Akhenatenإخناتون

He came to the throne as Amenhotep IV, son of the great Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye, and at first followed Egypt's traditional religion. But in about the fifth year of his reign he underwent a dramatic transformation. He elevated the Aten — the disc of the sun — above all other gods, declaring it the one true creator, and abandoned his birth name for Akhenaten, "Effective for the Aten." He closed the temples of the old gods, slashed the power of the priesthood of Amun, and had Amun's very name chiselled off monuments across the land. Declaring himself the sole intermediary between Aten and the people, he created what many call the world's first known monotheistic state religion — though scholars still debate whether it was true monotheism or the exclusive worship of one god among many.

To make a clean break with the past, Akhenaten built an entirely new capital on virgin ground in Middle Egypt and named it Akhetaten, "the Horizon of the Aten" — the site known today as Amarna (Tell el-Amarna), which gives the whole era its name, the Amarna Period. Its temples were open to the sky so the sun's rays could pour in, the opposite of the dark, enclosed sanctuaries of old. The Aten was shown not as a human-shaped god but as a sun-disc whose rays end in tiny hands offering the ankh, the sign of life, to the royal family. Art changed just as radically: the rigid old conventions gave way to a freer, more naturalistic and intimate style, with tender scenes of the royal family — and the famously elongated, almost androgynous depictions of the king himself.

At Akhenaten's side stood his great royal wife, Nefertiti, who wielded extraordinary influence — appearing in rituals usually reserved for the king and even shown making offerings to the Aten on her own. Together they had at least six daughters. Toward the end of the reign a mysterious co-ruler named Neferneferuaten / Smenkhkare appears, and Egyptologists still argue whether this was a new king or Nefertiti herself elevated to the throne. Akhenaten was also the father of the most famous pharaoh of all: the boy who would become Tutankhamun — born Tutankhaten — who would later abandon his father's religion and restore the old gods.

Akhenaten's inward focus on his religious project came at a cost abroad. The Amarna Letters — the royal diplomatic archive found at his capital — preserve desperate appeals from Egypt's allies and vassals in the Levant for help that often never came, and Egyptian influence in the region appears to have weakened. After his death, his revolution collapsed almost at once: the Aten cult was abandoned, the court returned to Thebes, and the traditional gods were restored under Tutankhamun. Later kings went further, dismantling his monuments, striking his name from the official king-lists, and remembering him only as "the criminal of Akhetaten." Lost for over three thousand years, he was rediscovered by modern archaeology — and the Amarna Period is now the most debated and studied era in all of Egyptian history.

• Who he was: pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty, New Kingdom; the "heretic king."
• Arabic name: إخناتون (Akhenaten); born Amenhotep IV.
• Reign: c. 1353–1336 BC (about 17 years).
• Parents: Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye.
• Revolution: made the sun-disc Aten the supreme god — an early form of monotheism (debated); suppressed Amun.
• New capital: Akhetaten, modern Amarna — giving its name to the Amarna Period.
• Art: a naturalistic "Amarna style," with the king shown in an elongated, androgynous form.
• Family: great wife Nefertiti, six daughters; father of Tutankhamun (born Tutankhaten).
• Afterward: his cult abandoned, his monuments dismantled, and his name condemned by later kings.

Sources include the World History Encyclopedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and historical accounts of Akhenaten, Atenism, and the Amarna Period.