amarna city

Amarna

Capital City of Ancient Egypt

Tel El‐Amarna is a city located on a flat stretch of land beside the Nile Valley. It measures only 12 kilometers from north to south, however it is one of the most interesting and captivating areas in all of Egypt.

Amarna City

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Table of Contents

1 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................................... 1

2 HOW THE CITY BEGAN ............................................................................................................................... 5

3 THE HISTORY OF DISCOVERY ...................................................................................................................... 6

4 DESCRIPTION OF AMARNA CITY ................................................................................................................. 7

4.1 THE CENTRAL CITY ............................................................................................................................................ 7 4.1.1 The Temples ............................................................................................................................................. 8 4.1.2 The Great Temple of the Aten .................................................................................................................. 8 4.1.3 Bakeries ................................................................................................................................................... 9 4.1.4 The Bridge ................................................................................................................................................ 9

4.2 THE SMALL TEMPLE OF ATEN ............................................................................................................................ 10 4.3 SOUTH SUBURB .............................................................................................................................................. 10 4.4 NORTH SUBURB .............................................................................................................................................. 11

4.4.1 The North Palace (Palace of Nefertiti) ................................................................................................... 11 4.4.2 The North City ........................................................................................................................................ 11 4.4.3 The Desert Altars ................................................................................................................................... 11 4.4.4 The Necropolises .................................................................................................................................... 12 4.4.5 The Workers (or Eastern) Village ........................................................................................................... 12

4.5 GARDENS OF AMARNA ..................................................................................................................................... 12 4.5.1 THE PLACE OF MERIRE THE HIGH PRIEST, EL‐AMARNA ......................................................................... 13 4.5.2 Palace Gardens ...................................................................................................................................... 14 4.5.3 Maru‐Aten ............................................................................................................................................. 15

4.6 ROYAL TOMB ................................................................................................................................................. 15 4.7 OTHER RUINS ................................................................................................................................................. 16

5 HOW THE CITY ENDED ............................................................................................................................... 17

6 TOUR OF AN AMARNA HOME ................................................................................................................... 18

7 AMARNA CITY TODAY ............................................................................................................................... 19

7.1 AMARNA PROJECT SITE .................................................................................................................................... 19

8 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................................. 22

Table of Figures

FIGURE 1: AMARNA BY SATELLITE .......................................................................................................................................... 2 FIGURE 2: MAP OF AMARNA CITY ......................................................................................................................................... 3 FIGURE 3: DETAIL OF CITY .................................................................................................................................................... 4 FIGURE 4: LAYOUT OF CENTRAL CITY ...................................................................................................................................... 9 FIGURE 5: GOOGLE EARTH VIEW OF AMARNA CITY ................................................................................................................. 20 FIGURE 6: CLOSER VIEW OF AMARNA CITY ............................................................................................................................ 21

Amarna City

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This document was developed for the AMORC class entitled “Ancient Mystery Schools Part 1”

Developed with Peace and Love by:

Claudia Alarcon

Diane Culhane

Imeegene Alcantara

Jim Sipe

John Tamagni

Amarna City

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1 Introduction

The site of Amarna (commonly known as el‐Amarna or incorrectly as Tel el‐Amarna; see below) (Arabic: al‐‘amārnä) is located on the east bank of the Nile River in the modern Egyptian province of ةنرامعلاMinya, some 58 km (38 miles) south of the city of al‐Minya, 312 km (194 miles) south of the Egyptian capital Cairo and 402 km (250 miles) north of Luxor. The site of Amarna includes several modern villages, chief of which are el‐Till in the north and el‐Hagg Qandil in the south.

The area contains an extensive Egyptian archaeological site that represents the remains of the capital city newly–established and built by the Pharaoh Akhenaten of the late Eighteenth Dynasty (c. 1353 BC). The name for the city employed by the ancient Egyptians is written as Akhetaten (or Akhetaton – transliterations vary) in English transliteration. It translates literally as "the Horizon of the Aten".

