Amarna Religion at the Egypt Centre

The blog post for this week has been written by Sam Powell, an Egypt Centre volunteer and regular contributor.

One of the aspects of the Egypt Centre online courses I really enjoy is the inclusion of Egypt Centre objects to illustrate the topic. I am of course fairly biased towards the Egypt Centre objects as a volunteer who has been lucky enough to work closely with the collection doing condition checks on objects and helping Ken to prepare the artefacts for object handling sessions prior to the lockdown. I also created (and continue to work on) the Egypt Centre Online Collection (affectionately known as ‘Abaset’), which involves direct engagement with this amazing group of material. 

In this week’s lecture focusing on religion, Ken included some very beautiful objects housed in the Egypt Centre collection. While it is often assumed that the Aten was the only deity worshipped during the Amarna Period, this is not entirely accurate. In addition to the Aten, household and apotropaic deities such as Bes and Taweret may still have been invoked in a protective capacity. I have included links to these objects in the Online Collection so you can find out more about them if you wish, or you can view these objects as a trail by following the link here. 

Fig. 1: W9

W9 (fig. 1)

This broad collar is one of four from the collection of Lady Berens, and is one of the most popular objects from the Egypt Centre. It is suggested that these collars were found on the bodies of the Amarna princesses (although this cannot be proven). In the context of religion at Amarna, the inclusion of a central pendant of the deity Beset, along with other goddesses included in the pendant composition, would indicate that the worship of additional deities other than the Aten was also practised. If it doesn’t belong to the royal princesses, then definitely someone of a very high status given the quality and craftsmanship of these collars.

Fig. 2: W242

W242 (fig. 2)

This sandstone fragment is from a household stela and includes the names, titles, and epithets of the Aten. It is possible that W242 fits together with a larger fragment of a stela in Berlin (ÄM 14511), which shows Akhenaten and Nefertiti worshipping the Aten. This piece can be seen to indicate that Akhenaten and Nefertiti were worshipped as intermediaries between the residents of Amarna and the Aten, as is the typical assumption made regarding religion at Amarna.

Fig. 3: AB70

AB70 (fig. 3)

When complete, this item would have been a double cartouche pendant. Only the prenomen (Neferkheperure-waenre) survives, but the second cartouche would have likely included Akhenaten’s name also. This object apparently comes from Abydos, showing the reach of Akhenaten beyond Amarna itself. It is often easy to forget that Egypt continued to exist outside of the city of Amarna at this time, and so this object was a helpful reminder.

Fig. 4: LIH2

LIH2 (fig. 4)

This faience object was excavated by the Egypt Exploration society during the 1936–7 season at Amarna. It shows an early example of the name of the Aten on one side, and the name of Akhenaten on another. This early form of the name of the Aten—‘The Living Ra high in the two horizons, in his name of Shu who is in Aten’—still includes the god Shu within it. This perhaps suggests a more fluid transition to monotheism than is often presented.

Fig. 5: W961p

W961p (fig. 5)

This beautiful blue amulet was donated to the collection in 1973 by Cyril Aldred and shows the deity Bes in profile playing a tambor or drum. Bes seems to have remained very popular during the Amarna Period with over 500 images of Bes known from the site of Amarna, often being found in domestic contexts. It is suggested that small amulets could still have been worn fairly discreetly if other deities had been banned during this time in favour of the sole worship of the Aten, but the extent to which such a practice was tolerated or in secret is impossible to ascertain.

Fig. 6: EC671

EC671 (fig. 6)

The evidence of amulets found at Amarna could indicate that perhaps the people of the city were retaining objects from prior to the shift to the worship of the Aten. However, the existence of many pottery moulds for the creation of amulets found at the site indicate that production of Bes amulets continued during this time. It is made of fired clay and the quantity found show that production of objects bearing the old gods did happen at Amarna itself.

This selection of objects provides a very different picture of religion at Amarna than that one would initially assume. The material culture suggests rather than the absolute prohibition of the old gods under the reign of Akhenaten, that personal piety, particularly in the cases of protective ‘household’ deities, was still tolerated (possibly even within the royal household in the case of the broad collar), alongside the worship of the royal family as an intermediary to the Aten.

One aspect of these courses that I have particularly appreciated is that Ken always presents several sides to the argument with impartiality allowing the audience to have all the information possibly to draw their own conclusions. As with most things about the Amarna Period, I don’t believe we will ever know the true extent to which worship of the Aten was enforced, but I’ve really enjoyed playing detective with the Egypt Centre objects as very tantalising clues!