Loading summary
Transcript171 lines
- [00:01]
A
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 ad, free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to empire club@www.empirepoduk.com.
- [00:30]
B
Hello and welcome to emp. Hi. With me, Anita Arnan.
- [00:34]
A
And me, William Dalrymple. 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 triumphant.
- [01:29]
B
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. 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, Amana 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.
- [02:44]
A
But you're not speaking from the British Museum, I take it there have you
- [02:48]
B
half inch something precious and put it in your house? What's going on?
- [02:52]
C
Sadly, it's an inflatable one.
- [02:54]
B
Okay.
- [02:54]
C
No, it's not.
- [02:55]
A
One of those many missing pieces for the British Museum that we keep reading about the papers.
- [02:59]
B
I know that was quite the scandalous story. Aidan, if you have anything to confess.
- [03:03]
C
Not at all, no, no. This was bought from the museum shop in St. Louis, Missouri, many, many years ago.
- [03:08]
A
That's very disappointing.
- [03:10]
B
So, William, where are we starting? Just remind us where we are at the moment.
- [03:14]
A
So this is year 12 of the Amarna revolution. The great Durbar is about to take place. And it's worth spe a moment looking at this city at its peak. Einharden's 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.
- [03:43]
B
You're not flying in for some time to come.
- [03:47]
C
There was a.
- [03:48]
A
Where the Olympics happened. All the. All the crooks in Delhi built these bridges that fell as soon as the big crowds turned up. But anyway, it was that sort of thing. And within a decade, a city of 20 or 30,000 people had risen from the Bear Desert. And this is a time when there are no other cities of 20 or 30,000 people, except possibly Babylon or Ur of the golden term. Are There any other 20,000 people cities at this period in history?
- [04:17]
C
One would suspect that Memphis in Egypt certainly is because that's the really ancient capital. Probably parts of probably Thebes, a similar kind of size. But probably the idea is that this
- [04:28]
A
is not Memphis as in Elvis Presley.
- [04:30]
C
No, this is the 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 residence. Amarna Acheta, as it was called in ancient times, was intended to replace them both as the political and religious capital.
- [04:53]
A
And just to describe it, I'd like to just sort of the image of this city at its center, the great temple of Aten, an open air enclosure of unprecedented size. None of the dark inner sanctuaries of traditional Egyptian temples. Because Aten required no darkness, no ritual mystery, just sunlight. And you have all these complaints to you from foreign dignitaries.
- [05:14]
B
Yes, it's too hot. Why are we sitting out here? 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 in chariots, Aidan 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
- [05:53]
A
else, rather prettier than Victorian versions. I mean, I have to say that I know that everyone is down on that line. I think it's the most. This supreme moment of Egyptian art. The art from this period is astonishingly gorgeous. And these very simple lines.
- [06:08]
B
You say that, but I think they all look like eight aliens. They are basically E.T. s family. I don't like them at all. I think they look weird.
- [06:16]
C
So, you know, Amarna writer is a bit of. 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 that. During those first few years.
- [06:49]
A
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. With these sort of weird lips and tummy, which was one originally of seven or eight lined up against the Temple of Aten?
- [07:02]
C
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 decent. In a vaguely decent state. But yeah, they are heavily distorted. Although somebody has pointed. Pointed out that if you're standing directly below them and looking up, they're less distorted. They've actually. The artist has actually adjusted things so that when you're at. At their feet, because these things are what, about 10, 12 foot tall. If you're standing sort of looking up at them, the. Everything isn't quite as out of line as.
- [07:37]
B
I love that. So it's a perspective thing. So it's actually. It's made for purpose, so that if you're an ant, like human, you'll see a. That's really interesting. I never thought of that.
- [07:46]
C
Yeah. And you actually said in some other colossal statues from Egypt or other periods, the ears appears a bit too high. But when you're sort of at the right. At the optimum viewing distance. They're okay.
