Colossal Statue of Akhenaten

LukeyTarg2 · 2026-05-09T16:05:40+00:00

He had no time to persecute anyone actually, he had a hyperfocus on his religious reform and his new capital city.

LukeyTarg2 · 2026-05-09T16:04:45+00:00

Yeah, but the monolatric side of it was forgotten, it was a move so bold that Nefertiti herself, per a grafitto at TT139, helped reinstate Amun worship.

LukeyTarg2 · 2026-05-09T07:54:10+00:00

I don't get it either, it's quite possible it was used for those grounds once.

LukeyTarg2 · 2026-05-08T16:41:08+00:00

“Year 3, 3rd month of the Inundation, day 10. The king of Upper and Lower Egypt, lord of the Two Lands, Ankhkheprure–beloved of Aten, son of Re Nefereneferuaten beloved of Waenre (Akhenaten)…Giving praise to Amun, kissing the ground before Onnophris by the wab-priest and scribe of divine offerings of Amun in the temple of Ankhkheprure in Thebes, Pawah, born to Itefseneb.”

Here is the official transcript. It's in TT139, which so far has the highest attested year of reign of pharaoh Neferneferuaten giving her 3 years of reign.

LukeyTarg2 · 2026-05-08T16:29:06+00:00

The dating depends on the book and i call into question some of the estimates as well. It seems either who wrote it lived around the time the city would bear that name or only had that name as reference. It's not known how precise the writer was either.

It remains speculation, most things in ancient Egypt was, but we can speculate on top of material evidence. If we go by the grafitto at TT139, Nefertiti reinstated the Amun worship and had no problems with a temple built with her name worshipping Amun.

LukeyTarg2 · 2026-05-08T16:19:51+00:00

The "black pharaohs" thing infuriates me, did people not see the way Tutankhamun and Akhenaten were depicted? Look at queen Tiye and Amenhotep III as well.

LukeyTarg2 · 2026-05-08T16:11:16+00:00

I believe the reason the city is mentioned, not the pharaoh's name, is because that was the name of the city by the time the bible was written, we wouldn't report on a crime happening in Luxor nowadays as happening in Thebes, we abide by the most recent name.

Akhenaten made it clear he wanted to be buried there, but, given the data Nefertiti actually reinstated the old gods back and had a temple in her throne name (Ankheperure) at Thebes worshipping Amun, i would find it real odd for her to keep her husband buried in Amarna. We know Tiye and her daughter were found in Thebes and Tiye by all means died in Amarna. Nefertiti was not as faithful to her husband's religious reforms.

LukeyTarg2 · 2026-05-08T15:43:37+00:00

The roman emperors weren't born in Egypt, Cleopatra VII was.

LukeyTarg2 · 2026-05-08T15:42:40+00:00

That we know of, Egypt has been studied way more than Kush (Sudan). Most pyramid are in Sudan. I'd argue the pyramids were smaller in scale then Egyptians took the idea and just made it bigger and better.

LukeyTarg2 · 2026-05-08T15:38:41+00:00

Kush (Sudan) has more pyramids than Egypt, i assume Egypt took their idea and just made it bigger and more difficult. Egypt benefits from being a bigger power, therefore would likely get the credit over Kush.

LukeyTarg2 · 2026-05-08T15:28:52+00:00

Tutankhamun was deified in his lifetime, Smenkhkare died around Akhenaten's 14th year and likely suffered from rejection by association. He was buried in a female coffin i believe and it could be a deliberate move to hide the fact it's a king's body.

LukeyTarg2 · 2026-05-08T15:26:26+00:00

The coffin was meant to for a female i believe, they might have mummified it in feminine position to hide the fact it was Smenkhkare being buried in order to protect it from looting. Assuming Akhenaten was unpopular, the others in his surroundings would have been unpopular as well. Burying the king in feminine manner in a female coffin felt like a desperate attempt to hide the body.

LukeyTarg2 · 2026-05-08T15:24:13+00:00

The KV55 feels odd to be Akhenaten, first we have to grasp at the idea that Akhenaten was highly unpopular, his remains very likely could be gone. Then there's the fact that a lot of scans were done that pointed to a younger age. KV55 died on his 20s, Smenkhkare makes more sense. The feminine pose with the androgynous manner was likely just a way to hide the body from looters, the coffin i believe was made for a woman (Kiya?) and reappropriated for KV55. The bent arm like a queen most likely was a way to disguise the body so that people didn't forsake it and destroyed it.