Amarna occupies a large bay of almost flat desert hemmed in for much of its perimeter by cliffs that rise by approximately 100 metres to a high desert plateau. From the north headland to the south headland, both of which approach close to the Nile, is a distance of 10 kms. The broadest extent, between river and cliffs, is nearly 5 kms. Plateau and cliffs are cut by dried valleys and torrent beds (wadis) that lead further back into the desert. In the south‐east the cliffs fall back to leave a broad flat valley about 3 kms wide that begins above a low and very irregular terrace edge that continues the line of the cliffs.

The individual parts of the city occupy three zones:

1. The line of the cliffs is marked by two sets of rock monuments of the Amarna Period. One is a series of carved tablets and statues (the Boundary Stelae) by which Akhenaten marked out the limits of Akhetaten. The other comprises two groups of rock tombs (the North Tombs and South Tombs) that belonged to Akhenaten’s courtiers and high officials. They are decorated with carved and painted scenes in the distinctive style of Akhenaten's reign. A third group of rock‐cut tombs lies much further back, along one of the wadis. These were intended for the royal family, and include the Royal Tomb. The upper surface of the desert plateau was also utilized for the extraction of limestone needed for royal buildings and for columns and doorframes in private houses. Many Ancient Quarries are preserved, mostly towards the northern end of the site.

2. Scattered across the intermediate zone of low desert are the Desert Altars, that lie between the North Suburb and the North Tombs, and the Workmen’s Village and Stone Village, which occupy locations on the flanks of a low plateau that juts out into the Amarna plain almost on its middle line.

3. The ancient city itself lay alongside the river, which seems to have followed a course very similar to its present one. Originally it probably extended directly to the river bank, but in later ages a strip of cultivated land developed which all but destroyed the western edge of the city. What is left is a discontinuous strip of ruined buildings on the desert running for a distance of 6 kms south from the northern headland and having a maximum width near the centre of 1 km.

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The city divides into a number of zones, to which modern names have been given. The Central City was home to the main palaces, temples to the sun, and administrative buildings. Running directly south was a dense area of houses, the Main City, with a more thinly developed southern extension, the South Suburb. To the north of the Central City, after a gap, came another area of housing, the North Suburb. Further north still lay the isolated North Palace, and beyond this, and nestling on rising ground at the foot of the cliffs, the North City.

Figure 1 is a Google Earth view showing Amarna City with respect the Egypt in general and its other two major cities (Alexandria and Cairo). Figure 2 is a more focused map showing the location of the city with respect to the Nile River. Figure 3 is a detailed drawing of the city.

Figure 1: Amarna by Satellite

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Figure 2: Map of Amarna City

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2 How the City Began

Amenhotep IV was a Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. As the second son of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye, he became the heir to the throne after his brother died. He succeeded his father after his 38‐year reign when Amenhotep III died. He reigned from c. 1352 BCE to 1336 BCE. Nefertiti was one of his wives and King Tutankhamen was possibly one of his sons. Amenhotep IV changed his name to Akhenaten, which means Spirit of the Sun.

It was said that one day Akhenaten had a vision wherein he saw a sun disc between two mountains. He felt that God was guiding him to make change. He was shown the God, Aten, as the Sun Disk ‐ the Light. He felt guided by Aten to build a city between the two mountains. In essence, he was a cult leader taking his following into the mountains and desert to build a new paradise. He had Akhetaten (Horizon of Aten‐now called Amarna) built as his new capital, dedicated to his new religion of worship to the Aten or Sun God. Construction of Akhetaten started in c. 1346 BCE. The center of power was moved from Thebes to Akhetaten.

Akhenaten changed the Egyptian belief system from polytheistic to monotheistic with Aten, the Sun, as the God. Akhenaten's choice of monotheism was not only motivated by religious speculation, but was also an attempt to increase the power of the Pharaoh at the expense of the local temples and their officials, which had become both rich and politically important.

This religious reformation appears to have begun with his decision to celebrate a Sed festival in his third regnal year‐ a highly unusual step, since a Sed festival, a sort of royal jubilee intended to reinforce the Pharaoh’s divine powers of kingship, was traditionally held in the thirtieth year of a Pharaoh’s reign.

