Amarna Era

The Egyptians used to have a whole list of Gods who were worshipped during this period of time. These Gods were always represented in the form of humans or animals or as animal-headed humans. Some of these gods were specific to certain places or cities for example while others were more general and were worshipped on a larger scale. From early periods of the Egyptian kingdom solar gods such as Re had played a very important role in Egyptian state religion. This is mainly because the idea of the sun as a distant yet universal power was close enough to the prevailing ideas of the supreme power of the king both inside Egypt and beyond its borders. In the New Kingdom, the prominence and power of solar gods increased again. One of the most popular ones was the Aten, the visible sun-disk which can be seen traversing the sky each day. Akhenaten raised the Aten to the position of 'sole god', and it was represented as a disk with rays of light terminating in hands which reach out to the royal family, it was usually perceived as if it was offering the hieroglyphic sign for life. Akhenaten and his family are usually displayed while worshipping the Aten or even indulging in everyday activities beneath the disk that represents Aten. Art and test during this period always stressed on the idea of the tie between the king and the God. The king represents the link between the god and ordinary people. As a result, ordinary people had to focus on worshipping Akhenaten and the royal family instead of the Aten. And with worshipping the king they are getting closer to the god Aten.

A number of hymns to the Aten were composed during Akhenaten's reign in order to praise the Aten. These hymns provide an overview of what James Allen has described as the 'natural philosophy' of Akhenaten's religion. The wonders of the natural world are described to praise the universal power of the sun. All creatures celebrate when the sun rises and the nature becomes beautiful. While nasty things happen = at night when the sun is not present. Akhenaten decided that the worship of the Aten required a new location which is uncontaminated by the cults of traditional gods. That's why; he chose a site in Middle Egypt for a new capital city which he called Akhetaten, 'Horizon of the Aten'. It is a faraway site in the desert surrounded on three sides by cliffs and to the west by the Nile and is known today as el-Amarna. In the cliffs surrounding the city the king left a series of monumental inscriptions in which he explained his reasons for the move to this new site and his architectural intentions for the city in the form of lists of buildings that he either built or intended to build.

Early in his reign, Akhenaten used art in order to emphasize his intentions of doing things very differently unlike his precedents. Colossi and wall-reliefs from the Karnak Aten Temple are highly exaggerated and almost grotesque when compared to the Egyptian royal and elite art during the millennium preceding Akhenaten's birth. Art before Akhenaten was characterized by its formality and restraint. Since art during Akhenaten period such as Karnak Temple is strangely beautiful today, it is hard for us to understand the shocking effect that such representations must have had on the senses of people who were never exposed to any similar art before. It was quite striking for them to find such extravagant art after being used to the traditional formal Egyptian art. With the move to Amarna, art becomes less exaggerated, it is often described as 'naturalistic' however, it remains highly stylized in its portrayal of the human figure. The royal family members are usually shown with elongated skulls and pear-shaped bodies with skinny torsos and arms but fuller hips, stomachs and thighs. Although formal worshipping scenes of the king while worshipping the Gods remain important, there was an increase emphasis on ordinary, day-to-day activities. Some of the very interesting portrayals were those intimate portrayals of Akhenaten and Nefertiti while playing with their daughters under the rays of the Aten. Also, there were portrayals of animals and birds playing under the sun rays in the decoration of the royal tomb. While traditional Egyptian art tends to emphasize the idea of eternity, Amarna art focuses on the small details of life which only occur because of the light of the sun that gives the living power to all living beings. Not only Akhenaten is famous for the changes he made in the religious practices and art but he also was known for the changes in temple architecture and building methods. He shifted to smaller blocks of stone set in a strong mortar in order to create his stone structure. Even official inscriptions changed from the old-fashioned language used in traditional earlier periods to monumental texts to reflect the spoken language of the time.[3][10]

• Amarna Period