ABSTRACT

This chapter looks at that myth and the aspects of Akhenaten's history that have been most influential in its formation, rather than a comprehensive history of his reign. The most attractive and resilient parts of Akhenaten's pseudobiography are the parts that are most difficult to substantiate with hard evidence. Although Akhet-aten was built as a performance space for Akhenatens own theology, its inhabitants were not necessarily all devoted adherents of Aten-worship. The social base of Akhenatens religious reforms may have been quite narrow, with the pharaoh primarily interested in targeting elites or people he believed would be loyal to him. Cyril Aldred collaborated with a physician, and combined medical science with Amarna artistic images to diagnose that Akhenaten was afflicted with Frhlichs Syndrome, a glandular disorder. Akhenaten and his family seem knowable because they are the stars of Egyptian history par excellence, accorded the star treatment by biographers and Egyptologists.