- [07:58]
B
Will he use the word apart from lapis lazuli? You use 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 gifts. It's a show of a basins, 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?
- [08:26]
C
Yeah. And we've actually. And the term is simply borrowed from, from, from the Indian Empire whereby you've got the. The durbars of. Of George V and people like that. It's one of those, 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, this major event with everybody coming to bring gifts to
- [08:49]
B
the king to bend the knee, as it were. So I mean, you know, this all has a utopian quality to it.
- [08:55]
C
Yeah. And I think that's the idea that was sort of the concept of building this entire new city was to start from the idea of the ark 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 pretty much all the other cities in Egypt go back thousands of years
- [09:17]
A
to were already incredibly ancient. Yeah.
- [09:20]
C
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.
- [09:56]
A
I can have a look at a
- [09:57]
C
barn in the same way I am
- [09:58]
A
now your roundabouts with plastic cows on them.
- [10:02]
C
But that's the idea. 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 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.
- [10:37]
A
And this is all one man's vision. But that contains within it the seeds of its own destruction. Right. 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.
- [10:54]
C
No, 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 anyone, everybody or even 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. And within probably a couple of decades, the place is just simply a village with a few rather sort of rather dilapidated ruinous buildings on the edge of it.
- [11:38]
B
Now, is that possibly because this is such a personal revolution? I mean, you know, it is obviously one man's vision. But I. 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 his daddy was quite
- [12:06]
A
keen on Aten too?
- [12:07]
C
Yeah, there's a number of issues here. One I think is that it 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, 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 of that way in Hinduism where you've got some of these various avatars of deities. So there's sort of a. 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, not necessarily to a full scale God. But in Egypt there's a little 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 full fledged 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.
- [13:31]
B
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 did the first signs of trouble start appearing? Because, I mean, if you went to that Darbar, 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?
- [13:51]
C
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. So he's lost half of his young family almost overnight. And I suspect that 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. And also they may well have. There's a more real recognition of the dark underbelly of what's going on at Amarna in the sense that in the last few couple of decades we've found cemeteries of various workmen who clearly have been worked to death at a very young age.
- [14:42]
A
They're showing signs of malnutrition or just
- [14:45]
C
simply that they're dying in their 20s with skeletal problems and all these sort of things.
- [14:51]
B
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 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.
- [15:19]
C
So I think what we've got though is there's the superficial glamour, but all of the. But the actual cost of that 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, now what this, okay, this beautiful city, what's it actually done, and it wouldn't surprise me is if that is when sort of real whispering against the king may have begun.
- [15:45]
A
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 sudden nonsense. They're still wanting hippopotamus gods and. And bests if they're giving birth and all the things that they believe in, that their mothers believed in, their grandmothers believed, everything that really matters to these people.
- [16:10]
C
Yeah. So when you go to the workmen's villages which are on the outskirts of Amarna. Yeah. You find that you're finding all these traditional amulets. So it looks as though really that the. Although of course, everybody, nobility are shown being favorable to the art. And I suspect that most people actually had in their bottom drawers the old amulets. So I think most people, it was purely a show of devotion to the regime and that sort of. 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.
- [16:59]
B
The commoners may have held onto their secret amulets and their, you know, eyes warding off the evil eye or, you know, 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?
- [17:19]
C
Yes. 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. We've got three of those. One of those is labelled as the death of Meketate and 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 a process of elimination, they have to be the two youngest daughters, Neferneferu Re and Setepen Re, who are likely to only have been sort of no older than 5 at the time of their deaths. Mekatatan is probably perhaps 10 when she dies.
- [18:17]
B
Willie, you dug up this really quite moving passage describing that Tomb of Mekatartan. 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?
- [18:32]
A
Of course, I'd be happy to. Would you?
- [18:35]
B
That's a pretty shocker. Okay, you go then.
- [18:39]
A
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 Mecca Tartan die in childbirth? 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.