His year 5 marked the beginning of his construction of a new capital, Akhetaten (‘Horizon of Aten’), at the site known today as Amarna. Very soon afterward, he centralized Egyptian religious practice in Akhetaten, though construction of the city seems to have continued for several more years. In honor of Aten, Akhenaten also oversaw the construction of some of the most massive temple complexes in ancient Egypt, including the one at Karnak, close to the old Temple of Amun. In these new temples, Aten was worshipped in the open sunlight, rather than in dark temple enclosures, as had been the previous custom. Akhetaten is also believed to have composed the Great Hymn to the Aten.1

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhenaten

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3 The History of Discovery

The site was unknown to the European travelers other than its name, which was a village called Et Til el‐Amarna. Early visitors misunderstood its name, so it became to be known as Tell el‐Amarna, though there are not a single tell, or great mound marking the ancient site.

Even though John Gardner Wilkinson initially investigated the site in 1824, and soon returned with James Burton to further examine the tombs located at el‐Amarna, they had at that time no idea of the its significance. It was only during this general period that Champollion made his initial discoveries on Egyptian writing, and so the two early explorers were unable to read the names and inscriptions they encountered on this expedition. In fact, they identified the site as Roman Alabastronopolis from a nearby alabaster quarry.

Later, Robert Hay investigated the site not only examining all the open tombs, but also clearing others from beneath extensive drifts of sand. However, as was the work of Wilkinson and Burton before him, was never published. Others would also come to el‐Amarna, and would fell to publish their work, though most of their efforts are available in various museums today.

Nevertheless, due to the unique decorations in the tombs at el‐Amarna, many showing the activities of the royal family not in the formal attitudes of worship repeated so often in other tombs, but in intimate and vivid detail as human beings engaged in everyday domestic affairs, scholars continued to visit the site. There was also a prevailing mystery. In fact, because of the depictions that we know understand represent Akhenaten and Nefertiti, these early explorers wondered whether this was not the home of two queens, because of the almost feminine physique of the king.

Even as the ability to read hieroglyphics spread amongst the early Egyptologists, discovering the nature of this site remained elusive. So thoroughly had the ancient Egyptians, aided afterwards by the early Christians, destroyed Amarna that it was not easy to find an intact cartouche bearing the name of the king or queen for whom it was built. Even when they did find cartouches, they were larger than those of other pharaohs and surrounded by a double border. Furthermore, the signs within these were complex and difficult to interpret, but were evidently the same as those that accompanied a representation of the Sun god, Re‐Horakhty found on a few monuments elsewhere.

It was finally Richard Lepsius, a disciple of Champollion and doubtless, the foremost Egyptologists of his day, who came to el‐Amarna to record inscriptions and take paper squeezes of the reliefs and afterwards, publish his work. This work allowed scholars to finally make advances in their understanding of the city and its king, who they initially read as Khuenaten. Now, more than a century of study has given us this king's correct name, Akhenaten, as well as revealing many of the mysteries that once surrounded the site.

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4 Description of Amarna City

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 mud brick 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.

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

4.1 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.

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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.

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.

4.1.1 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.

4.1.2 The Great Temple of the Aten

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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.

4.1.3 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.

4.1.4 The Bridge

At the end of this ridge are 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 remain 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.

Figure 4: Layout of Central City

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4.2 The Small Temple of 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 where the famous Amarna Letters were discovered by a peasant woman in 1888.

4.3 South Suburb

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 that 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).

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4.4 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.

4.4.1 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 sunken 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.

4.4.2 The North City

Farther to the north where the cultivation ends at the cliffs there is also a North City, this 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.

4.4.3 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.

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4.4.4 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 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 potshards mostly dating from between the 25th and 30th Dynasty.

4.4.5 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 guardhouse 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).

4.5 Gardens of Amarna

Amarna was landscaped with flowers and beautiful gardens as part of Akhenaton's land use scheme. Amarna may have been the first planned "garden city". The temples and personal chapels built

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throughout the city were open to the air. This allowed for the worship of the sun which was contrasted with the closed temples of Thebes. Officials laid out great estates, attractively incorporating nature.

