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THE GREAT ATEN

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Author Topic: THE GREAT ATEN  (Read 12945 times)
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Bianca
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« Reply #45 on: February 26, 2008, 12:15:53 pm »









Akhenaten must have had some supporters, besides the usual lunatic fringe and sycophant
wing who will follow any maniac into the wilderness.

A hint about their identity comes in one of the Amarna reliefs in which Nefertiti holds up the decapitated head of a foreign captive. That suggests some sort of military activity during
Akhenaten's reign, an event history bears no evidence of otherwise.

But that's not surprising really, given later pharaohs' destruction of records from his day. Any
boasts of victory in foreign wars the monomaniacal monotheist might have issued isn't likely
to have survived their holocaust.

So, if Akhenaten did have the support of the Egyptian army—and there's no real evidence
to the contrary—his revolution would make much more sense. Still, an army backing an effe-
minate, secluded, family-loving, pointy-headed sun freak seems highly improbable today.

But then again, how much can we rely on our modern sensibilities here where so little else
seems logical?

Yet, strange times often make strange bedfellows. If both the pharaoh and the military
were seeking the same thing—for instance, to undercut the power of the Amun priest-
hood which, by then, was siphoning off a hefty percentage of the taxes collected in
Egypt—the aten and the army might have made common cause. Or so some scholars
suggest.

All the same, it must have been an interesting meeting between the slouching sun-lover
and the hardened desert troopers who defended Egypt's frontier. How did they find enough
in common even to have a conversation, much less foment a revolution together?
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