- [19:27]
B
See, I knew you'd do that very well. And the thing I wanted to say. Adjacent next town. The thing is, Aidan, what is to me quite striking about this, and I don't know whether it is true that this is the court of Aghenaten, where every image is so controlled, you know, the way in which people see things is so sort of organized 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.
- [20:00]
C
And I think that's the thing about a lot of the, 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. There's an amazing painting now in Ox from one of the palaces which shows all the various princesses lounging around on cushions at their parents feet. So that's, it's one of these 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 workmen
- [20:47]
A
are dying of starvation.
- [20:48]
C
Yeah, the people who are build, 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.
- [21:03]
B
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 need
- [21:15]
A
get you to read Anita soon? I think we need a Hittite plague prayer.
- [21:19]
B
Me? No. Okay, sure. But before we do that, is there actual evidence that there was a plague? She says, warming up her vocal cords.
- [21:29]
C
It's certainly circumstantial and that we know that within a decade of Akhenaten's death there is certainly a major plague ranging 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, on Egypt. So although we can't prove it, I think a good working hypothesis is that the people who came into Egypt bringing the gifts from diplomatic gifts and so on for the Durbar also brought with them the bacteria spreaders. The bacteria or virus which then becomes a major.
- [22:08]
A
This is like sort of Boris Johnson's 10 Downing street this is very slight.
- [22:13]
C
And also then what interestingly happens Mayfair's KM 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, more people.
- [22:44]
A
So this is the perfect cube for our, our Jane Fonda or that's a current reference.
- [22:55]
B
It's fine, I'll take it. She's amazing. Okay, let me, let me do this. So this is a, the, the, the one of the plague prayers from the Hittites Hattie and Storm God my Lord and you gods, my lords. It is so, so that people are dying in Hatiland. The plague has been rampant in Hatiland 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 Hatiland.
- [23:30]
A
Oscar Oscar nominated performance. Jesse Buckley if you want to bring
- [23:34]
B
it at least I feel we should, should take a break here to recover
- [23:38]
A
from the perfection of that performance.
- [23:40]
B
Join us after the break and when we talk about sort of the rest of this collapse of an extraordinary moment in Egypt ancient Egyptian history. Welcome back. So while you're all Having a little lie down and recovering from that epic reading, I was informed by our learned guest. Yes, Anita Hattie rather than Hattie Land. Hattie Land sounds like something out of Alice in Wonderland. Hattie is what I should have said. Anyway, I hope that didn't detract from any of your enjoyment, Willi. 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?
- [24:28]
A
We do. And we touched on this with our Eric episode about the Amarna letters. These. These wonderful little bits of R Vita 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 pleas for help from Egyptian allies further north that remain unanswered. And people write in and in and in without ever getting replies saying what's happened?
- [25:02]
B
To the point where the pharaoh actually says would you stop writing to me now?
- [25:05]
C
It's really important.
- [25:07]
B
Would you stop stop writing now.
- [25:09]
C
I think the issue here is actually this is an area where we have some scholarly debate, 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 I call Ribadi. And there's question whether or not he is symptomatic of Akhenaten, sort of ignoring pleas for help.
- [25:30]
A
We're just saying Nartan didn't like him very much and was longing for him to be overthrown.
- [25:34]
C
Or the fact that he is simply somebody who is attention seeker, a notorious boar of Byblos. Basically. Yeah, 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 try when we've just simply got these things. And also problem with the archive is that by its nature it's only the incoming post.
- [26:07]
B
We don't know what the replies are.
- [26:09]
C
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 that he's so worried about plague and whatever, he's not actually help doing sending or alternatively he's just saying, look, we know this guy just has. It's been it's been whinging for years. We'll just forget about him.
- [26:38]
B
Okay? I mean, just to give you some idea of Rip Hada's enthusiastic writing from Biblos, six or more letters to the pharaoh, each one more desperate than the last. And, and he is a loyal Egyptian vassal.
- [26:51]
C
He claims to be.
- [26:53]
B
Okay, he claims to be a great skeptic about.
