Osiris and Isis themselves. But father and daughter was definitely less common. However, like we said at the start, people don't really care too much about this. Not after everything else he'd got up to over the course of his reign anyway. And finally, in 1336 BC Akhenaten died. Bringing to an end, the Amarna period and 17 years of controversial rule. At first, because his son, Tutankhamun, was too young to take power, two other pharaohs, Semenkar and Nefernaferutin, temporarily took over the throne. The capital was swiftly moved back to Thebes and Akhenaten's original tomb, in Akhenaten, which is modern-day Amarna, was desecrated. His body was actually removed and to this day we don't know where it is. It's believed that it was moved to the Valley of the Kings, and a sarcophagus believed to belong to him was discovered in the 20th century. The facial features of whoever it was had been destroyed, and no personal items were found buried within the tomb. So it's hard to conclusively identify Akhenaten. It was only ever confirmed that the body belonged to a man. Curiously though, the sarcophagus seems to have been made for a woman. Hand me down coffin. Yeah, yeah. I think we do know that they certainly didn't treat Akhenaten's remains his city or his tomb with much respect. So I think they were just like when he wanted desperately to remain in Akhenaten, but they were like, "Fuck you, no." So they dug him up and definitely moved him. So I could see that they just gave him this sort of ridiculous, almost humiliating reburial in the Valley of the Kings. I'm amazed they moved him there at all. So Akhenaten, Akhenaten's son would eventually become King Tutankhamun and the boyfarer's advisors told him to move away from his father's reforms as quickly as possible and to totally and publicly reject Atenism, restoring the old gods and reestablishing Amun-Ra as the king of the gods. And fun fact, and this I do think is very interesting, Tutankhamun's real name, as in his birth name given to him by his father, was actually Tutankhaten. For the god Atum. He changed his name to Tutankhamun to show his commitment to the king god Amun. That is interesting. Future kings tore down Akhenaten's buildings and removed his name from history. In fact, Akhenaten's name doesn't even exist in the list of kings compiled after his death. Fucking savage. We only know of his existence because of the discovery of his capital city in modern day Omana, which was found during Napoleon's reign. In fact, in the late 16th century during Napoleon's expeditions in the 18th century, when they also kicked up the Rosetta Stone. And in a show of how much contempt future rulers had for Akhenaten, the stones from his destroyed city were found used as filler in Luxor. Identifiable by their small size. And today, despite the fact that some of you may never have heard of him before, he is widely regarded as one of the most notable pharaohs, because of his profound impact on world civilization. He does seem to have shaped the concept of monotheism, the worship of a single god, which back then would have been a completely unique concept. Now some historians argue that what Akhenaten brought about was more henotheism, not monotheism, which is basically where you worship one god but you acknowledge other lower deities. Because while he destroyed the temples of Amun and defaced images of this god, Akhenaten didn't touch all of them. For example, he didn't touch Osiris. So I do understand people who say that this was just more of an attack on the powerful cult of Amun rather than a total move away from polytheism to monotheism. But it is also important to say, and I thought this was quite interesting, that Akhenaten did try to scrub out the plural word for gods. Interesting. Again, we can't say for sure, but it was definitely a bold move. Another fascinating theory about Akhenaten's rule is that after his death and the destruction of his capital, his followers, the followers of Atenism, knew that they would possibly become victims of persecution. So they left under the leadership of a priest that some believe may have been Moses. Ta-da. Controversial. It is. It is. I think this is so interesting. Let my people go. Which ones? Obviously. Can't prove it. But some historians theorise that this group of Akhenaten loyalists may have been the start of Judaism itself, which was founded around the same period with the ideology of just one god and prohibition of idol worship. The great Aten hymn was also discovered in the 1800s, and there are striking similarities. Between this hymn and Psalm 104 in the Hebrew Bible, verses 20 to 30 in particular, which one is that? See, I started to write it down and I was like, we don't have fucking time for this in 20 minutes. But it is really interesting. So the Aten hymn. Oh, I know this one. The Aten hymn was commissioned by Akhenaten. And yes, there are a lot of religious scholars and historians that point out the similarities between this hymn and passages in the Hebrew Bible. Go do that in your own time. But it is very, very interesting. Oh, it's good. Yeah. You bring darkness, it becomes night. Yes, I saw this. Yeah. It's really interesting. So was Akhenaten the father of monotheism and inadvertently perhaps Judaism? Was he a bold thinker and revolutionary? Or was he a crazy religious fanatic who was willing to upend centuries of religious belief and decades of stability and economic prosperity to bring a minor sun-disked god? Yeah, he was. To power. Who knows? Maybe all of the above. And that's the shorthand. Very interesting. I thought you'd like that. I do. Very much. And hopefully you guys liked it too. And we will see you next week for another shorthand. Goodbye. Bye. Bye.