The city was founded as a new royal capital by Pharaoh Akhenaten 'the heretic king' and was occupied only for a short period. Because it was built outside the agricultural zone, its remnants have survived as the most complete example of New Kingdom town planning in general and gardens in particular. It was a comparatively low‐density settlement and had room for gardens. In fact, each homeowner had a garden within the enclosed walls of their estate.

Housing areas have been excavated with wells and open courts. Many of the courts had circular wells and horticultural crops were grown.

One of the houses, thought to have been owned by Thutmose the sculptor, is the place where the famous painted‐limestone bust of Akhenaten's wife, Nefertiti, was found. Archaeology has not revealed traces of ornamental pools and planting in the housing areas occupied by scribes, craftsmen, and farmers. Palaces and temples have yielded traces and fragments of pools, painted ornamental pavements and planting pits. They provide archaeological authentication for the garden features that are so often illustrated on Egyptian tomb paintings and papyri.

4.5.1 THE PLACE OF MERIRE THE HIGH PRIEST, ELAMARNA

Temple properties: they are all inside garden‐grounds. Even between the granary and the treasure house there are plants, flowering in beautifully decorated pots. The entrance is particularly charming with a porch like a baldachin, and in the frontcourt, there is a pretty pavilion.

The Egyptian still likes, as he did at an earlier period, to have special parts separated off by walls and doors. Therefore, the courts are further subdivided, and most of them planted with rows of trees. Single trees have a little wall of earth, and a ditch round them, to hold the water better. The chief garden‐site includes the corners at the extreme end. Before the house, amid avenues of trees, is a sunken pond with steps leading down to it. There is a similar pond in front of the neighboring house, which shows no ornamentation. The garden‐house has a concentric form. There is a circle of trees round the basin, and there are pillared halls beyond. In the middle there appears to be a raised platform with a path sloping upward and an altar on the top. In a straight line behind this is the main garden, separated from the house by an intermediate court and double gates.

The central part of the garden includes a very large rectangular sunk pond, and in the middle—possibly with a view to times of drought—is a deep well, beside which stands a shadoof. Round the basin are trees of different kinds; the familiar sorts of palm, sycamore, and pomegranate are particularly neatly and prettily drawn. A second shadoof stands on the farther bank, and in front of it among the trees can be perceived yet another building that may be a summerhouse, or perhaps a second altar.

The whole ornamentation of the palace proves that Akhenaten was a great lover of flowers. His bedroom is painted all round with flowers, most of the little gardens in the court have ponds with lovely

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flowers growing round. A painted floor, brought to light by excavations, shows most realistically the beauty of such a pond and its flowerbeds, out of which spring the pillars of the chamber, like flower‐stalks, supporting the roof of the hall.

Probably Akhenaten, also planted large park‐like gardens round his palace, to vie with those his father had laid out at Thebes. Egyptians show their whole relation to Nature in their love for gardens ‐ not an extravagant Nature, but one who deserves the care and pains of man, because of her great beauty, her protecting shade, her wonderful flowers, and her costly fruits. To dwellers in the Nile valley, Nature was the setting for all that was dear: happy fêtes, poetry, and love. All were bound up with the garden and its products, especially flowers.

In architecture, flowers gave the forms for columns, for the growth of capitals, and all ornaments. In the house, flowers are the chief decoration. The inside of a room often shows nothing but great bunches of flowers in prettily decorated vases, or votive tables decked with flowers. However, if a feast is held in a house, or made ready for the gods, everything is clothed in flowers. Garlands are on head and neck, the guest is presented with a nosegay, or at least a single flower, as he enters. The servants are not only busy with preparing the dishes, but are always weaving new wreaths, and with each kind of refreshment, new flowers are handed round. The guests carried them in their hands all the time, and enjoyed their perfume.

Naturally the lotus comes first among the flowers—that native of the Nile valley which in old days, growing wild, had covered in its superabundant wealth every stream, canal, or lake, and had changed the whole country in the months of inundation into an immense field of flowers, whitish‐blue and shining red. Every picture of the Old Period has lotus, but in the garden decorations of the Middle and New Periods, both pictures and inscriptions have a number of other flowers to show: after foreign plants had been brought in from all the countries that the Pharaoh’s ships could reach, the lotus still held its own, and also the papyrus—that other wild marsh plant of Egypt: indeed, these two became a sort of symbol for flowers in general.