- [26:55]
A
Read about pretty much everything.
- [26:56]
B
I mean, I think I. 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 quite poetically about how, 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 of. We. We've seen pharaohs, for example, in the past who have responded to famine in that area, who have said, you know, okay, you're having a hard time, I will send grain. Egypt is the center 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.
- [27:43]
C
Yeah. The question is if we knew what letters may have gone in the other direction. And this is the trouble, I think all we're looking at is just is 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 with her and sort of is sort of being in support of them from that direction. So it's a tricky. It's a tricky line.
- [28:12]
B
I have made no secret of the fact I don't like. I don't like this pharaoh. He's my least favourite pharaoh.
- [28:18]
A
This is the first argument we've had since Rudyard Kipling.
- [28:20]
B
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?
- [28:49]
C
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 Always go
- [29:00]
A
with your heart, Aidan, always just go with your heart.
- [29:03]
C
I've always taken the view that Ribadi is overdoing it.
- [29:07]
B
Right.
- [29:08]
C
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 Tatar Khamun's which basically says that Egyptian foreign policy went to rats under his predecessor.
- [29:25]
A
We actually have that. Yes, because we also have the fact that the Hittites are clearly making gains. They are moving southwards, aren't they?
- [29:33]
C
So there is a. The question is really whether or not there's. Certainly the scenario is that there are problems up that end of the Levant. But the question is whether or not Ribadi's. Please. Should be taken at face value. I. Nothing is being done or whether something is being done, but not as much as Ribadi would like there to be.
- [29:57]
B
I understand you think Ribadi is Moaning Myrtle. I think he's quite justified in making bail 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?
- [30:11]
C
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 happened again.
- [30:19]
A
Which means he's what, about 30, 35 probably.
- [30:22]
C
I suppose the trouble is we don't know how old he was when he came to throw. Although the fact he was unmarried at the time would suggest he's in his late teens or early teens. Yeah, well, somewhere in his teens anyway. But when he comes to throne. But we have got no real normal
- [30:37]
A
time of marriage for age. Well, was 14 or 15, wasn't there?
- [30:41]
C
It's certainly somewhere around there. But again, we haven't got enough.
- [30:44]
A
Good.
- [30:44]
C
We have very, very little data on the actual ages of most ancient Egyptians. We don't. They don't so happen to say that I'm 16 years old or whatever. It's very. There's a couple. Couple 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. If he gets married around 15, 16 and then is dying in year 17 that adds up quite well.
- [31:10]
A
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 iconoclasm of. Of previous gods increases that. He wipes out everything that's left that he hasn't already wiped out.
- [31:25]
C
Yeah, well, one of the big questions about Akhenaten is at what point he starts persecuting the God Amun. Also, there's two levels to this, because going back into about year five is when the Aten becomes the sole God who he's actually bother with. Whether he actually believes he is the sole God or the only God he wants to worship is another completely different debate. Then most of the other gods are then simply ignored. They basically, in modern terms, have their funding withdrawn, but there's no real attempt to actually sort of remove them. People like Ptah and all the other great gods, their names aren't erased. The exception is Ammon, the previous king of the gods. And my view is the reason why 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. The 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.
- [32:35]
A
Does that mean he's getting more fanatical or he's getting desperate? What do you think?
- [32:42]
C
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 daughters, may be Ammon. So I think I'm of 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.
- [33:15]
B
Okay, so I mean, look, he does die eventually. Very sad for some.
- [33:20]
A
I'm sure that's quite an emotional farewell to our friend.
- [33:26]
B
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, you know, 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 this visceral defacing that goes on Tell us about that.
- [33:52]
C
I think it's 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 Tutankhaten, now later Tutankhamun. And what seems to happen is that the dismantling of the idea of the Aten being the sole 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.
- [34:35]
B
But 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 King Kings. And that mummy is clearly subject to deliberate desecration.
- [34:46]
A
It looks like had his literally his face beaten.
