AKHNATON

Pharaoh Akhnaton (born Amenophis the Fourth) was
King of Egypt in 1350 BC.

Several generations before Akhnaton, Egypt had been occupied by invaders from the North (Hyksos). The Egyptian rulers, at that time, had fled into Africa, near the source of the Nile where they lived as refugees. This exiled community began their recovery with pharaoh AhMoses (beginning of the 18th Dynasty, 1575 B.C., followed by ThotMoses I in 1520 B.C.). Later, in 1479B.C., ThotMoses III applied revolutionary leaderhip in overthrowing the reigning pharoah, Atchepsut, (his transvestite aunt). The 18th Dynasty continued to expand the Egyptian territory beyond the mouth of the Nile, in the North. ThotMoses IV then restored the Sphinx, while the momentum of conquests extended the Kingdom further North, up to and beyond the Sinai, Palestine, Syria, reaching Babylonia (contemporary Iraq), and nearly the Hittite land (contemporary Turkey).
Israel and Greece did not exist at that time - Moses' historical deeds were to follow shortly thereafter..

At the end of this recovery, Amenophis III (1380B.C.) reigned on the reconquered and settled lands, with provinces and colonies bordering what is now known as Turkey. With the full power of the re-established Egypt, this opulent monarch was like a Louis the Fourteenth. His palace stood in Thebes (near the contemporaryKarnak/Louxor). His wife, Queen Tiy, was also powerful, with private domains in Northen Egypt, probably by the Red Sea, and near the border of the Sinai.
There were Egyptian temples on the Sinai. Tiy's statues have been found there by Egyptologists. Israel still did not exist.
Egypt was allied, nearly blended, with Babylonia. But the Hittites were not conquered. Crete was a citadel, and ruled by Minos (Minotaurus), and was allied with Egypt and Babylonia. Athens still did not exist.
This is also the best known period  in Egyptology - the most popular Egyptian characters (except for Cleopatra) are concentrated there - such an affinity of signs showing the relation of this time with our present civilization%%.

Tiy's parents are well known - their two mummies have been found intact. Although their tomb has been plundered, like most of Egyptian sanctuaries, the painted stories on the walls of their burial chamber give enough information for us to know that they were not 'Egyptians'. Actually, the walls of Tiy's mother's and father's tomb indicate that she/he was, in all probability, Hebrew, and perhaps one of the important figures of Hebrew history (related to Joseph%%).

Though Israel did not yet exist (the first archeological traces of Hebrew tribes appear from around that time), Tiy was, as we say today, 'Jewish' - and so was her son, Akhnaton.

Such a presence of a dual couple on the throne of Egypt is explainable, for the numerous tribes and their noble families had intermarried in the previous exile - thus the lineages of the reinstalled rulers was merged.  It also means that the restoration of the State had to pass through a compulsive re-organization of distinctive identities.
It is therefore not surprising that the heir of Amenophis III and Queen Tiy encountered resistance in succeeding his father to the throne of Egypt. So their son, Amenophis IV, (the young Akhnaton), after having been reared at some distance from the Capital, first reigned in co-regency with his father (mother?%%.

This young King of Thebes, Amenophis .4th, was married to the famous Nefertiti, whose origins are still mysterious. Regarding the internal policy of Egypt, we know that Amenophis 3rd (and/or mother Tiy) had prepared and began a political transformation (re-instituting monotheistic, primal and ancient, Egyptian rituals of worshipping the Sunsetting Sun God Aton). This established the young couple's reign. It seems they announced that their son, Amenophis 4th, was the "Messiah" of this new religion.  And all this while, Egyptian interests in external affairs led them to seek an established alliance with the Hittites%% (mention Nephertiti's possible Hittite origins??%% (as shown later by Akhnaton's successor, Ramses, and his marriage with a Hittite princess%%  give her name...). But when his father died, the young King Akhnaton found too much opposition by the polytheistic priests, in the Thebean Court, to effectively promulgate his monotheistic philosophy. Having to fight continuously to set up and impose it, his reign, and his plans, changed as he was driven out of Thebes and settled in a new capital at a respectable distance to the North.

As he definitely intended to promote a universal religion, the monotheistic worship of Aton, he changed his name from Amenophis the Fourth into AkhnAton, and baptised his new capital, AkhtAton (the City of Horizon - today Tel-El-Amarna).

