What was akhenatens capital city

Arthritis and degenerative joint disease of the spine and joints indicates that DJD was not excessive. There is 1 healed compressed fracture of the skull suggesting violence. Life for the common residents of Amarna appears to not have been as good as initially postulated. These kinds of pictures never existed before. He was depicted as a family man, demonstrating family values.

The city was so big that it had suburbs—northern and southern. The temples were open to the sun. It was an entire city built at one time to the glory of one god. One interesting aspect of the city is the way the tombs of the nobles were built.

Unlike the traditional beliefs associating west with the world of the dead, the monuments were built on the east bank. But another curious thing is that those tombs were not completed, which is another baffling sight for archaeologists. This is a transcript from the video series History of Ancient Egypt.

Watch it now, on Wondrium. Akhenaten lived in the city of Akhet Aten for 17 years, and not as the pharaoh but as a religious leader. He put the boards in charge of dealing with political issues and engaged himself with writing prayers, which were impressive like powerful poetry. The poem is significant since it changes another thing in the Egyptian culture: the divine order.

Egypt is not leading the divine order as the Aten is the god of everyone. The Aten is the solar disk that shines on all people. The new god was confusing for common Egyptians, not merely because it was one and only. The nature of this god was also confusing. It was an abstract god with no physical representation. It was just the rays of the sun, not a god like Osiris, whose statues could be made.

In the worship of Aten, the sun disk, the pharaoh gradually morphed into this single god and scenes of his own everyday life started to be represented on the walls of temples. Yet for Vergnieux, there is no doubt that it is in fact extremely precise, but follows a radically different set of rules that had to be decoded. Thus, a single scene contained different points of view: a door would be shown in profile allowing a series of rooms to be viewed in a row, even if these rooms would not be directly visible from outside the building.

Egyptian scenes such as these the sanctuary of the temple of Aten in Amarna were used as a documentary database by the researchers. This held a few surprises in store. For example, it has been shown that the courtyard of Gem-Pa-Aton, a temple to Aton built to the east of the Karnak complex, underwent significant modifications.

Enough to radically change the appearance of the temple! Thanks to 3D, the large and small temples of Amarna could also be reconstructed "virtually," as could two houses of dignitaries. These were imposing buildings covering nearly square meters, with two levels and a luxurious garden.

A 3D map of the town has also been produced, situating the temples and palaces, as well as the residential neighborhoods and warehouse areas. The project is far from over though: another ten thousand Talatats, unearthed in the foundations of the 9th pylon at Karnak, need to be put together so as to reconstruct new decorative scenes. These distribution data, showing where each Talatat was found, could still hold interesting surprises for the archaeologists.

Sign in. Articles Infographics Opinions Slideshows Videos. What is the CNRS? Search Sign in Register My account Newsletters. Customize your navigation Select your favorite keywords or themes and create your custom section. Log in Register. The great temple dedicated to the worship of the sun disk Aten, in Amarna. The capital city built by Akhenaten was completely destroyed following his death. Share Share.

For the first time, researchers were able to reproduce 3D models of some of its buildings. A capital wiped off the map The technique was first tested at Karnak, the religious complex situated to the north of Thebes, before being used on a large scale in Amarna, the new capital built by Akhenaten.