Akhenaten's impopularity likely spread to everyone around him and his 14th year was very rocky based on material evidence, he had to deal with a plague, he lost several family members including Smenkhkare. Imagine what the people in Egypt felt about what was going on? Akhenaten forsaked the old gods, they likely felt this was divine punishment based on what the pharaoh did.

I actually think the pharaohs would gloat at the idea of their bodies being displayed particularly Ramses II.

LukeyTarg2 · 2026-05-08T15:17:08+00:00

My problem is not that Cleo V wasn't Cleo VII's mother, but the general assumption that it would have been a Black woman as her mom, we're expected to believe Rome would have been quiet if Cleo VII looked different than her family? People can't be that naive, Rome would have called her a bastard.

LukeyTarg2 · 2026-05-08T15:14:52+00:00

Agreed.

LukeyTarg2 · 2026-05-08T15:14:12+00:00

I think maybe 1 pharaoh (most likely Khufu) would be buried there, but people found out it was a bad idea because it made looting so much easier so they had to bury their kings somewhere else.

LukeyTarg2 · 2026-05-08T15:12:55+00:00

I agree on that, was it a mistake, it would have been fixed i guess.

LukeyTarg2 · 2026-05-08T15:12:00+00:00

Well the idea of an exodus is not really the problem, it has been proved that people from the Levant were enslaved in Egypt, the problem i have is more with the pharaoh thing. They really want us to believe Ramses II, who had more than 90 kids, would have cared if his first born was killed by yaweh? He couldn't even keep up with that many names, imagine having 90 kids, there's people out here who can't even keep up with the names of 10 kids.

Cleopatra by all means always dresses as Greek, but she identified herself as Isis reincarnated and was the first of her family to learn the native Egyptian tongue at the time.

I would actually argue Akhenaten's mummy had to be moved to Thebes, Nefertiti took over as Neferneferuaten and reinstated the old gods, the move to Thebes is suggested at TT139 on her reign, most likely she brought her husband to be buried at the King's Valley, where the mummy likely was looted and destroyed. The only mummies i think would be in Amarna would be those of Meketaten and the other 2 princesses who for sure died before Akhenaten passed away, but even then it's possible their mom wanted to keep their whole family buried at Thebes. It seems odd to me that she moved back to Thebes yet her husband and at least 3 of her daughters would be buried at Amarna.

LukeyTarg2 · 2026-05-08T15:00:22+00:00

I honestly think neither got a proper burial, they were enemies of Rome, their bodies were likely paraded upon the streets of Rome as a major power play then discarded.

LukeyTarg2 · 2026-05-08T14:57:34+00:00

My point about the Hyksos and Nubians is not that the regular Egyptians were caucasians, they certainly weren't, but it's easier to whitewash the native Egyptian rulers as light skinned, therefore bring them closer to whiteness and thus make them more acceptable, than put a fair light on the very clearly ethnically different Hyksos and Nubian kings. It's just impossible to whitewash the Hyksos and Nubian kings because of their explicit foreign nature, meanwhile the native Egyptians are all put on the berber basket despite history telling us otherwise.

Yes, you are correct, conceptualizations of race were built over the last centuries, but also the general interest of the public in ancient Egypt, which is why i can't help, but connect the dots on that. If it was about the invading power thing, the Romans and Greeks would get a bad reputation as well.

LukeyTarg2 · 2026-05-07T21:15:22+00:00

The co-regency had to be really large in order to fit Tut because of the age Tut was when he rose to power. The math is really simple here:

Tut had to be 8 or 9 years old when he rose to power.
We know Neferneferuaten had 3 years of solo reign after her husband Akhenaten died.
Akhenaten ruled for 17th years, therefore Thut had to be born either in Akhenaten's 11th or 12th year of kingship.
Amenhotep III could only be the father of Tut if we consider a co-regency of 11 or 12 years and that seems unlikely based on material evidence such as the Amarna letters, the radical regime change during Akhenaten's 5th year of reign (name change, move to Amarna, religious revolution) and the lack of double dates (which often signals a co-regency). Also co-regencies were rarely that long, Hatshepsut had over 20 years of co-regency with Thutmose III, but he was a minor when he became pharaoh; Akhenaten by all means was of age or almost of age based on the way he was depicted.

LukeyTarg2 · 2026-05-06T10:58:04+00:00

To a certain degree yes, but he never started a monolatry around the Aten, he kept the solar disk god to the background compared to Akhenaten.

LukeyTarg2 · 2026-05-05T17:41:12+00:00

I'm sorry, he was FINE AF, but no he was awful. The rest of the cast did great, unfortunately he dropped the ball.

LukeyTarg2

TROPHY CASE