The Amarna Period, ANCIENT EGYPT: ca. 1353 – 1322 BC
2500 BC
2000 BC
1500 BC
1000 BC
THEME: The reign of Akhenaten
Generally, ancient Egyptian images were not intended to document the ever-changing reality of everyday life. For the Egyptians, visuals and written words were endowed with magical power and referred to ideal concepts, conforming to the elite’s rules and conventions, not to the material blandness of actual objects. Ancient Egyptian images did not primarily address a living human viewer but served the deceased, gods, and kings inside the pictures, enabling their eternal survival and action by exposing their essence.
The face of the reign
King Akhenaten, born Amenhotep (IV), did not deprecate this traditional concept of imagery. In his earliest appearance as a king on the walls of temples and tombs, he vigorously conformed to the visual code during the reign of his father, Amenhotep III. Then he gradually elaborated a royal image appropriately reflecting the politico-religious reform he instituted, at the core of which. Departing from the traditional, depleted formula of royal presentation offering litanies of undistinguishable royal portraits, Akhenaten introduced new stylistic features and motifs to revitalize the royal figure and place it centre-stage.