From this place on the East bank of the Nile, Akhnaton could express and experience, as well as develop and promote, his new movement.  This took the form of an actual restoration of a primal cult in Heliopolis, alias On, and thus deeply rooted in Ancient Egypt. He disbanded the corrupt cult of the God Amon, with its politically powerful priests, and imported several new foreign features into his policies, as he intended to promote his new policies to the entire Eastern Mediterranean.
For instance he represented himself as reigning with his Mother (after the death of his father, while Nefertiti slipped slowly into disgrace and/or oblivion). Although sacred in Babylon, Egyptians considered this tradition to be sacrilegious, in that it appeared as an incestuous relationship.

The picture (form Huya's Tomb) shows Akhnaton leading Tiye to the Temple, along with a princess depicted as their daughter.

Akhnaton also introduced other trends, such as artistic influences from Crete/Minos such as...  This new Capitol represented a single God in an open Cult, a non-violent and nearly Democratic Society, a rational philosophy and nearly scientific schools of thought.  Akhnaton planned the development of a single civilization which would comprise all of the territories appending the Ithmus, between Africa and Eurasia. But this ambitious leader, great writer and builder, may have overlooked how his projects provoked military threats. After a few years, his plans failed,and the Thebean politicians, among them the Amon priests who hated him for divesting them of their power, took advantage of both the military difficulties at the borders, and the economical turmoil in the country. They threatened Akhnaton as his entire Kingdom crumbled. Then, suddenly... Egyptology lost all trace of the King. He vanished!

Of course one assumes that Akhnaton died, perhaps killed. Yet his tomb stayed unoccupied - as did Nefertiti's. Tiy's tomb was occupied by a mummy in Akhnaton's garment who was none ot them (probably Semenkhare, Tut's brother)!
It is clear that a terrible confusion surrounded the apparent conclusion of Akhnaton's experiments. For, instead relief in announcing his death, his successors launched frenetic propaganda against him - accusing him of being a traitor, a criminal, and eventually prohibiting his name to be spoken. They also razed his City of the New Horizon to the ground, the (Akhtaton, Tel el Amarna) and plowed it with salt.
These series of events do not fit with the idea that Akhnaton simply died in Egypt. His successors (Amon priesthood) destroyed traces of him. (this is why he was discovered only recently by Egyptologists). They erased him from all historical records (and even later negotiated with neighboring nations to also delete his name from memory, and asked that records of their relationships with him be obliterated from their archives (see Kadesh/Quades: negotiation with Hittites). Then they took one of his sons, ThotAnkhAton, and changed his name into ThotAnkhAmon, (famous King Tutankamon). They brought him back to Thebes where he reigned as a child king for a short time, before being killed (in all likelihood).

History reveals that a short time later, Israel appeared, surging with a brand new Monotheism. For centuries, its rabbis have claimed to have been led from Egypt by a prophet, Moses, whose face/identity they swore to keep secret (rule of the Ancient Alliance). However, it happens that Science sometimes brings new ways of seeing things, and Egyptology today shows a compelling probability that Moses was, in fact, the masked figure of Akhnaton.

This has led the Egyptologist, Ahmed Osman, to believe that Akhnaton did not die in Egypt, but in the Sinai - as Freud also believed about Moses; that human Monotheism was branded with failure and a death toll to pay (Re: Thanatos, Death Drive).

Yet another thread of this mystery lies in Ancient Greece.

There is striking evidence that the story of Akhnaton-Moses was recorded into the legend of Oedipus (see: Velikovsky) in Greece - specifically, as the Founder of Athens. Theseus, 1,300-1000B.C., is said to have been influenced by Oedipus-Akhnaton in exile beyond his colony (re: Oedipus at Colonus). Sophocles was the main commentator, who divulged all the details, at the fall of Theseus' Athens (400BC). If this is correct - it means that Akhnaton did not die as `Moses,murdered', as Velikovsky suggested, it brings light on the decisions as to the motive and policy which took place in the short period (400-300BC), between the end of Socrates' time and the conquest of Alexander the Macedonian.

