THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO School of Humanities and Social Sciences “The Aten desires that there be made for him”: An analysis of Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten’s Temple Construction Activity outside of Tell el-Amarna A Thesis Submitted to The Department of Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology and Egyptology In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts In Egyptology By Megan Kathryn Paqua Under the supervision of Dr. Lisa Sabbahy May 2015 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is with a sincere and profound gratitude that I acknowledge the support of the mentors, colleagues, and family who made the completion of this thesis possible. First, to my supervisor and advisor, Dr. Lisa Sabbahy. Her endless patience, advice, and enthusiasm were essential to the completion of this work. I would also like to thank my committee members, Dr. Mariam Ayad and Dr. Fayza Haikal, for their invaluable insight into ancient Egyptian religious texts and rituals. Dr. Salima Ikram, who helped me establish foundational knowledge in Egyptology, and whose unflagging support made possible my entire graduate-level body of work Many thanks are due to Dr. Anna Stevens not only for allowing me to work with the Amarna Project for but also for her insight in our discussions of Amarna Period temples in Sudan as well as to Dr. Dietrich Raue for generously allowing me access to both his excavation site and material. Last, but certainly not least, I wish to thank my parents for their love, patience, and support in allowing me to travel halfway across the world to pursue my studies. 2 ABSTRACT The Amarna Period is one of the most widely studied periods of ancient Egyptian history, largely due to the wide variety of cultural material available from the eponymous settlement Tell el- Amarna, the ancient city of Akhetaten. However, there is a great deal of archaeological and textual evidence for during the Amarna Period activity outside of the city of Akhetaten. This thesis investigates the regional temples constructed by Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten throughout the course of his reign. It establishes a set of criteria to evaluate the archaeological and textual evidence for temple construction at different sites across Egypt in order to determine which structures constitute an Amarna Period construction as opposed to later reuse of Amarna Period materials taken from other sites. The thesis examines the regional temples first as a discrete group, to examine the geographic scope of Amarna Period temple activity, and then places the regional sites in comparison with the temples from Tell el-Amarna to assess the evolution of the architectural layout and iconographic program, thus elucidating the trajectory of the corresponding changes made to state theology throughout the Amarna Period. These transformations represent not only a religious revolution, in which the orthodoxy of New Kingdom state religion is supplanted, but also the acceleration of the pre-existing New Kingdom trend towards the solarization of state cults as well as the centrality of the person of the king in his role as the main officiant of cult. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 5 Methodology ................................................................................................................................................ 7 Literature Review ......................................................................................................................................... 7 Organization of the Work ............................................................................................................................ 9 Chapter I: Amarna Period Historical Overview ............................................................................... 11 Chapter II: Overview of the Aten Cult ............................................................................................ 19 History of the Aten ..................................................................................................................................... 19 Temples from Tell el-Amarna .................................................................................................................... 21 Chapter III: Gazetteer ...................................................................................................................... 25 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................ 25 Presentation of Sites ................................................................................................................................... 25 Chapter IV: Identification of Amenhotep IV/ Akhenaten Temples ................................................. 41 Positively Identified Temple Construction Sites ....................................................................................... 42 Inconclusive Sites ...................................................................................................................................... 55 Modification Sites ...................................................................................................................................... 61 Chapter V: Analysis ......................................................................................................................... 62 Temple Names ........................................................................................................................................... 63 Locations Within Sites ............................................................................................................................... 64 Temple Layout ........................................................................................................................................... 66 Iconography ............................................................................................................................................... 67 Proposed Timeline of Regional Temple Building Activity ....................................................................... 69 Conclusions ...................................................................................................................................... 71 4 Introduction The Amarna Period is arguably one of the best known and most commonly researched epochs of Egyptian history. The idiosyncrasies of its art and religious expression are matched only by the eccentricities of its progenitor, Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten. The anomalies of the historical and archaeological record from this time have fascinated both scholars and amateur Egyptophiles from the inception of the discipline of Egyptology. Akhenaten himself has been subjected to analysis from an exhaustive number of academic as well as pseudo-scientific fields. 1 The Atenist iconoclasm has led to Akhenaten’s identification as the “world’s first monotheist”, and much ink has been spent examining his possible impact upon the theology of the Judeo-Christian religious movements.2 The artwork of the period, which has been considered both refreshingly realistic and horrifically transgressive in equal measure, has led to the proposal of numerous pathologies in an attempt to explain his unorthodox depictions of the human form. Suggested explanations have ranged from Akhenaten having an actual physical deformity to a desire to portray himself as androgynous in honor of his asexual deity.3 This preoccupation with the pharaoh’s physicality extends even further with attempts to retroactively exercise modern psychoanalytic methods to explain the motivations for his seemingly unorthodox behaviors. This fetishization of Akhenaten’s individuality and humanity4 is further extended to his family members, in no small part due to the uncommonly intimate subject matter of the depictions of the royal couple and their children. The notoriety of the iconic painted bust of Nefertiti popularized an image of the queen that conformed to western aesthetics of beauty, and the scandal surrounding its installment in Berlin only adds to her allure. The glamor of the dramatis personae of the Amarna Period is responsible for a genre-transcending fascination for the period in popular literature,5 exacerbated in part by their relationship to Tutankhamun. The complexity and level of preservation of Tell el-Amarna offers a singular array of research opportunities for scholars interested in pursuing settlement archaeology, paleopathological and mortuary studies,6 investigations into ancient technologies and industries,7 1 For an extensive discussion of the “fringe” studies of Akhenaten, see D. Montserrat 2003. Akhenaten: History, Fantasy, and Ancient Egypt, London and New York: Routledge. 2 S. Freud, 1964. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XXIII (1937-1939), “Moses and monotheism”. London: Hogarth Press; J. Assmann, 1997. Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press; D. Redford, 1987. “The Monotheism of the Heretic Pharaoh: Precursor of Mosiac monotheism or Egyptian anomaly?” Biblical Archaeology Review, May-June edition. 3 For a detailed discussion of the various pathologies ascribed to Akhenaten, see L. Manniche, 2010. “Pathology” The Akhenaten Colossi of Karnak, Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press: 135-148. 4 Breasted referred to Akhenaten as “The first individual