The general layout of a garden and its buildings follows a time‐honored pattern, which can still be seen today in the humblest homestead, for example, in the oasis of Bahariya. The property is enclosed with a wall all round. Inside the gateway is an unroofed courtyard, filled with trees. Then, there is another wall and another door. The second courtyard is also unroofed, and contains more trees, providing shade and fruit, and here there is a vegetable patch and a vine shading a work area, or the entrance to the house. This arrangement is illustrated in ancient times at Amarna, and in the tomb of Neferronpet. [Alix Wilkinson The garden in ancient Egypt (Rubicon Press, London, 1998) p. 6]

4.5.2 Palace Gardens

Though larger, palace gardens were used in a similar manner to domestic gardens. More is known of Akhenaten's palace, in Amarna. It remains the best example of Egyptian town planning despite being unusual and having been inhabited for only 15 years. Because his capital was on the fringe of the cultivated land, in the desert, more space was available for gardens and fragments of the mud‐brick

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layout survive. Being spacious and unvegetated, the site was well suited to sun worship. Akhenaten explained the layout as follows:

I erect Akhetaten for the Aten, my father, at this place. I build the great temple for the Aten, my father, in Akhetaten in this place. And I build the small temple for the Aten, my father, in Akhetaten in this place. I build the sun‐shadow chapel for the great royal consort Nefertiti of the Aten, my father, in Akhetaten in this place. I build a jubilee temple for the Aten, my father, on the island of the Aten in Akhetaten in this place. I build for myself palaces for the pharaoh, and I build a harem for the royal consort in Akhetaten in this place. I have a tomb built in the mountain of Akhetaten, where the sun rises, where I shall be buried after the millions of year’s reign, that the Aten, my father, has allocated to me. Tomb complexes are built for the high priests and for the heavenly fathers of the Aten and for the servants of the Aten in the mountain of Akhetaten, where the sun rises. (Dietrich Wildung Egypt Taschen 2001 p121)

Temple gardens had names. Akhenaten's garden at Amarna was 'The Seeing‐Place of the Aten'. Aten was the solar disc.

The 'great temple for the Aten' was aligned on the east‐west axis. The 'palaces for the pharaoh' lined the 5km south‐north royal road, used for processions. A bridge crossed the royal road, linking the pharaoh's palace to the harem palace, and was used by the royal couple to appear before the crowd.

4.5.3 MaruAten

The extensive grounds of the Maru‐Aten temple complex at Amarna, are a concrete representation of the potentiality of the Creative Aten. The layout of the eastern group of the buildings is on an exact north‐south axis while the east‐west axis of the large lake crosses it inside the hall of the Maru, or viewing place of the sun disk. A garden with a processional alley fronts the group on the south. Here there is also a symbolic island carrying a kiosk (meaning: open summerhouse or pavilion) with a roofless central space, accessible from the Maru by a bridge. A second bridge at the north end leads to an alley flanked with flowerbeds to a water court featuring a range of eleven T‐shaped water basins on an interlocking plan.

4.6 Royal Tomb

The Royal Tomb built for Akhenaten lies in a narrow side valley leading off the Royal Wadi some six kilometers from 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 prince, and probably Queen Tiy so there are additional burial chambers. In addition, an unfinished annex may have been intended for Nefertiti.

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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.

4.7 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.

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5 How the City Ended

After Akhenaten’s death, under the reign of his son, Tutankhamun, the temples of Aten were demolished, and Egypt returned to polytheism. Tutankhamun was originally named Tutankhaten which means living image of Aten, but changed his name to Tutankhamun which means living image of Amun.