- [34:49]
B
Just. Yeah, yeah, just destroyed and, and the royal insignia chiseled off. Now, was that Akhenaten?
- [34:56]
C
Now I think we're into something which could be about three podcasts worth.
- [35:00]
B
All right, okay, we haven't got that. Okay, let me rephrase it. What do you think, Gaydon? Do you think it was that commander
- [35:07]
A
is on a rack a decision here.
- [35:10]
B
Do you think it was Akhenaten?
- [35:11]
C
No.
- [35:12]
B
Oh, oh, okay.
- [35:14]
C
Would you like me to I better explain. Expand on that. Okay. 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 royal of the mummies which were in that royal tomb were moved to KV55. Akhenaten.
- [35:38]
A
And is that the girls?
- [35:39]
C
No, the girl. We don't know where. We assume the girls went to another tomb in the same area of the Valley of the kings. But KV55 certainly had Akhenaten in it originally Queen Ti, his mother, and the third individual. And Ti and Akhenaten were both removed from the tomb at a later date, leaving one body behind, which as far as I'm concerned is Sven Ka Ray, who was Akhenaten's short lived co ruler around about year 13.
- [36:10]
B
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, you know, a criminal. So I mean, just, just how, when just, you know, in, in a nutshell, when do we see that bubble over and, and change what comes next if you like.
- [36:36]
C
It's either directly following the death of Tutankhamun or directly following the death of Ay, his immediate successor. And we don't know, we know this is 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,
- [36:58]
B
well, you wouldn't dare diss his dad.
- [37:00]
C
And also I may actually have been his father, Akhenaten's father in law. So possibly not. But certainly once you get into the reign of Horemheb, that's definitely happening. But there's been lots of debate over exactly when KB55 is desecrated. Some people 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 and then somebody pointed out some major methodological errors in the assessment. So again it's going to be somewhere within, 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.
- [37:49]
B
Okay. And we're going to do a whole episode on, on Tutankhamun and and you know, get into that mystery of okay, if he still was the so loyal to his dad, why did he change his name? And I 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?
- [38:11]
A
Before we get there, I'd like to know if KV55 isn't him. Have we got his mummy at all or has it been totally destroyed?
- [38:17]
C
My personal view is that what happened when they decided to clear KV55 is that that T is moved off to, to a new, to a new new location. SM is deprived of his identity but left in place and Akhenate is taken off and burned. 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 can, she's okay and her mummy is now, is now in Cairo. Stenka Ray probably miss, probably misled, wasn't a bad lad. We'll take his names away, but we'll leave his body will survive. Akhenaten Completely beyond the pale. And the worst thing which can happen to an ancient Egyptian is to be consumed by fire.
- [39:06]
B
Because what they don't enter the underworld
- [39:08]
C
then, or 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 out and a bonfire kindled in the middle of Vale of the Kings. Yeah, that's my personal view anyway.
- [39:29]
B
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. So it's a rip roaring story, but just getting back to the people of Amarna. So after the death, death of Akhenaten, what happens to them? Do we know if they thrive after he's gone or do they continue a downward spiral?
- [39:59]
C
I think basically within three years of Akhenaten's death, they've decided Amarna is finished. And therefore what we have, 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, at Thebes, at Luxor, where they've always been. And everybody else sort of starts drifting back to their own, to wherever they were. I suspect the majority will have gone back to either Memphis or to Thebes, which are the two older capitals. And then the whole play. And in doing so they start dismantling their houses because there are bits which are made of no 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 sort of falls down from being the capital city of an empire through down to simply being the Milton Keynes.
- [41:01]
A
Roundabouts get overgrown.
- [41:04]
C
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 tumbleweed is going down the streets. But the important point is that by that time when you, by the time the reign of Ramesses II a few decades later, what they're doing is now knocking down the temple and reusing the stone for the foundations of new temples. On the other side of the river.
- [41:28]
A
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
- [41:34]
B
punishments and some killed, some exiled, some sent to the Egyptian equivalent of the Gulag. Yeah. When did they arrive?
