ABSTRACT
The so-called Amarna period has sparked more controversy than any other period of Egyptian history, and has engendered countless theories and wild – even bizarre – speculation amongst both scholars and the public at large. Little of this will affect the account here, since the king in question, Amenhotep IV, left Thebes and Karnak behind him in about the fifth year of his reign in order to found a new capital city on virgin territory (Akhetaten/Tell el-Amarna) dedicated to his supreme deity, the Aten, the power imminent in the Sun Disk.
