When Napoleon’s soldiers stumbled across a site in Egypt called Tell el-Amarna, they were the first Europeans to see the wide hips, soft, protruding belly, curves that look like breasts, and exaggerated facial features of a pharaoh named Akhenaten. Struck by how dissimilar his appearance is to the other Ancient Egyptian pharaohs, they had the same question that we are still asking today: why does Akhenaten look so… bizarre?
As we have come to realize, Akhenaten’s appearance is far from the only mystery surrounding this pharaoh. He was born as Amenhotep IV, a New Kingdom (ca 1570 - 1069 BCE) pharaoh who assumed the throne around 1352 BCE. However, shortly into Amenhotep IV’s reign, he changed his name to Akhenaten, moved the capital of Egypt to a previously unbuilt stretch of desert now known as Amarna, began representing himself in this strange way, and, perhaps most surprisingly, began to focus all the ritualistic attention of the king on a single deity known as the Aten.
All of this mystery has made Akhenaten a central topic of conversation and study for the past two hundred years. However, that first question often goes unanswered: why does he look the way that he looks?
Akhenaten’s appearance is in stark contrast to the Egyptian standard that was more or less unbroken throughout the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms. The Egyptians depicted their world and their kings in regimented, standardized form, with seemingly no desire to capture individual features. Everyone had broad shoulders, a narrow waist, an athletic and usually young body, and the same almond-shaped eyes and full lips. In this, they were interested in being represented by a perfected ideal, not a portrait of the person.
Egyptians, a projection into eternity—and not necessarily a projection that accurately reflected their reality. The effect of this is a chain of pharaoh after pharaoh with perfect, inscrutable faces, staring into oblivion with the stoic emotionlessness that can only befit an ideal; and then there’s Akhenaten, who explicitly portrays love, sex, devotion, and power through his very personalized body.
Why? What was his motivation?
For many a modern observer, Akhenaten’s strange appearance is one to be diagnosed. There have been attempts—in both archaeological and medical fields—to find the culprit for his appearance in a genetic condition, such as Marfan (a rare multi-systemic genetic disorder that affects the connective tissue and people affected tend to present as tall and thin, with long arms, legs, fingers, and toes) or Froehlich’s Syndrome (excessive or increased eating that leads to obesity, a delay of the start of puberty, and small testes).
Others (including Sigmund Freud) have made assumptions about his personality because of this unusual body—he was effeminate, he was an outlier, he was the embodiment of Oedipal impulses. However, all of these theories share the same central flaw: they rely on the assumption that the Egyptians portrayed themselves in art the way they looked in real life.
Taking into account that the Egyptians perceived art as an unreal ideal, the question becomes so much more interesting: what if Akhenaten is shown with the curves associated with either pregnancy or fatness simply because that’s what he wanted to embody?
And if so, why?
Unusually clear clues have been left for us in the city that Akhenaten founded. Amarna was only occupied during his reign and was abandoned shortly after his death—the occupation lasted some 20-30 years. As such, what has been discovered in its sands point directly towards the world Akhenaten lived in and was responding to. Shockingly, the skeletons of the citizens excavated in Amarna’s cemeteries paint a grim picture of that world. In their bones, we have been able to see clear and unmistakable signs of a persistent condition of malnutrition and probable illness that began before Akhenaten’s reign and continued to sweep through his new city. Of the estimated 20,000 - 50,000 of people that lived in Amarna, 10,000 -13,000 are thought to be in the cemeteries—almost all of whom are between the ages of 7-24 years old. People dying by the thousands in the prime of their lives is unusual, unexpected, and would unquestionably be disturbing and devastating to their king.
Taking into account the condition of pestilence, starvation, and death, Akhenaten’s strange body begins to take shape as likely an ideal created for a specific time, a time when what was desperately missing was fullness, richness, fertility, and abundance. It is common, as much today as then, to project an over-compensation of that which is lacking. This would also not be the first time that a male was represented with female components to emphasize lushness and embody the promise of continued life. The deity Ha’pi was a personification of the yearly flood of the Nile, which was the backbone of life in Egypt. He was often shown with swollen, pendulous breasts, and a rounder midsection—extremely similar to how Akhenaten is portrayed.
While recent evidence has allowed for stronger speculation, the soldier’s question must ultimately remain unanswered. All we have concrete evidence for is that Akhenaten did choose to portray himself differently than the other Egyptian pharaohs, and the meaning behind it is known to him alone. However, the unearthing of the secrets of Amarna have at least allowed us to place Akhenaten within his proper context, and understand what some of his motivating forces may have been. Understanding the malnourished and diseased bones of his citizens allows us to see something different when we gaze upon the curves of stone that make up Akhenaten’s body—we see a king responding to the unique pressures of his time, embodying the promise of life in the face of death.
Text: Alyssa Eaton. MENAM Archaeology. Copyright 2022.
Further Reading:
Hornung, E., 1999., Akhenaten and the Religion of Light. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Kemp, B., 2013. The City of Akhenaten and Nefertiti: Amarna and its People. London: Thames & Hudson.
Montserrat, D., 2000. Akhenaten: History, Fantasy and Ancient Egypt. New York: Routledge.
Stevens, A., 2018. Death and the City: The Cemeteries of Amarna in Their Urban Context. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 28(1).
Images:
Colossal status of Akhenaten. Wikimedia Commons. Status of Amenhotep III. Wikimedia Commons. Statue of Ramesess II. Wikimedia Commons. Boundary Stelae of Armana. Wikimedia Commons. Akhenaten with wife, Nefertiti, and their daughters. Wikimedia Commons.
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