Akhenaten

**Akhenaten** (died 1336/1334 BCE), previously known as **Amenhotep IV**, was a pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt during the Amarna Period. The son of Amenhotep III and Tiye, he was married to Nefertiti and was the father of Meritaten and Tutankhamun, and possibly Smenkhkare, and his successor.

## Biography

At some point during his reign, Amenhotep IV acquired an Apple of Eden, which he associated with Aten, the disk of the sun in ancient Egyptian mythology. Revering the Apple's power, he and his wife Nefertiti introduced a new monotheistic religion to Egypt centered around "Aten," changing his name to Akhenaten in the process. As a result, many Egyptians were forced to celebrate their gods in secret.

Akhenaten eventually died in the mid 1330s and was buried in a rock-cut tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

## Legacy

In the aftermath of his death, Akhenaten was branded a heretic by most of the Egyptian population. His monuments were dismantled and hidden, his statues were destroyed, and his name excluded from the king lists, all in an attempt to erase him from Egyptian history.

Nevertheless, Akhenaten continued to be worshiped by a group of followers, who later constructed a sanctuary in Thebes, which was eventually replaced by the Temple of Karnak. By the 1st century BCE, the cult resided in a farmlands situated outside of the city.

The Aten was later passed down to his successor, and eventually to his son Tutankhamun who, instead of continuing his father's monotheistic beliefs, decided to restore the old Egyptian gods to prominence and passed the artifact to the priests of Amun.

Furthermore, Akhenaten's vision of the Aten eventually manifested as a form for his afterlife, where his spirit resided in.

In 38 BCE, Akhenaten's spirit, alongside those of his wife and son, Tutankhamun, and the Great Pharaoh Ramesses II, were seemingly returned to the world of the living by the God's Wife of Amun, Isidora, who had possession of the Aten. The Hidden One Bayek, having investigated this, eventually travelled to Akhenaten's afterlife, where he sprinkled dust from a statue of Amun on his throne, summoning the spirit of the deceased pharaoh to combat him. Bayek eventually defeated the spirit, supposedly bringing his spirit to rest.

## Abilities

After being reanimated back to life, Akhenaten showed great physical combat prowess and significantly higher endurance than most of the opponents that Bayek has ever faced.

## Trivia

* Akhenaten's original name, Amenhotep, meant "Amun is satisfied," while the name which he took reflected the new religion he created, meaning "Effective for the Aten."
* Akhenaten's legacy, both in-game and in real life, was short-lived. Akhenaten's alleged sons, Tutankhamun and Smenkhkare, both chose to reject his monotheistic worship of the Aten. Whilst Tutankhamun, in-game, chose to relinquish completely the relic of his father, Smenkhkare instead chose to found the Order of the Ancients in deference to the "gods" Akhenaten had abandoned.

## Gallery

Concept art of AkhenatenConcept art of Bayek fighting Akhenaten by Sabin BoykinovModel of Akhenaten's throne
## Appearances

* *Assassin's Creed: Origins - The Curse of the Pharaohs*