2023-12-04 22:37:28
One seal, two gods. The so-called Harkness ring from the time of Pharaoh Tutankhamun is quite heavy at 73.2 grams or almost 2.6 ounces. Image: The Metropolitan Museum
What happened to the deity of Akhenaten, the “heretic king”? A new reading of the hieroglyphs on a gold ring suggests that Aten was initially tolerated even under Tutankhamun.
Sometime around 1330 B.C. A short but decisive era ended in Egypt in the 4th century BC. It had begun about two decades earlier with the accession to the throne of Pharaoh Akhenaten, who had turned away from the traditional Egyptian world of gods and instead propagated the worship of a single deity embodied in the sun disk (Egyptian “Aton”).
However, it is unclear under what circumstances Akhenaten’s reign ended after his 17th year and what then happened to the Aton cult. What is certain is that under Tutankhamun, who came to the throne at the age of nine, the country returned to the old faith and in particular to the worship of the imperial god Amun. A stele found in the temple complex of Karnak in what is now Luxor contains a royal proclamation lamenting the decline of the ancient places of worship: “Before His Majesty [Tutanchamun] When the king appeared, their temples lay in ruins and were overgrown with plants…” it can be read there. But with Tutankhamun that probably came to an end; the young pharaoh announced their restoration.
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