The Influence Of A Pharaoh

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Term Paper Title	The Influence Of A Pharaoh
# of Words	1129
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	4.52

The Influence of a Pharaoh
At the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty, the pharaoh Amenhoptep III past away leaving behind the throne of Egypt to his son Amenhoptep IV.  With Amenhopten in reign, Egypt would embark on changes never before seen.  Some of the changes that took place were in the aspects of religion, the movement of the capital city of Egypt, and finally in the depiction of art.
Amenhoptep IV was the second son of Amenhoptep III and the "Great King's Wife" Tiye.  Born with congenital ailments which made him hideous to behold, it is believed that he was intntionally left off of his father's monuments and kept in the background (Redford 58).  More recently experts have identified that some of these characteristics such as: elongated skull, fleshy lips, slanted eyes, lengthened ear lobes, a prominent jaw, narrow sholders, potbelly, enormous hips and thighs and finally, spindly legs, resulted from an endocrine disorder (Redford 58).  This disorder results when secondary sex characteristic fail to develop.  Soon after his fathers death, Amenhoptep IV ascended to the throne in the 38th year of his father's reign, and sculptures became more prevelant.
While Amenhoptep was a child, the religion in Egypt was considered polytheistic with the pharaohs and Egyptians believing in numerous different gods.  Although, in the sixth year of Amenhotep's reign, he changed his name to Akhenaton, disavowing all of the old gods, and embracing what would become Egypt's only god, Aton (Wilson 215).  The word Aton meant the physical disk of the sun, and a seat of the god, but not in itself a god (Wilson 210).  With this revolution in the area of religion, Akhenaton became entangled in a struggle between the royal house and the organized priests (Rempel 4).  Their positions and wealth were challenged by the religious ideas of Akhenaton.  These new ideas also threatened to reduce their power and disrupt their cozy economic nests (Rempel 4).
Akhenaton's new religion was based on the worship of the sun as the source of all life and creation, whose powers were manifest through the life-giving rays of the sun disk. (David, 88)  The pharaoh deemed himself the sole agent of the god, acting as an intermediary.  Prayers could only be addressed through him.  As the only high priest of Aton, Akhenaton was able to discard local priesthoods and close down the temples of the other deities. (David, 88)  Without opposition, Akhenaton was free to abandon himself in his new religion.
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