AKHENATON

flourished 14th century BC, , Egypt Akhenaton, detail of the sandstone pillar statue from the Aton temple at Karnak, c. 1370 also spelled Akhnaton, or Ikhnaton, also called Amenhotep Iv, or Neferkheperure Amenhotep, Greek Amenophis king of Egypt (135336 BC) of the 18th dynasty, who established a new monotheistic cult of Aton (hence his assumed name, Akhenaton, meaning One Useful to Aton). Additional reading The classic statement about Akhenaton is given by James Henry Breasted, A History of Egypt from the Earliest Times to the Persian Conquest (1905, reissued 1964). See also Cyril Aldred, Akhenaten, King of Egypt (1988). Early excavations at Tell el-Amarna are treated in T.E. Peet et al., The City of Akhenaten, 3 vol. in 4 (192351, reissued 1972); and J.D.S. Pendlebury, Tell el-Amarna (1935), a summary up to that date. The first phase of an ongoing, massive archaeological investigation of the period is treated in The Akhenaten Temple Project, vol. 1, Initial Discoveries, by Ray Winfield Smith and Donald B. Redford (1976). New information from this project is utilized in Donald B. Redford, Akhenaten: The Heretic King (1984).