"In the middle of the fourteenth century BCE, Egypt's polytheistic religion was suddenly attacked by its most traditional upholder, the pharaoh. The short-lived revolution which followed continues to be as disturbing and enigmatic as the "heretic king" Akhenaten who set it in motion. Was Akhenaten the first monotheist, as he is widely reputed to be? Or was he an opportunist, possibly even an atheist, who cloaked a political revolution in religious terms? Modern readers will now find it easier to address such questions by using this wide-ranging collection of documents, many of them never before translated into English, in which the full sweep of one of ancient history's most fascinating periods lives anew"--Back cover.

The move to a new capital, Akhenaten/Amarna, brought essential changes in the depictions of royal women. It was in their female imagery, above all, that the artists of Amarna departed from the traditional iconic representations to emphasize the individual, the natural, in a way unprecedented in Egyptian art.

Pharaoh Akhenaten, who reigned for seventeen years in the fourteenth century B.C.E, is one of the most intriguing rulers of ancient Egypt. His odd appearance and his preoccupation with worshiping the sun disc Aten have stimulated academic discussion and controversy for more than a century. Despite the numerous books and articles about this enigmatic figure, many questions about Akhenaten and the Atenism religion remain unanswered. In Akhenaten and the Origins of Monotheism, James K. Hoffmeier argues that Akhenaten was not, as is often said, a radical advocating a new religion, but rather a primitivist: that is, one who reaches back to a golden age and emulates it. Akhenaten's inspiration was the Old Kingdom (2650-2400 B.C.E.), when the sun-god Re/Atum ruled as the unrivaled head of the Egyptian pantheon. Hoffmeier finds that Akhenaten was a genuine convert to the worship of Aten, the sole creator God, based on the Pharoah's own testimony of a theophany, a divine encounter that launched his monotheistic religious odyssey. The book also explores the Atenist religion's possible relationship to Israel's religion, offering a close comparison of the hymn to the Aten to Psalm 104, which has been identified by scholars as influenced by the Egyptian hymn. Through a careful reading of key texts, artworks, and archaeological studies, Hoffmeier provides compelling new insights into a religion that predated Moses and Hebrew monotheism, the impact of Atenism on Egyptian religion and politics, and the aftermath of Akhenaten's reign.

Amarna is an extensive Egyptian archaeological site that represents the remains of the capital city newly established (1346 BC) and built by the Pharaoh Akhenaten of the late Eighteenth Dynasty, and abandoned shortly after his death (1332 BC). The name for the city employed by the ancient Egyptians is written as Akhetaten (or Akhetaton-transliterations vary) in English transliteration. Akhetaten means "Horizon of the Aten".

The Amarna Period, named after the site of an innovative capital city that was the center of the new religion, included the reigns of heretic Pharaoh Akhenaten and his presumed son, the boy king Tutankhamun.

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