There are important clues:

We know that the end /death of Moses (acknowledged to be between 1300-1000B.C.), as well as his identity, was kept secret by the Rabbis, and therefore remained a mystery. It deserves to be reconsidered at this point in history. Actually, the Hebew tradition states only that Moses fled/hid in secret, after having delivered the Tables of the Law, still pursued and threatened by Satan, alias Seth (according to Osman's Egyptological demonstration, Seti-the-First was Akhnaton's harassing successor).

Except for prejudicial interpretations, nothing in the Bible actually refutes Moses' identification as Oedipus, (on the contrary, it presents a veiled memory - for while remarkable prejudice defines Oedipus as a decadent and perverted man, it is built up by resistance to his memory, since his legend is one of the first noble dramas of consciousness. This prejudice is the same as the one which was casted on Akhnaton's memory by his enemies); inversely, the Egyptological conclusion that Moses is Akhnaton does not refute Velikovsky's identification of Oedipus-Akhnaton - it even reinforces it (repairing Velikovsky's eluded analysis of Oedipus at Colonus).

As Freud noted, Akhnaton could not have been alone, and must have been supported by a group of people who he called 'neo-egyptians'. But what happened to their endeavor? Was it aborted in Egypt? Did it end by the Sinai, after the introduction of Writing had been transmitted to the Hebrews, along with the moral laws, and/or perhaps the Knowledge of Egyptian politics - usually kept secret in Temples/Schools at that time (see Fabre d'Olivet / Hebrew as Secret Egyptian Hieroglyph)? Or, was the Sinai mystery intended to preserve a step of this great Initiation for civilization, further North, towards the Hittites and/or Crete, just before Athens made its appearance in History? The first Delos League (Athens) and the Kingdom of David (Israel) are roughly contemporary, and they appear while the Ramessides - i.e. Dynasties following the Ramses Code of Politics - Dynasty in Egypt (Akhnaton's successors) systematically continued to eradicate the Akhnaton period from memory.

Amongst the many clues of what actually occured:
the story of Akhnaton's city, (AkhtAton, alias The City of the Horizon).

As said above, as soon as Akhnaton disappeared, his city, AkhtAton, was razed and thus deleted from the map of Egypt. The statues were dismantled, and the carved stones and painted pieces of the monuments were stacked and hidden.  Many of these great stones were used in the foundations of new monuments that his successors (Horemheb, Seti, Ramses) erected for themselves. Ironically, they constitute the best depositories that one could imagine in preserving Akhnaton's data for today's Egyptologists.

Similarly, if Akhnaton had not left an important quota of information at the foundation of Athens, there would be no sound explanation of why, at the time Alexander the Great extended Greek territories into Egypt, the following Greek rulers (Ptolemeans) would have built, on the very location of The City of Horizon (AkhtAton, Tel El Amarna), the major city: Hermopolis Magna!.

From this new site, (actually on the opposite bank of the Nile), they erected temples to worship the legendary Messenger, the Traveler Hermes, who was then called HermesThot.

From the Ptolemean temples and Schools of Hermopolis Magna, it was possible to cross the Nile, and after a short walk, to gaze at the only remains of AkhtAton that had not been destroyed - that is, stellas and huge figures which had been carved on the cliffs surrounding the former City of Horizon (AkhtAton), showing AkhnAton worshipping the Sun God, Aton.

It is still possible to see AkhTaton,s sculptures today, carved high on those same cliffs, for they could never have been hidden or buried in the sand. Therefore, it was a conspicuous historical spot for pilgrims, who came from all over the civilized world (from Greece, but now also from Roma, Re: Caesar's visit), to Hermopolis Magna (the Great City of Hermes).

This is a pencil drawing by Robert Hay, made in 1827 of one of his teams in Turkish dress, contemplating Boundary Stella A on the Western cliff South (unfortunately the quality of the picture is poor, and just a bit clearer in C.Aldred books: Akhenaten King of Egypt. Before being able to attain a better view, I choose to insert it there since it is so symbolic of what was Hermopolis Magna master sightseeing).

To add to these observations, the greatest Egyptian historian, Manetho (Egyptian chronicler of the 3rd century BC) clearly stated that Moses, the prophet of their Israeli neighbors, had been one of the most important high priests of Egypt. And another great historian, known as Strabon, at the end of the Ptolemean era, just before Christinanity, wrote again and even more precisely, that Moses had been a ruler who had intended to settle a new religion in Egypt, and who had built a city to worship his sole Solar God. Added to this were other compelling details which match the itinerary of Akhnaton's exile.