In Year 3 of Tutankhamun’s reign ( c. 1331 BCE), when he was still a boy of about eleven and probably under the influence of two older advisors (Akhenaten’s vizier Ay and perhaps Nefertiti), the ban on the old pantheon of deities and their temples was lifted, the traditional privileges were restored to their priesthoods, and the capital was moved back to Thebes. The young pharaoh adopted the name Tutankhamun, changing it from his birth name of Tutankhaten. Because of his age at the time these decisions were made, it is generally thought that most if not all the responsibility for them falls on his advisors. Also, King Tutankhamun restored all of the traditional deities and restored order to the chaos that his relative had caused. Many temples devoted to Amun‐Ra were built. 2

Soon after his death the followers at Amarna, unable to understand what their Pharaoh had been preaching, abandoned the city, and returned to Thebes and the familiar Gods. The priests branded the name Akhenaten, as a heretic. It was erased from the monuments of Egypt.

It was his son, a young Pharaoh named Tutankhamen who the world would get to know. King Tut moved the capital back to Thebes and returned to the old religion.

Later Pharaohs attempted to erase all memories of Akhenaten and his religion. Much of the distinctive art of the period was destroyed and the buildings dismantled to be reused. Many of the Talitat blocks from the Aten temples in Thebes were reused as rubble infill for later pylons where they were rediscovered during restoration work and reassembled. 3

2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankhamun

3 http://www.crystalinks.com/akhenaten.html

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6 Tour of an Amarna Home

Tour of an Amarna home: Amarna (Akhetaten), the efficient and self sufficient city of Ahkenaten was a built to be a religious Utopia. Like planned communities of today, the placement and architecture of personal housing was uniform in its style. Except for the workers village, All economic strata all lived in similar housing differing primarliy in size. As in our own time, the more money and status an owner has, the bigger but not any less equipped the house will be.

Let’s take a look inside the typical home of Amarna. Each house was situated on large walled grounds sporting beautiful gardens. The courtyard of an Amarna home would house the kitchen, servants’ quarters and stables or silos.

As we approach, we see the name of the homeowner on the carved in limestone doorframe. As a visitor we would be received in the public area of the home. This living room would open into a broad roofed open arcade along the side or front of the house. In some homes, an entrance vestibule was added, in others there were two broad halls. Basically, housing differed for the rich, middle class and poor in that they had two, one or no broad halls. The home we are visiting is of a wealthy family. The reception area has higher walls than elsewhere in the house, the ceiling is supported by painted wooden columns. Other rooms surround this area and provide insulation against the heat of the summer and the cool evenings of winter. Doorways opening off this chamber are constructed according to a strict pattern of symmetry and niches. Niches in the shape of doorways are set opposite or symmetrical with actual doorways. Perhaps these niches house domestic shrines to one and true God the Aten.

Let us sit down now and enjoy the hospitality of our host. Along with chairs for us to sit on, cushions have been placed on the built in divan along the rear wall. A brazier container is sunk into the plastered floor, and a lustration slab is also present. The walls are artistically decorated with a frieze of nature, painted doorways and columns and of course a rich blue ceiling.

Our host’s private quarters typically consist of a square hall, the master bedroom, smaller rooms and a bathroom and latrine. In the bathroom, we find a slightly inclined stone‐slab floor and walls lined up about a half meter with stone battered stone‐slabs to protect against dampness and splashing. Wastewater is drained by drainage channels running through the outer wall into a vessel or straight into the desert sand. The latrine is an earth‐closet equipped with a removable vessel placed under a slit in a brick or wooden seat.

Windows are located along the top walls to let in plenty of light and provide ventilation. This home even has a second floor and roof terrace to enjoy an evening under the stars.

As we leave our host and walk through the walled in grounds we see the servants quarters, silos, wells, stables and even a personal temple for the use of the household. It is an outdoor and indoor paradise for true believers.

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7 Amarna City Today

In the latter part of the twentieth century, a major agricultural development turned the southern part of the Amarna plain into farmland. In the course of this, an isolated garden‐temple of the Amarna Period, Maru‐Aten, was completely destroyed. A second similar building, Kom el‐Nana that had been partly built over in early Christian times by a monastery, still survives as an island of desert within the fields.