- [41:41]
A
When do they begin to kind of trickle back?
- [41:44]
C
Immediately, because we've got. The Amon cult is up and running again within a year or two of Akhenate's death. So it's quite clear that it's the moment. It's one of those cases, a bit like when the death of Stalin, when
- [41:57]
A
suddenly the Bloody Mary in. In the English Reformation. Yeah. Back to. Back to Protestantism again.
- [42:03]
C
The moment that the. The tyrant, or whatever you want to call, call him, is dead. I think immediately everybody goes, breathe 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 say it looks we've certainly got Amon cult back without any kind of problems. Almost the big issue is tidying up the mess because you've had temples which have had no funding for a decade, and you've also got the Amun temples with no statues of Amun left because they've all been pulverized by Akhenaten. So the big thing is then, and this takes decades for them to actually restore all of this.
- [42:47]
A
Now, at what point point do we get the restoration, Stella? Because this is a crucial piece of evidence, isn't it?
- [42:51]
C
Yeah, this is the early, early part of the reign of Tutankhamun. Unfortunately, the year date is broken away. It's typical of these kinds of inscriptions,
- [43:02]
A
but people kind of agree it's 1332, that sort of date.
- [43:06]
C
Wait, it's probably the year. My view is it's probably year three, because I think year three is the crucial point. I think. Because I think it's at that point that year three is probably when Nefertiti dies.
- [43:16]
A
I feel another Gielgud moment coming on. I have to keep up with Liz Taylor over there and do another.
- [43:22]
B
You're so. You're so current, so cutting edge.
- [43:27]
A
Jesse Buckley. Here we go.
- [43:29]
C
So my view, and I think the general view, is there are other. There are other views available, but is that year three is when it happened. It's the key point because at the point when Nefertiti dies and also with her, any sort of moderation. Because 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. That is the point probably where you've got new people deciding what's happening because remember Tutankhamun Island's child when this is all happening and we'll be discussing, of course, we'll be exploring this in the, in the later in the later podcast. But once that's gone, that's when he gets his name changed from Tutank Aten 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, remember, remove, withdraw funding and whatever.
- [44:36]
B
Delete, delete, delete, delete is what it is.
- [44:38]
C
Yes, 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, let's, let's erase all of this from history.
- [44:50]
B
And to sum up that kind of decrepitude of a once great civilization, I hand over to William Dalrymple, who is going to read from the restoration Stella of Tutankhamun.
- [45:03]
A
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 Djahi, 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. Their hearts were weak in their bodies and they destroyed what was made.
- [45:59]
B
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?
- [46:09]
C
There's a couple of things, I suppose. One which isn't really so 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 his point, from, 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
- [46:39]
A
important for a man, for a man who built this wonderful city and did all this stuff.
- [46:43]
C
The other thing though, is it his reign represents a very much a watershed. There is a very much a before and after. A little bit like. 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, recreation, the world which the dead person wanted to be in. In the next world after 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.
- [47:34]
A
Does that imply that the priesthood has now increased in power? It's come back with a vengeance?
- [47:39]
C
No, actually, 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. Now 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. So I think it's a fault line in Egyptian history that things sort of come back to normal, but in some ways they.
- [49:12]
B
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.
- [49:26]
A
Top book. Really, really wonderful. It's short, but absolutely brilliant.
- [49:29]
B
Short, but very not sweet. I mean, it's quite awful. Stuff happens, but it's very interesting. Thank you very much.
- [49:35]
A
Our next episode is all about one of the most beautiful and easily recognizable women of all ancient history, Nefertiti. If you want early access to that, then join the empire club@empirepoduk.com and you'll get exclusive access to our fantastic bonus on the Curse of Tutankhamun's Tomb.
- [49:59]
B
Till the next time we meet, though, it's goodbye from me, Anita Anand.
- [50:03]
A
Goodbye from me, William Gielgud Durimple.