So the Greek (Ptolemean) worship at HermoPolis Magna supports that the exile of Akhnaton-Hermes did not end with Moses' exploits on the Sinai... And this was the cultural situation in Egypt when the Holy family took refugees there, during Jesus' youth... so that the memory of Akhnaton did not stop with the Greek worshipping of Hermes Thot, near the remnant of his city - here follows the description of this continuity:

History teaches that the end of the Ptolemean period occured when the Romans (from Caesar to Octavius) took over the whole Mediterranean territory. Cleopatra, the last Ptolemean ruler, died while the library of Alexandria was 'inadvertently' destroyed. Hermopolis Magna also then fell into decay. This suggests that the Messenger Hermes, from Greece, had come back (with Alexander's conquest) to Egypt (thus claiming the Greek legitimacy of a universal Egyptian civilization) and faded from mankind's awareness. Rome pretended, in its turn, to be the center of the historical world, in its own right. It was, at this precise moment, that Christianity appeared in the land of Israel.

It is known that an important corpus of the Christian foundation stems from Egypt, where the young Jesus stayed (when Rome was deleting the Ptolemean Egypt, and destroying Alexandria's famous library etc...) and was taught in the mysteries (in place of Amarna according to the Gnostics  ), before coming back to Israel, and had his famous discussions with the Rabbis. It explains why Jesus later announced his unveiling of Moses' identity by his own transfiguration (see the Transfiguration Scene - where Jesus presents Moses unveiled before his disciples - in the Gospels and comments by Saul to the Corinthians).

Then the first Christians took over the tradition of Hermes-Thot, whom they called 'Trismegistus', alias Triple Master, Trice Great (the Fathers of the Church: Suidas, Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian, Lactance, St Augustine, Cyril of Alexandria, all refer to HermesTrsimegistus) . They identified him as a Monotheist Egyptian King who had initiated Israel and Greece.

This tradition lasted during all of the Middle-Ages, and was reinforced during the Renaissance, when information from Macedonia drove Cosme de Medicis and Marsilo Ficino to identify anew the Triple Great Egytian King as 'Moses'. At the same time, Campanella described Hermes' Solar City in Egypt, which he called Adocentyn (see Giordano Bruno by Frances Yates/Warburg Institute/Royal University of London). By 1600AD, the Inquisition eventually suppressed all reference to Hermes Trismegistus - a repression which lasted until today. Yet, there again, this was based on arguments (Casaubon) which have been invalidated by the mid-20th-century (Nag Hammadi).

There is little doubt, in making any conclusions about the study of Hermes Trismegistus, that this legendary Monotheist King was, in fact, Akhnaton. And this is finally established historically, and objectified by science (Egyptology). It fullfills Jesus explanation, on the Transfiguration Scene, that it was in vain to expect the return of this memory by the means of any religious institution.

Today, the city of Assiout stands by the site of the City of Horizon, where tourism is not encouraged by Muslim activists who live there, and can contemplate the old engraved cliffs which still display AkhnAton, and Tiy, his mother, or Nefertiti, worshipping the Sun God Aton.

As Oedipus prophesized, his sons were to fight forever - yet, Savitri Devi, in 1940 made an interesting remark - She noted that by the mid-20th-century, it would be realized that Akhnaton's failure to establish his civilization was unfortunate, for its principle would have fit the Eastern and Asian mentality. Therefore, she said, West and East could have united - for the only way we could successfully approach planetary problems such as pollution, overpopulation, depletion etc, would be as a unified global community and/or Artificial intelligence Network.
Yet Savitri could not see that Akhnaton's civilization was established, in fact. The only difficulty is to root out its memory from a Unconscious state. This is the task of Psychoanalysis, just as Freud began to disclose it. Meanwhile, the long Alchemist Tradition (Hermes Trismegistus - Emerald Tables), which upheld Akhnaton's revolution through its long lasting oblivion, is also indicative: once its repression released, a Scientific state of mind will support and stimulate human societies to find the answer to the modern Sphinx: Ecology.

In this series you can also find:

Akhnaton, Moses, Oedipus, Triple Hermes, Freud, Lacan, Velikovsky, Osman, Theaux.

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© William Theaux 1949-1999