The city is, for the most part, covered with sand or badly eroded. None of the stonework of temples or palaces survives, for this was removed after the end of the Amarna Period. What was left behind were the walls of sun‐dried mud brick (adobe) from which the houses and large parts of the palaces had been constructed. These have been reduced to ruins by wind, occasional rain, and human reuse of building materials, and are now largely sanded over. A continuing program of cleaning and repair is gradually making more of the city accessible.

Archaeological excavation has been conducted at Amarna by a series of British and German excavation teams since 1891. These efforts were preceded in the mid‐19th century by the survey work of Karl Richard Lepsius and his team of epigraphers, who copied wall illustrations, transcribed inscriptions and took paper squeezes of reliefs. The 19th century records made by these teams are of immense importance since many of these remains were later vandalized by the locals in anger against the Egyptian Antiquities Service.

The current investigations have been in annual operation since the late 1970s, directed by Dr Barry Kemp (Reader in Egyptology, University of Cambridge, England) under the auspices of the Egypt Exploration Society (EES).

7.1 Amarna Project Site

The web site: http://www.amarnaproject.com/ is a treasure of information related to the current archaeological efforts at the site of Amarna City. This research paper will not attempt to duplicate what is on this site, but will capture “snippets” of information.

• In the autumn of 1999, a major exhibition of the art of the Amarna Period opened in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the brainchild of Dr Rita E. Freed, the Norma‐Jean Calderwood Curator of Ancient Egyptian, Nubian, and Near Eastern Art. From Boston the exhibition moved to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden. To complement the exhibition a model of part of the city of Amarna was commissioned. It was made over the summer of 1999, by the firm of architectural model‐makers, Tetra (Andy Ingham Associates), in Clapham, London (UK), to designs by Michael Mallinson of Mallinson Architects. Barry Kemp and Dr Kate Spence acted as advisers. The starting‐point was the set of map sheets prepared by the Amarna Survey of the The Egypt Exploration Society. These are published in the book by B.J. Kemp and S. Garfi, A survey of the ancient city of El‐'Amarna (London, The Egypt Exploration Society 1993). ISBN 0 85698 122 2.

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• Recent Excavation ‐ Although Amarna is a ‘one‐period’ site, the main areas of occupation often have a surprisingly complicated stratigraphy, representing both changes of use during the Amarna Period and the ‘events’ – the collapse of walls, the accumulation of sand, the digging of holes by animals and humans – that transformed the ancient city into the archaeological site that we see today. When excavated, the site also produces an abundance of finds. Much of it is relatively commonplace, but since one aim of modern archaeology is to seek patterns in all kinds of evidence, it is needful to make as careful and complete a record as possible. The decision to excavate is not therefore taken lightly.

• Preservation ‐ The surviving buildings at Amarna are predominantly made from sun‐dried mud bricks. They include the palaces and the enclosure walls and pylons of the two main temples. After the city was abandoned, the walls either fell down in sections or began to crumble away. In both cases, the rubble formed embankments at the base of the walls and so helped to protect them. Eventually, with the addition of fresh sand blown in by the wind, the site as a whole stabilized, the positions of walls and buildings marked by slight swellings in a relatively smooth though undulating surface. Excavation removes the protective embankments and so exposes what is left at the bottom of the walls to fresh erosion.

For locating the Central City on maps and on satellite images (e.g. Google Earth) the geographic co‐ordinates are: 27˚ 38´ 52.87˝ N and 30˚ 53´ 56.97˝ E. Figure 5 and Figure 6 are from Google Earth.

Figure 5: Google Earth View of Amarna City

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Figure 6: Closer View of Amarna City

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8 References

The following web sites provide a wealth of information on Amarna City:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhenaten

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amarna http://lexicorient.com/e.o/akhenat.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankhamun

http://www.crystalinks.com/akhenaten.html

http://touregypt.net/featurestories/amarna.htm http://www.amarna.co.uk/ http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/sites/africa/telelamarna.html http://www.museum.upenn.edu/new/exhibits/amarna/about2.shtml http://www.amarnaproject.com/ http://www.ees.ac.uk/fieldwork/amarna.htm http://www.amarna3d.com/ http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~rgrosser/amarna/

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